This true statement does not mean "smart contracts" are impossible in Lisk.  It depends on your definition of smart contracts.  

Can Lisk run a dapp on a sidechain that takes coin from two or more people, scans the web repeatedly via APIs or screen scraping, and then pushes all coins previously collected back to only one person's Lisk account based on some future trigger that is found?  

Yes.  And I would argue this fits the definition of a "smart contract".

As I have said repeatedly, the first person to write a sports betting dapp in Lisk using code like this will be a billionaire.