Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Fantasy Football Widows

Mike has posted on this before (7/14), but it is so interesting, I thought I would add my two cents. Christine Hurt at Conglomerate writes of a fascinating (and true) phenomenon that occurs each year: Fantasy Football Widows and Orphans. If you don't think this is a problem, just ask my fiance. Fantasy football has the capacity to consume in a way that many other fantasy sports cannot -- maybe because it is weekend-heavy, or because the season is comparatively short. Or maybe football just lends itself to being an excellent fantasy sport. But I know many people obsessed with fantasy football that play no other fantasy sport.

Christine also goes into the legality of fantasy sports. As she correctly points out, while you cannot bet $5 on a game's outcome (in many states), you can spend as much time (or money) on fantasy sports as you would like.

    I live in Wisconsin. If I decided to bet with Jason in my suite (hi, Jason!) on the Green Bay Packers v. Minnesota Vikings game, that's illegal under WI law. If I called him or emailed about the bet, then we would also be breaking federal law (Wire Act). If I placed a bet with an offshore bookie, then I would be breaking both state and federal law. However, if Jason and I create a fantasy football league on espn.com, ESPN will never ask us if we are wagering on who will win the fantasy football league. We're just doing it for fun, right? We're just spending thousands of hours a week for fun, right?

    In all three bills introduced in the 108th Congress seeking to prohibit Internet gambling (H.R. 21, H.R. 2143, and S. 627, the definition of "bets and wagers" excluded two types of activities. The first exclusion applies to stocks, commodities, derivatives, and insurance products. (Interesting that we would have to sort that out.) The second exclusion was: Fantasy Sports!!!
You can view the text of the bill here (S. 627 108th Cong. s.5361(1)(e)).

Personally, I am not in favor of any laws restricting non-corrupted wagering, so I am fine that fantasy sports escape. But my heart goes out to all of the FFW and FFO: don't worry, January will be here soon.

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