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(Matthew McConaughey Rumored As 鈥楾he Stand鈥?Villain Randall Flagg, a Role He Absolutely Has to Take «)
(Legal questions arise for fantasy day game biz)
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A聽casting report floating around right now says that Matthew McConaughey might play Randall Flagg in the latest attempt at a聽聽of Stephen King s biggest and聽possibly best聽novel, the postapocalyptic road-trip epic聽The Stand. Even taken聽as a rumor, this information is supremely聽important and exciting, and I ll explain why in a moment. First, for those聽rusty on their Flagg: Even King s聽 usedta聽like him but now meh semi-fans聽know Flagg as the聽super-villain of all聽super-villains. He s聽the Joker and Batman at once, Darth Vader and Darth Maul, King Joffrey and Lord Tywin and even a little Tyrion. These are聽some 鈥?some 鈥斅爋f the聽books he menaces:
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Some of the newest incarnations of fantasy football look a lot more like gambling than intricate, outsmart-your-opponent strategy games.
 
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Since 2011, the billion-dollar fantasy market has been infused with dozens of daily and weekly games. Those games allow players to win huge prizes quickly, sometimes in one week, sometimes in just one night. With players betting thousands or even tens of thousands a night, legal experts believe it's time to review the section of the 2006 federal law that was written specifically to protect fantasy sports from being banned the way online poker was.
That stack聽contains聽three encyclopedias, four graphic novels, and 12聽full-length novels聽鈥?and they all feature聽and/or discuss Randall Flagg. That s a total of聽easily more than 10,000 pages. Flagg s not on all of them, but he s on quite a few, and you can feel his聽omnipotent omnipresence 鈥β爓ell, everywhere.
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"There's importance in clarifying the law," says Marc Edelman, a professor at Fordham Law School who studies the law as it applies to fantasy sports. "As long as there's uncertainty about the legality of these games, some potential businesses that might enter the marketplace stay out."
I can t really tell you a single Flagg story without giving聽you a nightmare. He s聽scarier, badder, and more important than Pennywise, the Crimson King, and that聽mouldering woman in a Colorado hotel bathtub. Flagg <a href=http://www.styledepth.com/test.php?sale=True-Religion-Socks>True Religion Socks</a>  s the antagonist in the novel mostly everyone agrees is King s strongest, and he s the 眉ber-nemesis in King s only series, The Dark Tower. He聽debuted in聽聽a 1969 poem King wrote on a place mat in a聽UMaine diner. A few haunting聽  have emerged over聽the years, but don t waste聽time comparing them to McConaughey 鈥?the guy s聽face and form change swiftly聽and frequently, and his aliases include (but aren t even close to limited to): the Walkin Dude, Marten Broadcloak, the Ageless Stranger, Walter o Dim, Nyarlohotep, Richard Fannin, Astaroth, the Covenant Man, John the Conqueror, the Bogeyman, Old Creeping Judas, R yelah, and Maerlyn, as in Merlin. Anyone in King s oeuvre with the initials RF could be and probably is聽Randall Flagg in disguise.
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Seasonal leagues are largely the domain of billion-dollar companies such as CBS and ESPN, with close ties to the NFL. <a href=http://capstone.edu.sg/images/guccioutlet.onlinesalecc.php>Gucci Outlet Store</a>  For now, they have remained on the sidelines of the short-term business, leaving it largely in the hands of companies such as FanDuel, which is expecting to triple its base to 500,000 fans this season.
So: Matty M. We re blessed to be alive during聽the McConnaisance, the still-happening movement in which聽the erstwhile rom-com king and naked bongoist establishes himself as a showstealing actor s actor. The聽McConaughey聽filmography is growing thick with grimy, delightfully proficient roles. Stuff like聽Dallas Buyers Club, The Wolf of Wall Street, Mud, The Lincoln Lawyer, and, of course, True聽Detective, in which聽McConaughey went Carcosa-dark and maybe locked up an Emmy in the process. He got his Oscar in March for Dallas Buyers Club, but 2011鈥檚 聽could ve won McConaughey the Flagg part before True D was even an idea-fetus in Nic Pizzolatto s psychosphere. Stand director and writer Josh聽Boone聽(The Fault in Our Stars), has  it ll be one three-hour, R-rated version with an amazing A-list cast across the board.  
