Damn, FanDuel And DraftKings Bring In Shitloads Of Money 

As part of the ongoing legal battle between New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and daily fantasy sites DraftKings and FanDuel, all sorts of interesting documents have been filed with the New York Civil Supreme court. One shows FanDuel’s advice to employees that they could play on other sites, but to not win too much. Next are a few spreadsheets that give an idea of just how much the money two websites are bringing in. And, yup, it’s a whole lot of millions.

First, here’s a spreadsheet described as “a true and correct copy of a spreadsheet that was collected in NYAG’s investigation entitled ‘State Level Data.’” In one of his filings, Schneiderman wrote: “In 2014 alone, DraftKings processed more than $25 million of wagers from New York residents.”

That data appears to come from this spreadsheet, which shows that New York in 2014 generated $25.6 million in “entry fees” and $2.5 million in revenue, second only to California’s $34.2 million in fees and $3.4 million in revenue. Rounding out the top five are Florida with $20.6 million in fees ($2 million in revenue), Illinois with close to $19 million in fees ($1.9 million in revenue), and Texas with $17.2 million in fees ($1.7 million in revenue). You can click the magnifying glass in the top left corner to make the images bigger.

Those states in red are five where daily fantasy is banned. (It doesn’t include Nevada, which banned daily fantasy last month.) Sorting out the contradiction of having accepted money from states where daily fantasy is banned isn’t the point of this attorney general battle, Sports Illustrated’s Michael McCann and Will Green write, but they point out that, “the revelations expose the company to potential action from either the gaming commissions or even the attorneys general of the other five states.”

The court files have some numbers for FanDuel as well. Schneiderman says that FanDuel took in $31 million in wagers from New York residents in 2014, although that figure doesn’t appear to come specifically from this spreadsheet, which contains entry fee and revenue data from 2014. Still, hot damn, look at all that money!

For comparison, here are some numbers for FanDuel from 2011 and 2012. These were entered to show FanDuel using gambling language, like stakes, and how similar it was to online sports betting company bwin.party. According to the attorney general, this is from an analysis FanDuel prepared for another investor. It was obtained as part of their investigation and “metadata in the document indicates that it was created for and/or edited by FanDuel employees.”

How will this all play out for daily fantasy in New York? Lawyers for both sides are scheduled to argue it on Wednesday.