By John Sutherland ’16

Sports fans all across the country have seen one type of commercial that is shown nearly every single break: Draft Kings and Fan Duel. These daily fantasy league companies have caused much controversy with FBI investigations and court hearings. The reason these leagues have caused such uproar is that they have redefined the nature of fantasy sports and in the process have blurred the line between fantasy leagues (playing for the fun of it) and gambling; (playing to make money.)

Daily fantasy sports leagues have seemingly popped up out of nowhere this year and all of a sudden have become hugely popular. Basically, a person gets a team salary to make a roster and has to pick players who each have their own salary based on how good they are projected to be. The person has to construct the roster of players that fit under this salary. He or she then pays a down payment of real money to enter a league of as many as a couple thousand people or as small as five to 10 people. The more people in the league, the more money is up for grabs. People compete in the leagues for only a day so there is no commitment. Draft Kings and Fan Duel have pretty much every sport that has a professional league.

Year-long fantasy leagues have tremendous differences from these daily fantasy leagues. In these leagues, there is a draft before the season to decide who each person’s players are for the rest of the year. Each week, two people “play” against each other and get a win or loss like a typical sports team. The idea is basically to be a pretend general manager of a sports team in a league against friends. These leagues are meant to result in a fun time with friends or coworkers, and while money may be put down for the league, the main purpose is to compete against friends in a competition each week, not to win money.

Daily fantasy leagues make it more about winning money. It is essentially the same as betting on a sports game, except instead of betting on teams, the contestant bets on individual players to do well. Draft Kings and Fan Duel argue that it is not gambling because it is a game of skill, but like almost every form of gambling other than the lottery, a mix of skill and luck is involved. In fact, poker, which is clearly defined as gambling, probably takes more skill than guessing which players will have a successful game.

The leagues should without a doubt be treated as gambling. On December 11, a New York Supreme Court judge ruled that daily fantasy sports leagues are considered gambling under New York law and will be banned from the state. Draft Kings and Fan Duel immediately appealed the decision and more court decisions will follow. The leagues pose the bigger question of not whether they are gambling, but if sports gambling regulations should be changed. Currently, betting on sports in the United States can only legally be done in Las Vegas. This has created a large amount of unregulated illegal sports betting. Daily fantasy leagues should just be put in the same category as sports betting and then both should be allowed online while still being regulated through clearly defined rules. This will stop the endless court battles for daily fantasy leagues and end the black market of illegal sports betting.