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"We have the most popular fantasy football game going," said Kevin Ota of ESPN, which boasts an estimated 14 million fantasy players. "It's been incredibly successful, and we're focused on improving our game every year. We always keep our eye on opportunities to serve sports fans better."
Warner Bros covets <McConaughey> for Flagg although it s by no means a firm situation. ? Writer-director Boone has had McConaughey in mind ever since he won the <a href=http://www.mahaloshuttle.com/service/Tory-Burch-Outlet-Online-Thin-Flip-Flops-Handbags-Cheap-Wristlets.html>Tory Burch Handbags Cheap</a>  coveted job, which he inherited from filmmakers such as Ben Affleck, David Yates, and Scott Cooper. They add that McConaughey was originally earmarked for the far less interesting Texan good guy Stu Redman聽and that it ll likely be up to the actor to choose which role he wants to play, should his schedule聽allow him to be involved.  
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ESPN officials say they have no immediate plans for weekly cash games.
Randall Flagg is the聽next logical movement in the聽McConnaisance Suite. The man s聽future includes Christopher Nolan s great- Interstellar and Gus Van Sant s great- Sea of Trees, and probably Magic Mike XXL. But聽those are all just movies. The Stand is an institution 鈥斅爄t was a聽major聽touchstone聽for Lost, it s a few years away from aging into the American literary canon, and the words聽 Captain Trips  every time聽a pandemic聽plasters CNN.聽It s also nice that,聽unlike Pennywise, there s no real聽pair of boots聽McConaughey has to聽step into here. Flagg was portrayed onscreen once, in ABC s Stand聽1994 miniseries, by Jamey Sheridan, who didn t even come 聽to nailing it.
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Traditional leagues at ESPN and elsewhere received their legal clearance from the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which was designed mainly to stop internet poker. It included an important "carve out" for fantasy football. Meanwhile, most state laws define fantasy football as skill-based propositions, which keeps them legal.
And we re only talking about聽The Stand, here!聽Flagg, as that skyscraper of pages attests, is an immense figure. If Tim Curry s career highlight reel ends up with 10 seconds of that聽shape-shifting devil-clown, McConaughey s could conceivably聽include a meaty half-minute聽of Flagg. Especially if Ron Howard ever gets his聽Dark Tower trilogy-with-a-few-seasons-of-TV-in-between  on (mono)rails.聽Because if when McConaughey plays Flagg in Boone s hopefully-pretty-good-or-even-great Stand, McConaughey theoretically gets a big聽invitation to also terrorize Roland Deschain, the Tower鈥檚 gunslinger protagonist. The saga-opening line聽鈥斅爓hich might be King s nicest聽sentence聽of all time, and certainly one of his most famous聽鈥斅爂oes, The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. And the man in black is Flagg.
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"It's an easy <a href=http://www.alportico.net/gosoc.php>true religion jeans</a>  argument with season-long games because you exercise a great deal of skill in operating a team," said Las Vegas-based attorney Tony Cabot, who has practiced gambling law for three decades. "You have to figure out who to draft, play, trade and all those things to have a successful season. And because you're doing all that, you're betting on an outcome you can control."
