Fantasy football is America’s true national pass-time.  Everyone I know who likes sports (and a lot who don’t) play fantasy football.  I’m in a league and I run a league on my own for my friends, and every year the leagues keep getting more and more popular.  Everyone loves fantasy football, even real players, and so-called daily fantasy leagues are getting big enough to attract the attention of regulators.  According to New York State, FanDuel and Draft Kings are illegal gambling and must stop operating in the state.

“Like most gambling operations, DraftKings’/FanDuel’s own numbers reveal a far different reality.  In practice, (daily fantasy sports) is far closer to poker in this respect: a small number of professional gamblers profit at the expense of casual players,” reads the cease and decist letter issued by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

How the sites work is you assemble a team of players every week and compete for prizes.  The better your team, the more money you win.  There’s a minimum buy-in involved with the site, and you pay to enter games, but if you’re actually good at it, you can make real money.  That apparently is what makes New York State assume the site is gambling, since it costs money and you win money and both companies make a serious profit.  Still, it’s a game of skill, not chance, but that doesn’t seem to matter to New York.

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