BETTING ON K STREET: Sports betting platforms have been lobbying up over the past month amid increased scrutiny of the industry in Washington, newly filed disclosures show. The Sports Betting Alliance, a coalition that includes FanDuel, DraftKings, MGM’s betting arm and Fanatics Sportsbook brought on Carmen Group’s Dal Harper and David Carmen this week to lobby on competition in the sports betting marketplace, following a Senate Judiciary hearing last month drilling down on the issue.
— The same week as the hearing, the CFPB released an analysis on the use of credit cards in wagering on sports, and urged state regulators “to consider placing limits on online sportsbooks’ acceptance of credit cards or require them to post special disclosures,” our friends over at Morning Money wrote at the time.
— Two weeks before that, FanDuel retained Aquia Group’s Ryan Dattilo, a former senior counsel for Senate Judiciary, and Stoney Burke, a veteran antitrust lobbyist, to work on issues related to online sports gaming.
— Daily fantasy sports platform PrizePicks also registered its first in-house lobbyist last month, while Fanatics Sportsbooks’ parent company retained its first lobbyists at Duberstein Group in November, according to disclosures. DraftKings added new lobbying muscle at the end of the year as well, hiring Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck in December to lobby on the federal excise tax on sports wagering, which several lawmakers introduced a bill to repeal last Congress.
