USA
While the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) regulates and restricts many forms of online gambling, fantasy sports games are specifically exempted from UIGEA, provided they meet certain requirements. Among these requirements are:
• the fantasy team cannot be based on the current membership of an actual team,
• the prizes must be fixed and advertised in advance,
• the outcomes must reflect the knowledge and skill of the participants,
• the outcomes must be determined predominantly by individual statistical results of athlete performance in multiple sporting events,
• the outcomes cannot be based on team scores, and
• the outcomes cannot be solely based on a single individual performance in a single sporting event.
India
Online Fantasy Sports are legal in India and are categorized under “game of skill” as they require elements of understanding, judgment, expertise, knowledge and strategy of the game being played.
The question of whether fantasy sports is a game of skill was put to test before the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Varun Gumber v. Union Territory of Chandigarh and later before the Bombay High Court in Gurdeep Singh Sachar v. Union of India. In both the judgements it was upheld that the specific model of fantasy sports as offered by Dream11 was the basis for ruling it in favour of ‘game of skill’.
Further, Special leave petitions filed against the above ruling were also dismissed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. In one of such dismissals, the Hon’ble Supreme Court, in its standing order has ruled fantasy sports do not fall under the ambit of gambling.
Most European countries recognized fantasy sports as a legal business; it was legal and highly regulated in around 30 countries in Europe
ESPN Super Selector launched in 2001 for fantasy cricket and had 500,000 users during the 2003 Cricket World Cup.