New York recently passed a law allowing fantasy sports gaming to continue. This new law is now facing a legal challenge by an anti-gambling group.
The New York legislature has determined the act of selecting a fantasy team and competing against other fantasy players is a skills contest. Under New York law, a skills contest is not considered gambling.
Is It Gambling to Play Fantasy Sports?
Fantasy sports require players to select individual athletes on various professional sporting teams to assemble their “fantasy” team. Each users can select their favorite, or the best, players from every team in the league. Then, users are paired up and compete based upon whose players score the most points each week in real life.
How Do Fantasy Sports Differ From Regular Sports Gambling?
In traditional sports gambling, which is illegal in New York, a better places a bet on the outcome of a particular sports contest. If they are correct in selecting the winner, they win the bet.
In fantasy sports, two fantasy teams are matched against each other, then depending on how each fantasy team performs, which includes how each individual player for the team performs in real life, points are assigned, and whichever team scores the most fantasy points wins.
Based on how fantasy sports work, the rationale that fantasy sports gaming is a skills contest rather than a game of chance seems fairly illogical. Then again, laws related to online gambling are already fairly illogical and inconsistent.
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