Nearly a dozen daily fantasy sports operators have registered to do business in Maryland, crowding the field in a state that has not clarified its intentions on a pastime whose popularity among sports fans has grown dramatically in recent years.
The Office of the Maryland Attorney General has opined that daily fantasy — in which players seek payouts based on the performance of actual professional athletes — is close enough to gambling that it might require the approval of voters in a ballot referendum.
But the General Assembly has shown little interest in setting a referendum. So Comptroller Peter Franchot issued the state’s first-ever regulations to guide the multi-billion dollar industry’s operations here.
Those rules, which took effect in January, appear to have emboldened operators to sign up. The landscape includes the industry giants FanDuel and DraftKings and several smaller operators, according to records obtained under a Public Information Act request.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Jeff Barker over at the Baltimore Sun