Nope, you haven't. You can simply reverse course (aka withdraw). There is no "Ah ha! Gotcha!" here.

You deposit $600 believing you get a $600 bonus. Some mouth breather than loses say $1800 trying to release said bonus. That could be the required injury element.

Unfortunately that's probably true. A handful of stupid people are going to ruin it for everyone. Isn't that always the way?

That's how it usually works unfortunately.
Well that and overly greedy business owners.

You're missing his point. He's not saying the sites should be able to advertise "Sign up now and get a 100% deposit bonus up to $600"*

Super small print:

*offer expires 10 seconds after your first deposit. Only valid on deposits made from 1am until 2am. Not valid in any state except Minnesota. Also we charge a 50% withdrawal fee if you claim this bonus.

All he's saying is that these bonuses are not a scam, or some sort of scheme meant to fleece people. They are, quite simply, a bonus. They could just as easily offer you a free $3 gpp ticket with your first deposit of $100+, no strings, and leave it at that. Or offer you nothing. If people are signing up specifically for the deposit bonus, it's pretty clear that it isn't an instant bonus, by simply checking your account and seeing that you don't have a deposit bonus available until you actually play. Maybe at that point you could do one of two things: play a contest and see how it's released, or spend literally one full minute reading or Googling and find out that the bonus releases slowly. If you feel mislead, or cheated somehow, you simply click withdraw and get 100% of your money back. Yeah, what a scam!

It's not like you are trapped once you deposit. You can always get 100% of your money back at any time, no matter what. The sites aren't making you play through any money to withdraw. And I bet if you were actually misled and felt cheated, if you emailed the site, they might even give you a free gpp ticket as a courtesy. They would at least give you instructions on how to withdraw and be friendly about it, and apologize for any misunderstanding. Stop making this AG out to be some "consumer advocate" when he's just using other people's money to throw stuff at the proverbial wall and see what sticks, all the while draining these companies of resources and damaging their credibility for no good reason other than his own personal gain.

The whole "greedy business owners" argument is, and always has been, 100% false.

In an actual market economy, where consenting people can do as they please with their money, it becomes obvious. Look at poker/sports betting/online casinos before black Friday. People were clearing tens of thousands per year, or more, by simply bonus whoring.

If there weren't so many artificial government barriers to entry to start and maintain a dfs site (legal uncertainty, tax requirements, money laundering restrictions and rules, advertising constraints etc etc etc) we would see much more friendly bonus terms and offers along with an explosion in new sites. Hell, we are already seeing lots of new sites pop up just in the last year or two. Maybe it will end up going offshore, who knows.

But if one business "rips people off" by offering a $600 slow releasing bonus, there's a huge incentive to offer a $600 bonus that releases much faster. Then you run a few clever ads and take some customers. That's how market economies work. There's no dfs cartel that agrees behind the scenes to keep deposit bonuses locked up for eternity until people go broke and can't claim them. Sorry to burst your bubble but the government is the problem here, not the dfs sites. Bonuses release slowly. You can accept it, or not play, or try and raise some funding for a new dfs site that offers instant $600 in free play, no strings attached. Good luck.

Seems flimsy to me. Just because you believe a bonus is instant doesn't mean it is, or was offered as such. This becomes very clear after the first contest ends and the bonus is not fully released. At that point, what are the damages? Maybe one entry fee? But you still had some sort of equity in the contest, no matter how bad you are at dfs.

What if someone buys a powerball ticket because the jackpot is advertised at $200 million? Then they chase for weeks and lose 5 grand. Can they successfully sue? Why not? They believed they would win the jackpot. Apparently that is step 1 for being harmed. A false belief based on advertising. Step 2 is simply going on tilt and then claiming injury. Right?

Car ads "clearly" describe the terms? Really?

When you see a guy in a ridiculous suit and tie screaming PAY JUST $79 BI MONTHLY FOR A BRAND NEW CAR!!!! that's clear? When the lease is for like 10k miles per year, with a huge per mile charge over that, and oh, it involves putting $3999 down at signing, and includes military bonus cash, a $5000 trade in, and perfect credit. Also, taxes, plate fees, and dealer delivery fee extra. And the offer ends in two weeks, at which point we will run a similar offer with very slight differences and make a brand new over the top commercial claiming it's our "sale of the season. Hurry in before they're all gone!"

Yeah, no.

Yeah car ads are bad analogy. I work in a law firm that constantly sues car dealerships for deceptive ads under GBL 349 claims.

Considering making a Twitter parody account to mock Mr Schneiderman

I've narrowed the handles down to

@NoDFS4U! (possibly with his head photoshopped onto the soup Nazi's body)

@OGSchneiderman (keepin it gangsta)

@AGSchneidermann

@HeilAGSchneiderman

https://twitter.com/AGSchneidermann

Lol that was a lot of wasted breath to reply to a toungue in cheek post.

Also, seems like there's quite a bit of panicking in here.
Did anyone really think that DFS was going to last long term? Or even short term? Some of you apparently did not learn anything from the poker fiasco.

