Fantasy's reality: One scandal need not sink daily fantasy football

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating whether employees of the two leading daily fantasy football websites won big money by using inside information unavailable to the public. If he finds evidence of criminal conduct, he of course should prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. But this scandal shouldn't be used to ruin the otherwise harmless fun these sites provide.

Mr. Schneiderman is investigating DraftKings and FanDuel in the wake of revelations that their employees, “many with information not available to customers,” were allowed to play each other's sites, The New York Times reports. One DraftKings employee, supposedly cleared of wrongdoing by the companies, has admitted inadvertently and prematurely releasing some data for Week 3 NFL games, on which he won $350,000.

Capitol Hill opportunists, already eyeing daily fantasy sports as a potential revenue source, have seized on all this to call for congressional hearings and new regulations. Yet Congress deliberately exempted daily fantasy — as games of skill, not chance — from the 2006 law that bans online gambling.

If there's a real problem here, it's not with daily fantasy football per se, but with site insiders exploiting unfair advantages at the expense of regular players. And existing laws, properly applied — in this case, those of New York — suffice to address it.