Sports betting and related activities such as fantasy sports, no matter whether they are wagered in brick-and-mortar shops or online, more than often become a subject for spirited discussions aimed at defining what is legal and what is not. Much has already been said about how questionable the arguments for the ban on sports betting in the USA is. This issue keeps inspiring all kinds of reasoning about those sides of sports betting phenomenon that define its addictiveness, profitability and thus legality.
A game is defined as gambling when the chance element in it predominates over skill. Clearly, this characteristic is not a satisfactory ground for banning any activity. Human nature is such that people are apt to get strongly addicted to taking chances, and the higher stakes are the stronger the addiction tends to be.
Instead of prohibiting all kinds of gambling activities, US law bans transmitting any information helpful for accepting bets in execution of 1961 Federal Wire Act, which delivers a deadly blow to betting, no matter online or land-based (unless anyone wants to run a sportsbook within one single shop). It is strange, but the rest of online gambling is not prohibited in the US, as there is no federal ban on online gambling.
So what factors gives any game a greater chance of being declared illegal under the current, grey system? For the purposes of the discussion we can intuitively sort all gambling games not only by the quantum of skill required, but also by the game’s level of risk, which defines its attractiveness for an average player.
Let’s take a look at classic pre-match sports betting first. It does not fully employ punters' skills, but player’s knowledge of sport and thoughtful assessment of odds will definitely help him or her to win. On the other hand, you can never be sure that you don’t run into a fixed game. This aspect is definitely risky.
Let’s take a look at rotisserie now. Daily fantasy sports are considered to be more of a skill-oriented game than even pre-match betting, but what has lately become its bane is that some players have grown very powerful using special software to track weaker players. According to McKinsey & Co.’s global sports and gaming practice, in the first half of 2015 1.3% of DFS players won about 91% of the prizes. Such statistics says the best about the risks for casual players.
It is not easy to define poker’s place on the graph but, if horizontal axis of our scale stands for randomness of the game and the vertical one is for probable danger of losing all your money, we can allow ourselves to arrange the rest of games on a curve as shown on the graph. Games on the graph range from risky but definitely skill-requiring daily fantasy sports to absolutely random roulette.
If you can eventually become a better player – then your game is a game of skill. But, of course, you have got to be sure that you are getting better at making the same choices other punters are also making and that operators are offering you. For example, to get better at exploiting the lapses of a betting system is, frankly speaking, not a game that bookmakers are offering to a punter.
But that is exactly what sophisticated fantasy sports players do, employing statistical formula in order to defeat newbies! Thus, by allowing only one kind of sports-betting game (DFS) which is seemingly getting more risky and dangerous than pre-match and live betting, American legislators are continuing to hide their heads under the sand.
