The Legality of Daily Fantasy Sports

As daily fantasy sports sites, like DraftKings and FanDuel, take off, a main concern comes with whether or not the sites can continue to operate without being deemed gambling. This comes after employees of the sites were able to profit with inside information not released to the public. For the US News and World Report, Rodney Paul discussed the legality of these sites.

“This is not a question of whether this is gambling by definition,” he said. “To me that’s obvious: It is. Money is put at risk, the ‘house’ gets its cut and players play at a negative expected value in the long run. Since the leagues and major investors have partnered with FanDuel and DraftKings, I think it makes it much less likely it will be deemed illegal. But that does not mean that it’s not gambling, as people can and do lose money.”