In the United States, fantasy sports, including daily fantasy sports sites, are completely legal. Even if you are playing them for money. This means that sites like FanDuel are legitimate, legal, and trustworthy. Many people have questions about paying to play at daily fantasy sites because of the fact that online gambling money transfers have been deemed illegal by federal law, but games of skill like this do not fall under this heading.
There are a handful of states that do not allow online fantasy sports. These currently include Washington, Arizona, Montana, Iowa, and Louisiana. Why they are illegal is a bit different from state to state, but basically, either these states have courts that have interpreted the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 differently, or they have stricter states laws already in place. For the remaining 45 states, though, the UIGEA is in effect. This law, signed by President Bush at the end of 2006, states that games of random chance are illegal to transfer money to online. The key phrase here is random chance, and it specifically excludes games like fantasy sports from the jurisdiction of the law. Fantasy sports, daily fantasy sports, chess, thoroughbred racing, and backgammon all fall into this “skill” category. Shortly after this law passed, a shorter version of the traditional season long leagues became very popular online.
FanDuel was launched in 2009 and is now the biggest and most widely used daily fantasy sports site in the world. They offer daily leagues for football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. They’ve been at the forefront of the one day fantasy sports industry and have helped to revolutionize fantasy sports in general, changing it from something that only the most dedicated fans could experience because of the time commitment needed, to something that anyone with 15 minutes of time could take part in. The site was launched by a bunch of friends from their home in Texas, and can now be accessed anywhere.
It is important to realize that daily fantasy sports are not a form of gambling. It is definitely a game of skill, and that means that some people will be better at it than others. If you are going to play for money and you want to have a serious shot of winning more money in return, then honing your skills will be a necessity. This is very possible, even if you are not a professional statistician. A basic working knowledge of sports is all that you need to get started. After this, you can often learn as you go. FanDuel does have free leagues to join in most sports, and if you’ve never played before, these are a great place to start. The level of competition is pretty weak here, but it will teach you the basics of how to draft a team within the given salary cap and learn how to start squeezing more points out of each day. In a sport like baseball or basketball where there is play almost every day, it is quite possible to be an expert by the end of a season. With football, because play is only on Sunday’s, the time needed to get to the expert level might be a little bit longer. This can be offset by study and research of your own, though.
There is a reason that FanDuel is the biggest and most widely used daily fantasy site. They have over one million unique users registered on their site, and they are projected to payout over $2 billion in winnings to their users in 2015. Those are all pretty impressive numbers, especially when you consider the fact that everything is on the up and up with them. There’s always a chance that laws will be passed that could influence this industry, but there’s very little chance that fantasy sports will ever be outlawed. As long as the sites and the people that use them are doing what they are supposed to be doing, this will remain a wholesome source of entertainment for those people that enjoy sports and want to take their involvement to the next level. It’s a very different style of game than a season long fantasy league has, but the general concept is the same: you take your knowledge of sports and apply it with certain handicaps put in your way. The person that is able to do this the best on any given night is proclaimed the winner. The end result is always fun.