Online Gambling Operators At The Head Of The PAC

Win for America may be the hottest political action committee (PAC) you’ve never heard of. It is also DraftKings in dress-up.

Judd Legum, of the Popular Information Substack, uncovered the obscure PAC in a Feb. 2 dispatch. Although Win for America has no listed donors, it is sitting on a $2 million war chest. And that lucre is courtesy of DraftKings, Legum reported.

The PAC may have already fired its opening salvo, aimed at Senate Democrats. Nineteen days after its formation, on Nov. 21, Win for America graced the American Conservative Fund (ACF) with $500,000. 

The ACF is ostensibly dedicated to “electing dependable conservatives across the country.” It rails that “Our quality of life is under attack,” which sounds for all the world like an anti-gambling bromide. According to Legum’s research, the ACF’s core purpose is to “boost Senate Republicans.”

Connected at the hip

That puts DraftKings CEO Jason Robins in company with some mighty strange bedfellows. They include Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, author of the recent budgetary provision that cut the tax deduction awarded to gambling losses, a move that Robins pooh-poohed on CNBC as “a technicality.” Besides, the enemy of Robins’ enemy may be his friend.

That’s because Senate Democrats include Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, a regular DraftKings adversary. Blumenthal is the lead sponsor of the GRIT Act, which would allocate federal dollars for studying gambling addiction, motivated by the rapid rise of iGaming and online sports betting.

Hitting even closer to Robins’ home, Blumenthal has sponsored the SAFE Bet Act, aimed directly at DraftKings and arch rival FanDuel. It would, as described by Legum, “ban online sports gambling advertising during live sports events. It would also prohibit online sports books from inducing people to start gambling by offering ‘bonus bets’ or similar incentives.”

Additionally, Legum notes, the bill would prohibit online sportsbooks from using AI to track individual players’ betting habits and also would stop credit card deposits — although both DraftKings and FanDuel have already elected to do just that without being forced to by federal legislation. A $450,000 fine form the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in connection with three self-reported three violations around credit card deposits precipitated the shift.

DraftKings particularly raised Blumenthal’s ire a year ago, when it proposed to offer in-flight gambling aboard Delta Airlines. Blumenthal then pointed to the Gambling Devices Act of 1961, which specifically forbade gambling aboard commercial flights. “This new partnership advances the proliferation of sports betting, further fueling a crisis of problem gambling,” Blumenthal wrote at the time. (Blumenthal was not available for comment.)

Win for America is not the only DraftKings stalking horse. Hedging its bets, Robins’ company has also reportedly slipped $450,000 to Democratic candidates via the American Future PAC. Supposedly focused on cost-of-living issues, American Future’s bare-bones website makes no mention of gambling.

Getting sticky in the Tar Heel State

DraftKings’ nascent activism has popped up in some unusual places — and races. Much to his evident surprise, Republican North Carolina state Rep. Mark Pless found himself the beneficiary of DraftKings’ largesse. According to The Mountaineer, a quartet of campaign flyers and a variety of TV commercials in support of Pless’ reelection campaign suddenly manifested themselves, paid for by the ACF.

Reported The Mountaineer, “the origin of the money bankrolling the American Conservative Fund can be traced to a sports betting company,” namely DraftKings. It apparently smiled upon Pless because he had voted in favor of Tar Heel State sports betting three years ago. The Mountaineer’s reporting showed that Win for America had funneled money to the ACF that in turn went to Pless — who did not respond to repeated messages left by Casino Reports.

“The idea of receiving funding from online gambling corporations here — I don’t like it,” Pless told The Mountaineer. He further complained that the ACF-funded ads cribbed materials off his website and Facebook page. They may have backfired, too: Pless lost his primary Tuesday to a GOP challenger.

If DraftKings favored Pless, it also frowned upon his state Republican Senate colleague Chris Measmer. The not-so-fine hand of the ACF had turned up ads attacking Measmer as a “tax and spend RINO.” The advertising may have been disingenuous, but it was effective, helping Republican former Rep. Kevin Crutchfield unseat Measmer in a primary challenge.

Paging Kris Kringle

Needless to say, DraftKings is not a lone gunman in this electoral cycle. FanDuel has played Santa Claus to the GOP too. One Christmas Eve donation of $500,000 went to the Senate Leadership Fund, and another half-million went to the rightward-leaning Congressional Leadership Fund. Careful to cover its keister, FanDuel crossed the palms of the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC that same yuletide.

FanDuel has also been a key benefactor of Republican West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey, donating $50,000 to a pair of Morrisey PACs. It may be simply the cost of doing business in Appalachia. As Legum explained, “West Virginia has a permissive regulatory environment for online gambling and is often used by FanDuel and DraftKings to test new features.”

The sports betting giant has also been passing the hat around company headquarters and raised at least $28,000 in dry powder. (Some say closer to $130,000.) 

Neither FanDuel nor DraftKings would agree to comment for this story. The latter referred Casino Reports to a Mad Money TV segment in which Robins appeared to complain that sports betting was over-regulated — a sentiment with which few on Capitol Hill would currently agree.

While the gaming industry is hardly a blushing violet when it comes to political involvement, the six-figure escalation by FanDuel and DraftKings is new. It also comes at a time when both companies (along with Fanatics Sportsbook) have broken with the American Gaming Association, an industry lobbying group. The AGA’s opposition to prediction markets was at odds with both companies’ strategic decisions to invest in new products in that sector, and thus they were no longer compatible.

Playing for time

What are they buying? Time and opportunity, according to gaming law expert I. Nelson Rose, faculty member at the University of Macao. He said the betting titans “are faced with Kalshi, Polymarket, and other competitors who don’t have to be licensed or regulated by states and can take bets/trades across state lines even from states like California, Texas, and Utah, which have no legal sports betting.”

Yes, prediction markets are the hot-button issue of the moment and Congress could stay their rapid spread, were it to revisit the Commodity Exchange Act or the rules under which the Commodity Futures Trading Commission operates. And those pesky state legislators often have ideas of their own about banning prediction markets altogether.

As Rose explained, “There is room for other companies to join Kalshi, if they can get the laws and regulations changed. … The only thing slowing them down is, unlike Kalshi, they have state gaming licenses they have to protect. Of course, if the Roberts Court lets Kalshi continue, despite state trial court TROs, then [DraftKings and FanDuel] need state legislators and regulators to loosen their restrictions so they, too, can take bets which might otherwise be considered license-killing illegal gambling.”

Besides, as Rose points out, President Donald Trump and family are “heavily invested in sports futures companies.” So DraftKings and FanDuel are simply following the money — with more money of their own.

As North Carolina has shown, it can be a successful tactic, and it also can blow up in their faces. Call it a sporting proposition.