The federal Senate Judiciary Committee has announced that it will hold a hearing on sports betting on Tuesday, Dec. 17.
The exact details of what will be discussed at the hearing, which is titled “America’s High Stakes on Legalized Sports Gambling,” have not been specified. However, the fact that this session has been scheduled Senate’s final week before it breaks for winter recess suggests that sports betting has climbed up the agenda for federal lawmakers.
Committee Chair Dick Durbin will preside over the hearing. A witness list has not been published.
However, it is notable that two of the senators on the Judiciary Committee are Democrat Sen. Mike Lee and Republican Sen. Peter Welch. Those senators authored a letter last week which urged federal authorities to investigate alleged anti-competitive business practices by market leaders FanDuel and DraftKings.
Committee senators urge FTC to investigate FanDuel and DraftKings
Lee and Welch wrote to FTC Chair Lina Khan and Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division Jonathan Kanter raising concerns over the pair of operators’ dominance across regulated U.S. gambling.
The senators claim FanDuel and DraftKings “may be violating” Section 1 of the Sherman Act prohibition on coordination to obstruct or impair competition, which bans agreements that are restrictive for trade or commerce.
Lee and Welch believe the operators have collaborated with the Sports Betting Alliance to prevent emerging operators from securing deals with their existing partners, including sports leagues, vendors and payment firms. The senators suggest this has played a part in blocking new brands’ path to gaining market share.
“After their merger to monopoly was blocked, it seems that FanDuel and DraftKings have arguably acted as one company, violating our antitrust laws,” read the bipartisan letter. The senators are requesting that the FTC investigate the two operators and potentially enforce “actions necessary to protect competition.”
The hearing has also been called after other notable federal legislative developments in recent months, including the SAFE Bet Act that was introduced in September by Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Paul Tonko. Blumenthal is also on the Judiciary Committee.