On Vulture s pretty accurate聽 of all of King s novels,聽the Flagg books appear at nos. 58, 39, 36, 32, 28, 26, 22, 19, 14, 7, and 1.Constant readers often speculate聽about potential聽Flagg聽appearances in the Richard Bachman novel聽聽and聽the original  story.McConaughey is reportedly also聽mulling聽a part聽in a film聽called Gold, by Syriana director聽Stephen Gaghan. That s not something I can even聽think about right now, if it has even the slightest possibility of threatening McConauhflagg.The rights to King s聽works are likely聽convoluted enough that聽a聽Dark Tower project and <a href=http://www.styledepth.com/test.php?sale=New-Gucci>Gucci Wallet</a>  a聽Stand film would feature zero intentional overlap 鈥?but can I posit that聽McConauhflagg聽is聽a sweet聽enough idea to warrant the launch of a well-designed filmic Kingverse along the lines of the Marvelverse?
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The day-game world can be much different and the skill level needed to "run" a team that exists for only one week is far lower than that for a season-long enterprise.
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And a growing number of fantasy sites have games that "look very much like prop bets or parlay cards," Cabot says, with some games as simple as paying an "entry" fee, then choosing who, between two players, will finish a certain day with more receiving yards.
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"It depends on how you run your game," Cabot said. "If you said, 'We're going to do fantasy, quick pick, random drafts,' I say, 'How can that be skill based?' But if it's a daily game where you're doing a draft, have the ability to change players halfway through the game and make all these decisions, then it's much closer to a traditional model."
 +
In 2007, Cabot co-authored a legal paper titled "Fantasy Sports: One Form of Mainstream Wagering in the United States." It offers a point-by-point deconstruction of the federal law that essentially legalized a growing industry that, to some, looks very much like gambling. One of Cabot's key points is that the NFL, seeing the revenue and viewership possibilities of fantasy football, hired a well-paid lobbyist who helped smooth the way for an imperfect bill to become law.
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Cabot's conclusion is that the process "ultimately has done a great disservice to reasoned policymaking and, potentially, to the long-term future of the fantasy sports industry itself."
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He counts the growing day-game business as one area especially <a href=http://www.alportico.net/prodotti/christianlouboutin-sale.jkmsw.php>Christian Louboutin Replica</a>  susceptible to confusion. Edelman agrees.
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"One can argue whether the fantasy sports carve out applies to the short-duration game, given that, at the time the (federal law) was passed, there was no such thing as daily fantasy sports," Edelman said.
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Day games didn't get much traction until 2011 鈥?five years after the law was passed.
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The games are pretty much unregulated, and they are exploding. They allow anyone over 18 to gamble on sports outcomes online, while traditional sports gambling is available online only in Nevada and, in some forms, in Delaware. The laws in the states take precedence over the federal law and they vary, most of them basing the legality of a game on how much of it is predicated on skill vs. chance. Last year, a federal court in Illinois dismissed a lawsuit alleging day games were games of chance.
 +
A few of the bigger media players 鈥?most notably USA Today and Sports Illustrated 鈥?have gotten into the day-game business, seeing ample opportunity in an industry that drew an $11 million investment from Comcast Ventures, which plunked the money into FanDuel last year.
 +
Meanwhile, the NFL, which did not respond to questions emailed by The Associated Press, keeps watching the numbers swell, while walking the line between using fantasy football to grow its game and maintaining its long-held, hard-line stance against anything perceived as gambling.
 +
"Part of the problem with entrepreneurial endeavors on the internet is that some people push the envelope and some cross the line," Cabot said. "Until there's some sort of enforcement action on some level, I think you'll see them keep pushing that line out further and further."

