Congressional Hearing Tackles Fantasy Football Regulation

The Heartland Institute discusses with Michelle Minton the benefits of leaving online gambling regulations up to states to decide. 

Michelle Minton, a consumer policy fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says government efforts to suppress various kinds of entertainment drive people into the criminal underground.

“Just because there is a ban on something doesn’t mean the activity has stopped,” Minton said. “It just means it has moved to the black market. That’s what has happened with sports gambling. It’s now a huge market—a multi-billion-dollar, every year, industry—and the illegal market is bigger than the legal one.”

Minton says state lawmakers should be the ones deciding what’s best for the people they govern and that the Constitution agrees with that principle.

“Gambling regulations, in terms of oversight, have always been left to the states,” Minton said. “The Constitution doesn’t say anything about gambling, doesn’t give that power of regulation to Congress. Therefore, [I] think it should remain with the states and individuals.”

Minton says state-level regulation works just fine and the legitimate fantasy sports providers try to obey the laws.

Read the full article at The Heartland Institute.