A Maryland District Court judge has determined it is not the federal court’s job to litigate the battle between the city of Baltimore and FanDuel and DraftKings.
The sportsbooks attempted to move the lawsuit filed by the city and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott to the higher court shortly after it was filed, but the court denied the request, remanding the case back to the Baltimore City Circuit Court.
Buford abstention relocates battle
Judge Stephanie Gallagher invoked a Buford abstention, concluding that the matters at hand in the case needed to be weighed at the state level rather than the federal one.
Scott and the city brought the suit against the two operators in April, alleging that the sportsbooks are using misleading promotions and problematic VIP tactics to lure at-risk players into wagering.
While FanDuel and DraftKings are licensed and regulated in Maryland and abide by all of the regulations in the state, including advertising mandates, Scott and the city of Baltimore contend that the sportsbooks are violating the city’s consumer protection ordinance, which was updated in 2023 to give city law enforcement more latitude to go after businesses it perceived to be employing unfair and deceptive business practices.
Gallagher referenced the inherent conflict at the state level in her decision.
“Defendants raise the fair point that the City itself risks disrupting Maryland’s efforts to have a coherent online gambling policy in having enacted the CPO to impose its own, more stringent local restrictions. But removing this lawsuit essentially asks this federal court to put its thumb on the scale regarding the City’s efforts to alter Maryland’s online gambling regulatory framework,” she noted.
“And, if this Court ultimately were to conclude that conduct is permitted by the state regulations but violates the CPO, a dilemma would ensue – Maryland would either be left with a non-coherent policy where certain conduct is lawful in some parts of the state but not in Baltimore City, or Maryland would have to impose new statewide restrictions comporting with this Court’s determination and the City’s view of fair trade practices.”
Accordingly, she concluded that the operators are correct that not every gambling case automatically triggers a Buford exemption, but that in this particular case, the intermingling of the city policy and state gaming regulations is too intertwined and complicated to be addressed by anyone but the state.
Kalshi and Massachusetts will also battle in state court
Last month, a Massachusetts judge sent a similar case back to the state courts after Kalshi tried to escalate the lawsuit filed against it by the state gaming commission and Attorney General Andrea Campbell to the federal level.
In that decision, the judge noted the very similar scope of the suit, which looks at whether or not Kalshi is violating state sports betting laws, was better suited for the state courts than the federal ones.
