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Essential question

Why are people drawn to high stakes games like fantasy sports?

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Online fantasy sports leagues have exploded in popularity as companies scramble to attract new players to the online betting forums, but the odds of making money are not in the average players’ favor. Fifty-seven million players in North America build fantasy teams of real-life professional football, baseball or basketball players and place daily bets through sites like DraftKings and FanDuel to compete against anonymous strangers. Bets can range anywhere from 25 cents to thousands of dollars. Although the companies insist their games are skills-based and not gambling, several states have banned fantasy sports and legislators elsewhere are working to challenge what they say is merely a scheme that makes money for only a tiny fraction of players. “But this is sort of like normal fantasy sports sped up on steroids,” said Jay Caspian Kang, a journalist who wrote about his experience playing fantasy sports for The New York Times Magazine. Kang played for 17 weeks and talked to professional fantasy sport players, some of whom are former Wall Street analysts, who use their mathematical and sports knowledge to game the system. “If you feel like you want to enter a fair betting economy, and you want to have as good a shot as they are telling you that you have, then I would say that this is a very bad bet,” Kang said.

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Key terms

daily fantasy sports — an accelerated version of traditional fantasy sports in which players compete against others by building a team of professional athletes, but competitions are conducted over short-term periods, such as a single day or week gambling — the wagering of money or something of value in a game or bet in order to achieve additional money or winnings

Warm up questions ( before watching the video)

1. What do you know about online fantasy sports?


2. How many Americans do you think play daily fantasy sports?


3. How are daily fantasy sports different than season-long fantasy sports?


4. Do you think fantasy sports are a form of gambling?

Critical thinking questions ( after watching the video)

Do you agree with FanDuel and DraftKings executives when they say fantasy sports are a game of skill and therefore are not a form of gambling? Do you think it is fair that certain players use computer optimization software that allows them to place thousands of lineups at a time, often taking advantage of new players? What do you think New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman meant when he said, “Daily fantasy sports rely on a steady stream of minnows to feed the sharks”?