Revision as of 02:57, 11 September 2014

@@@ Some of the newest incarnations of fantasy football look a lot more like gambling than intricate, outsmart-your-opponent strategy games. Since 2011, the billion-dollar fantasy market has been infused with dozens of daily and weekly games. Those games allow players to win huge prizes quickly, sometimes in one week, sometimes in just one night. With players betting thousands or even tens of thousands a night, legal experts believe it's time to review the section of the 2006 federal law that was written specifically to protect fantasy sports from being banned the way online poker was. "There's importance in clarifying the law," says Marc Edelman, a professor at Fordham Law School who studies the law as it applies to fantasy sports. "As long as there's uncertainty about the legality of these games, some potential businesses that might enter the marketplace stay out." Seasonal leagues are largely the domain of billion-dollar companies such as CBS and ESPN, with close ties to the NFL. <a href=http://capstone.edu.sg/images/guccioutlet.onlinesalecc.php>Gucci Outlet Store</a> For now, they have remained on the sidelines of the short-term business, leaving it largely in the hands of companies such as FanDuel, which is expecting to triple its base to 500,000 fans this season. "We have the most popular fantasy football game going," said Kevin Ota of ESPN, which boasts an estimated 14 million fantasy players. "It's been incredibly successful, and we're focused on improving our game every year. We always keep our eye on opportunities to serve sports fans better." ESPN officials say they have no immediate plans for weekly cash games. Traditional leagues at ESPN and elsewhere received their legal clearance from the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which was designed mainly to stop internet poker. It included an important "carve out" for fantasy football. Meanwhile, most state laws define fantasy football as skill-based propositions, which keeps them legal. "It's an easy <a href=http://www.alportico.net/gosoc.php>true religion jeans</a> argument with season-long games because you exercise a great deal of skill in operating a team," said Las Vegas-based attorney Tony Cabot, who has practiced gambling law for three decades. "You have to figure out who to draft, play, trade and all those things to have a successful season. And because you're doing all that, you're betting on an outcome you can control." The day-game world can be much different and the skill level needed to "run" a team that exists for only one week is far lower than that for a season-long enterprise. And a growing number of fantasy sites have games that "look very much like prop bets or parlay cards," Cabot says, with some games as simple as paying an "entry" fee, then choosing who, between two players, will finish a certain day with more receiving yards. "It depends on how you run your game," Cabot said. "If you said, 'We're going to do fantasy, quick pick, random drafts,' I say, 'How can that be skill based?' But if it's a daily game where you're doing a draft, have the ability to change players halfway through the game and make all these decisions, then it's much closer to a traditional model." In 2007, Cabot co-authored a legal paper titled "Fantasy Sports: One Form of Mainstream Wagering in the United States." It offers a point-by-point deconstruction of the federal law that essentially legalized a growing industry that, to some, looks very much like gambling. One of Cabot's key points is that the NFL, seeing the revenue and viewership possibilities of fantasy football, hired a well-paid lobbyist who helped smooth the way for an imperfect bill to become law. Cabot's conclusion is that the process "ultimately has done a great disservice to reasoned policymaking and, potentially, to the long-term future of the fantasy sports industry itself." He counts the growing day-game business as one area especially <a href=http://www.alportico.net/prodotti/christianlouboutin-sale.jkmsw.php>Christian Louboutin Replica</a> susceptible to confusion. Edelman agrees. "One can argue whether the fantasy sports carve out applies to the short-duration game, given that, at the time the (federal law) was passed, there was no such thing as daily fantasy sports," Edelman said. Day games didn't get much traction until 2011 鈥?five years after the law was passed. The games are pretty much unregulated, and they are exploding. They allow anyone over 18 to gamble on sports outcomes online, while traditional sports gambling is available online only in Nevada and, in some forms, in Delaware. The laws in the states take precedence over the federal law and they vary, most of them basing the legality of a game on how much of it is predicated on skill vs. chance. Last year, a federal court in Illinois dismissed a lawsuit alleging day games were games of chance. A few of the bigger media players 鈥?most notably USA Today and Sports Illustrated 鈥?have gotten into the day-game business, seeing ample opportunity in an industry that drew an $11 million investment from Comcast Ventures, which plunked the money into FanDuel last year. Meanwhile, the NFL, which did not respond to questions emailed by The Associated Press, keeps watching the numbers swell, while walking the line between using fantasy football to grow its game and maintaining its long-held, hard-line stance against anything perceived as gambling. "Part of the problem with entrepreneurial endeavors on the internet is that some people push the envelope and some cross the line," Cabot said. "Until there's some sort of enforcement action on some level, I think you'll see them keep pushing that line out further and further."

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