It's really pretty simple.
"Gambling is bad" = votes + political/monteray backing
DFS = gambling

It sucks, but that's how this government works.

Also huge LOL at you if you think that the collapse of a business of market as the result of business owners being too greedy is 100% false.

That argument is a red herring. This is about advertising, not whether a $600 bonus > $0. "Well at least we gave you something, when we could have instead given you nothing," would be a terrible--almost non sequitur--defense to mount to the charges of deceptive advertising. If they did not advertise the bonus, then what you are saying would be true. But the deposit bonus is a focal point of the advertising, and it's clearly designed to influence consumer behavior.

It's ironic that people hate the government with a passion when they get involved in DFS, but will defend it to no end when anyone suggests that we actually don't need people like Schneiderman, or Trump/Obama/whoever is in the Senate or Congress, etc at all. Can't have "good" government, it doesn't work that way at all in reality. Nothing will happen without them getting a cut. And it has nothing at all to do with protection, or helping the poor or whatever. It's just a straight racket, but people defend other aspects of it (roads, wars, whatever), and then act surprised when it hits them personally in the case of DFS or poker. Not really shocking at all.

lol

@NOTONMYWATCH!

Did they advertise that the bonus releases fast? Must have missed that. Otherwise, you're saying that "well, people just ASSUMED the bonus was instant" which seems like an awful legal argument if you also take into account that you can withdraw 100% of your funds immediately, at any time.

It was not like they werent warned. I called for a meeting of all DFS at a FSTA in Chicago, 2013 and discussed this very thing.

It didnt help, it was the first case brought against them in Florida. FL has strong consumer protection issues due to the large amount of retirees there.

You are educated to the iGaming market. You also reference mostly illegal operations when you are saying "it's been done before."

Now all ads since the first class action case say "earned while you play." They didnt say this in the past which, by some state laws (like FL), is not of best practice.

Everyone has to come off the "poker mindset", these are US companies with large, prominent, US backers. Obviously not gaming commissions, and there are insurance for such liabilities, but there may be other laws that would trigger if money of players was outright stolen. (I am no lawyer but I cannot imagine major US processors and investors do not know the risks.)

I would like to think that Comcast, Fox Sports, Major League Baseball, the NBA, Bob Kraft, Jerry Jones, et al, aren't going to be involved in "stealing" customer funds.

But maybe I'm naive.

Far more people are playing DFS than ipoker in it's heyday.DFS is not being played on grey market offshore sites and has major main stream investors and is legal according to UIGEA,much different than ipoker.The last politician to bluster about gambling in this whore house of a state was Mayor Laguardia 80 yrs.ago.He was widely ridiculed and illegal gambling flourished during his administration.Profits from gambling lined the pockets of cops and politicians and bolstered the city and states economy,much like today but only the pols are getting the loot,sorry cops.AG's approval ratings haven't budged since the start of his crusade,anti gambling isn't a vote getter in NY.

http://nypost.com/2015/11/16/schneid...ose-him-votes/

FOX is invested in DFS but Dicker is known as an objective Albany insider.

http://www.expressnews.com/news/loca...AG-6732669.php

If you havnt done so yet, take 5 mins!

The TV and radio ads for cars break this down at the end. "$3,000 due at lease inception for 36 months with 12,000 miles per year and a last payment of $2,000."

The DFS ads just tell you to go to their site to get the free money and do not disclose the terms and conditions. If they do describe the T&Cs in the ads, they do not not it in any prominent way.

I have no inside information here, but I can't imagine that these companies carry enough insurance to cover a nine-figure fine/loss recovery from violating gambling laws. I doubt there are any insurance companies out there that want to underwrite that type of risk for both monetary and legal reasons. If they are insured for this situation, then I suppose that explains why they are fighting.

If the DFS sites fight this and lose, and the NY AG gets a judgment to lien the companies' assets, where will the money come from if there is no insurance?

If this ends in the worst case scenario, the investors aren't going to be running to loan money to pay fines and loss recovery as it will probably put an end to the company's existence.

I don't think this will go that far. I suspect these companies will settle with NY and move on. There must be some level of regret for not just taking the exit door when it was held open with what seemed like amnesty attached like in Nevada.

Fighting this wasn't the answer, in my opinion. The Illinois battle looks like an even more obvious loser to me.

I've always been on the side of the view that the DFS sites were taking massive legal risks so take my pessimism with that in mind. I'm certainly not saying I'm right, but I really don't see anything positive coming out of NY and IL unless the state legislature acts.

Car ads use EXTREMELY fine print and/or fast scrolling print and/or a guy who talks faster than humanly possible to disclose this info. Are you really saying that's not misleading?

Bottom line is you do get free money for playing, they aren't making it up, you actually do get a $200 bonus on a $200 deposit. And you also can withdraw any funds 100% of the time, no problem. There's no deception or image that you get the money right away. That's just people assuming something that isn't true. And it's IMMEDIATELY known that the bonuses work this way, after literally one contest at the latest (I knew earlier because a friend told me). It doesn't take a genius to fire up one contest, see that the full bonus hasn't cleared yet, and then go from there.