As expected, fantasy sports businesses are fighting back against the New York state attorney general’s determination that DraftKings and FanDuel are actually illegal gambling sites and should not be allowed to operate in the state. This morning, both DraftKings and FanDuel asked the court to overturn that decision.
The two sites filed separate actions in a New York Supreme Court in Manhattan. In the DraftKings complaint [PDF], the website accuses New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman of “misreading New York’s gambling laws” and “attempting to bully DraftKings” into immediately shutting down its New York operations “before it even has a chance to defend itself.”

DraftKings says the AG overreached by only giving them a five-day window to cease operating in New York. What’s more, the site accuses Schneiderman of “threatening to take action” against DraftKings’ business partners and vendors “unless they immediately ceased performing services for DraftKings in New York.”
The site is seeking an emergency injunction “to bar the Attorney General from continuing to abuse his power and to prevent the irreparable harm that will result from it.”
In a statement e-mailed to Consumerist, DraftKings writes:
“Today, we have taken decisive legal action to prevent a unilateral, misinformed and legally misguided attempt by the New York Attorney General to act as ‘judge, jury and executioner’ for daily fantasy sports in New York. We are asking the New York Supreme Court to rule that the Attorney General’s cease-and-desist letter is unconstitutional, an abuse of discretion, and simply wrong. We are confident in our legal position and intend to continue to fight to preserve the right of the over 500,000 New York consumers to play the fantasy sports games they love.”
The NY Post reports that FanDuel — who has not yet replied to our request for comment — filed a similar petition with the same court on Friday.
That site contends that a shutdown of FanDuel in NY state would “deprive hundreds of thousands of subscribing New Yorkers of the opportunity to pit their skills against the skills of others in selecting a ‘fantasy’ team of athletes from different sports teams and competing in contests offering prizes to the players whose fantasy teams perform best.”
We’ve reached out to Schneiderman’s office for comment on these lawsuits, but have not yet heard back. We will update when we do.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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