Court Dismisses Loss Recovery Case, in Big Win For Fantasy Sports Industry

By: Ifrah Law

Today, in a closely watched case in Illinois, a federal court dismissed a lawsuit brought under the Illinois Loss Recovery Act (ILRA) against daily fantasy sports site FanDuel, Inc. and daily fantasy sports player Patrick Kaiser, finding that the plaintiff lacked subject matter jurisdiction to bring the suit. This is one of several lawsuits that have been brought in Illinois courts against daily fantasy sports companies and individual winners.

If a person has lost more than $50 gambling, the ILRA, like a number of state loss recovery acts, allows that person who lost money or something of value to sue the winner to recover the money that was lost. The ILRA also provides that if a suit is not brought by the loser within six months, “any person” may bring an action against the winner and is entitled to recover three times the amount of money lost gambling. The plaintiff in this case, Christopher Langone, is that “any person” who brought the suit against Patrick Kaiser and FanDuel.

The complaint alleged that Kaiser won several hundred thousand dollars playing on daily fantasy sports sites including FanDuel.

The court dismissed the complaint because it lacked subject matter jurisdiction due to insufficient allegations in the complaint. The court noted that there was not even a bare assertion that there was a sufficient amount of money lost for a federal court to have the jurisdiction to hear the case. The court also noted that the complaint failed to identify a specific loser who lost a certain amount and failed to bring a claim as required under the ILRA.

A very interesting point in the decision is that the court held that FanDuel was not a “winner” in the context of the Illinois Loss Recovery Act. The plaintiff had alleged that the defendants were winners because they take a commission from the entry fees paid by participants in the games, but the court rejected that argument. The court noted that, “FanDuel does not place any ‘wagers’ with particular participants by which it could lose money based on the happening of a future events (i.e., the performance of certain athletes), but merely provides a forum for the participants to engage each other in fantasy sports games.”

The plaintiff alleged in the complaint that daily fantasy sports games are not a game of skill, but instead “a form of ‘exotic’ sports wagering subject to change.” The court in this case did not address the issue because it did not have to after it found that there was a lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Although the court did not address all of the issues relevant to the daily fantasy sports industry in the case, this decision is a huge win for the industry. Loss recovery act cases will be harder to bring against daily fantasy sports companies that are not assuming risk in their games. Daily fantasy sports continue to grow rapidly and today’s decision helps to partially remove one roadblock to its growth.