Another day, another crisis for daily fantasy sports. This week, banks will be soul-searching, grappling with the question of whether to process DFS transactions or not. Market Watch polled some of the major financial institutions and found them taking a wait-and-see attitude, and putting the onus for compliance on DFS sites. A Citigroup spokesman pointedly reminded Market Watch that it doesn’t process anything that’s coded as Internet gambling. Former federal prosecutor Michael Zeldin, now in private practice, urged caution upon theoretical banking clients: “Why would you choose to get in the middle of this legal battle,” he asked. “Generally speaking, the fines these days will outstrip any benefits of staying on board.”
Raging against the perceived hypocrisy of New York State running a lottery that pays only 48 cents on every dollar wagered while cracking down on DFS, columnist Brett Arends suggests a way of fighting back: Bet with Bitcoin. Columnist Jason Notte, however, suggests the confluence of interests between public authorities and private-sector casinos spells the doom of DFS, “which has basically turned into that uncle at the Thanksgiving table who keeps trying to tell you why income tax is illegal.”
* While the Mashpee Wampanaog are taking a victory lap over their land-into-trust award from the Interior Department, the Aquinnah Wampanoag are picking themselves up from a smackdown received in federal court. Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV basically ruled that there wasn’t enough tribal governance for the tribe to be considered, well, a tribe. There were not “sufficient actual manifestations” of tribal oversight, such as police or health care. The Aquinnah band “provides little evidence of actually providing those services,” Saylor opined.
Ergo, the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act did not apply to the Aquinnah and certainly did not override a 1987 act of Congress in which the Aquinnah bargained away their right to “bingo or any 
other game of chance,” in return for land on Martha’s Vineyard. Saylor’s ruling was more explicit in what it wasn’t about: “Whether an Indian tribe should be permitted to operate a casino on Martha’s Vineyard is a matter of considerable public interest. This lawsuit is not, however, about the advisability of legalized gambling. Nor is it about the proper course of land development on Martha’s Vineyard, or how best to preserve the unique environment and heritage of the island. And it is not about the appropriate future path of the Wampanoag people.”
As to that future, the tribe is keeping mum at this point, doubtless pondering its next move after seemingly being checkmated.
