Fantasy Sports : A Staple Of American Culture

Methods The research paradigm that I used in my research was interpretive paradigm. I focused on the meaning that people put to fantasy football that makes them want to keep playing. I analyzed how the social world was created during and around fantasy football for two fantasy leagues and what fantasy football meant to the people who participated. I arrived at my research question because I wanted to find out the meanings that people put to fantasy football that keeps them motivated enough to play year-after-year.

Lotteries have been reported to have possibly started all the way back in the Han Dynasty early 200 B.C. The first official record of a public lottery was in 1434 from the Dutch town of Sluis. The original idea of the lottery was to help the lower class and fortify townships. It was not until the 1600s when the more modern form of the lottery came about. Where one would buy a ticket for a small amount with the possibility to win a big cash purse. Later, around 1890 much scrutiny and distrust surrounded the lottery which eventually led to the United States stopping sales of tickets and made lotteries illegal. This was in effect until after World War II and the iconic modern lotteries started to come back into everyday lives. At first it was just separate state lotteries, but eventually in late 80s and early 90s interstate lotteries emerged which include the famous Mega Million, originally named The Big Game, and Powerball. Some of the success for the recent lotteries goes to the more credible system of checking and organizing tickets called the Marksense system.

According to Thompson (2008), as of 2008 there were over 150 racetracks operating in the U.S., with annual wagers on horse racing totaling more than $16 billion. Dog racing is also legal in a number of states, but it is not as popular or widespread as horse racing. Proponents of sports gambling maintain betting on such events generates lucrative revenues, provides thousands of jobs, and offers sports bettors a means of entertainment and a chance for gain. Despite these arguments, there are a number of sound arguments put forth by those who remain staunchly opposed to legalizing sports gambling in the U.S.

I would like to start off by explaining what fantasy football is and how it works. Fantasy football is all about constructing a virtual team made up of NFL players. At the start of any football season, everyone who want to be in the fantasy league gets together to have a draft. These team owners proceed to pick NFL players that they want for their team. Depending on what league someone is in determines what type of players an owner can put on their team. Typically a starting team will consist of one quarterback, a couple receivers and running backs, a kicker, a tight end, and a team defense. The owner with the first pick starts, this is usually the manager of the league. After he picks a player from the NFL, the next owner will pick a player and it goes down the line until all the owners have one player on their team. To make this process fair the owner with the last pick gets the first pick in the second round of the draft and then it will go up the line to the owner who had the first pick, and after the owner with

According to Frixo.com (2014), for as long as there has been matches with winners and losers, there has been betting. However, when it comes to popularizing and

In 2015, almost every time you turned on your television, you saw a commercial for DraftKings or FanDuel. DraftKings and FanDuel are two separate companies that operate daily fantasy sport leagues. Some of the sports that are featured with the fantasy leagues are baseball, with Major League Baseball, football, with the National Football League, hockey, with the National Hockey League, and basketball, with the National Basketball Association. To get into one of these daily fantasy leagues that DraftKings and FanDuel offer, you have to pay an entry fee. That entry fee determines how much you could possibly win. Daily fantasy sports sites DraftKings and FanDuel shouldn’t be allowed to operate because it is not a game of skill, gambling sites were banned in 2006 by the U.S. Federal Government, and even though it creates money for the economy, many people lose money and sometimes their possessions.

Money seems to run the world. People need money to buy food, buy shelter, and support families. There are many ways to make money in order to survive, which most commonly involve working a full time job, but also include illegal means and gambling. Gambling seems to be an easy way to make money, but also a high risk… but not if the game is fixed. Despite the lack of prevalent hard evidence proving they fixed the game, the eight White Sox players involved in the 1919 World Series bribery scandal were rightfully banned.

Clearly the people who benefited most from gambling laws in New York City and Atlantic City were the criminals and crooked politicians. However, those cities weren’t isolated cases, just some of the most extreme examples. Horse racing, along most every other form of gambling, was banned in most states in the early 20th Century. Yet, the ban on horse racing didn’t curb public demand. For decades, one of organized crime’s most prized assets was the “race wire.” That was a telegraph service that sent updated horse racing information so that gamblers could bet on races from anywhere in the

Gambling has been a popular activity in the United States from the 1600’s to the present day United States. As gambling grows as a worldwide enterprise, it expands the United States with the opportunities it provides and the attention it consumes. Gambling as a whole benefits different recreational activities and events such as sports. Gambling also allows people visiting places like Las Vegas to enjoy playing poker with friends and even winning money after a game of poker or Slot Machine. Gambling allows many activities to be expanded to their full potential and offer people the full

Fantasy sports has evolved from its humble roots as the niche Dungeons & Dragons-esque intersection of sports fandom and statistical nerdiness. According to Fantasy Sports Trade Association market research conducted by Ipsos, there are over 36.6 million people playing fantasy sports in the United States and Canada and is a rapidly growing industry that generates over a billion dollars per year. The once maligned cult hobby has grown into an undeniable sports subculture, commanding regular coverage from all major sports networks, in addition to active online communities, podcasts, and even paid services catering to fantasy sports players.

Sports gambling is legal in all the countries besides the United States. As Zak Lutz said in the article, Should Sports Gambling be Legal?, sports gambling, for the most part, is illegal in the United States with the exception of four states, which include Delaware, Nevada, Oregon, and Montana. We gamble when we buy state lottery tickets, go to the horse tracks, and spend money at casinos. The federal law is doesn’t support gambling, but the states do. Lutz argues, “If betting for the states is legal, why can’t we just

Those who oppose the legality of daily fantasy sports do so because they feel participation in these activities constitutes gambling. Daily fantasy sports have been compared to the game of poker in more ways than one, and in most states poker is treated as an illegal activity. Although both game types do contain some level of chance, these activities are largely dependent on skill. Think of it this way, if two people were to be playing poker, one of them a professional and the other a player of lesser talents, the odds for the professional to win would be enormous. Poker, however, is still looked at as gambling and therefore required to be regulated in states where gambling is legal, such as Nevada. Daily fantasy sports differ in this aspect,

Then there are the race tracks. They are now legal in over four fifths of all the states in America. The owners of the track take 18 to 21 percent of money wagered. The bettor has a likelihood of winning only a 0.41 to 0.44 probability of winning. That is about one half of one percent! But, it is a well-known fact that when a man wins at gambling, he is very likely to stay in for another game—and then lose his winnings! It is no wonder that it is called “gambling fever.” It is almost an insanity which grips a person.

For thousands of years, mankind has enjoyed spending money on games of chance. Today this has developed into a multi-billion dollar worldwide phenomenon- the gambling industry.

Most of us have heard of fantasy football. Online fantasy has risen in popularity over the past couple of years, due to advances in technology. With this rise in popularity, it has raised eyebrows at the state and federal government levels. There are many grey areas when it comes to gambling online, that many people still don’t understand. Many questions are being asked, such as legal transactions with credit cards, is online gambling causing a problem with a rise in gambling addiction? Over the course of this report, I will go over the good and the bad of making online gambling legal and regulated.