It’s a term you’ve probably heard before, but what is fantasy sports and how can you take part in this activity legally? This is a hugely popular pastime that involves creating a fantasy sports team filled with real-life players. While it began back in the 1960s, fantasy sports games have exploded in popularity this century, mainly thanks to the internet making them easier to play.
Fantasy sports is an online skill-based game where users
create virtual teams made up of real-life players from professional sports like
cricket, football etc. These players earn points based on their actual performance in live matches. The better your selected players perform, the more points your team scores—and the higher your chances of winning prizes.
Fantasy sports allow
participants to act as virtual team managers, drafting real athletes to their
fantasy teams and competing based on those athletes’ statistical performances in actual games. It’s a way for fans to test their sports knowledge and management skills.
Fantasy sport, to take a general definition, ‘involves a group of people who choose a set of individual athletes for a fantasy team from a given sport, aggregate the statistical performances of these athletes, and then compete with one another to see whose team generates the highest point totals’ (Baerg, 2009, “Defining and Describing Fantasy Sports,” para. 1).
In his 1897 essay, USA Supreme Court
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote: “For the rational study of the law the blackletter man may be the man of the present, but the man of the future is the man of statistics ........”
Hence, knowledge and historical data are
the main components of fantasy sports, the more one is skilled in sports knowledge the better the chance he/she can win in a competition
Skills and Chance
Background
Taken generally, games can be
categorized as:
• games of pure skill,
• games of pure chance, and
• games of skill and chance.
A game of pure skill is one in which
chance or luck has no role in establishing the final outcome of the game. Many
classic games fall under this category, including chess, checkers, mancala, and go. Games of pure chance are those in which players have no choices in the game, or when the choices have no meaningful impact on the final outcome. Examples of such games are snakes and ladders, craps, roulette, and the card game “War.” While there are many examples of games of pure skill and games of pure chance, a very large class falls somewhere in between. A game of both skill and chance may have chance elements that dominate the outcome at times. Additionally, the outcome of players of equal skill can be truly random; however, the skill element manifests itself over the long-term with players of unequal skill. Examples of such mixed games include backgammon, poker, blackjack, and bridge.
Online Fantasy Sports- A Game of Skill
A game of skill is one where the outcome is determined mainly by physical or a mental skill where chance has a very miniscule to non-existent role. A game of skill is therefore one where a player needs to constantly learn, practice and refine skills to be able to perform in a game.
Additionally, a Massachusetts Information Technology (MIT) and Columbia study titled “Is It Luck or Skill: Establishing Role of Skill in Mutual Fund Management and Fantasy Sports”, analysed the data obtained from two fantasy sports platforms: D for Cricket and for Basketball. In both the cases, the study concludes that there is overwhelming evidence that the outcomes are driven by the predominance of skill.
Predominance of Skill in Fantasy Sports
Given all these considerations, Online Fantasy Sports are a predominantly skill based game. Moreover, the environment in which such a game is initiated is very intrinsic to the format of the game which makes it inclined towards skill rather than chance. For instance, there is a restriction on the number of players that can be on a team, all players on a fantasy sports team cannot be selected from the same real-life sports team, the fantasy sports contest needs to be in continuation for at least the duration of the real-life match, there is also an upper limit to the
spends on selecting the team, team structures cannot change once the match begins. All these factors put together contribute predominance of skill in fantasy sports.
How Fantasy Sports Differs from Betting
|
Aspect |
Sports Betting |
Fantasy Sports |
|
Core Activity |
Wagering on specific outcomes |
Managing virtual teams of real players |
|
Time Frame |
Immediate results |
Season-long or daily contests |
|
Skill vs Luck |
More luck-based |
More skill-based |
|
Social Interaction |
Generally individual |
Often played in leagues with friends |
|
Legal Status |
Varies by region, more restricted |
More widely accepted as a game of skill |
|
Financial Risk |
Higher volatility |
More controlled, league-based |
|
Time Commitment |
Flexible, can be minimal |
Requires ongoing management |
|
Entry Costs |
Variable, based on individual bets |
Defined entry fees or buy-ins |
|
Potential Returns |
Can be high, but with higher risk |
Usually capped based on league structure |
|
Knowledge Required |
Sport-specific understanding |
Broad knowledge of players and statistics |
|
Legality Status |
Banned in many countries |
Legal (Restricted in some countries) |
|
Safe/Risky |
Risky |
Safe |
|
|
|
|
Social Aspects
Fantasy sports often have a strong social component. Many leagues are formed among friends, colleagues, or family members, fostering friendly competition and banter throughout the season. League drafts can be social events, and the ongoing nature of the competition provides regular topics for discussion.
Advantages of Fantasy Sports
- Longer-term engagement with sports
- Strong social and community aspects
- Generally more widely legal
- Encourages broader knowledge of sports and players
- Controlled financial risk
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