New Jersey’s first casino has become the first in Atlantic City to let patrons play daily fantasy sports contests for money.
Resorts Casino Hotel on Monday launched FastPick, a daily fantasy sports game in which customers choose head-to-head player matchups of real-world athletes. If the customer’s slate of picks outperforms those assigned to the casino, the customer wins.
The move marks the expansion of daily fantasy into a new casino market. But even as the activity has taken off across the country and abroad online, it has been slow to catch on at casinos in the United States. Steve Doty, a spokesman for the American Gaming Association, the casino industry’s national trade group, said the group does not know of casinos outside Nevada that offer daily fantasy games for money.
Daily fantasy contests allow people to deposit money in accounts, create fantasy rosters of sports teams by selecting real players and then compete against other contestants based on the statistical performances of those players to win money. Proponents say it’s a game of skill, not chance, and shouldn’t be regulated the way casinos are, but many states consider it to be a form of gambling.