Daily Fantasy Leagues: Anyone Can Lose

It’s Gambling Moron.

First and Ten Sports has covered the debate about daily fantasy leagues extensively. But we have to admit, John Oliver on  Last Week Tonight had an entertaining and comprehensive take on the latest developments in the debate. Remember, it ain’t gambling if you call it a game of skill.

It’s Not a Lie If You Believe It

The segment featured plenty of hysterical insights, such as Draft Kings assertion that it’s “entertainment,” and not gambling. Oliver’s reaction and we are paraphrasing, “You know what else is entertainment, gambling. Gambling is very entertaining until you owe thousands of dollars to a Russian entertainment syndicate.”

Further, Oliver traces the origins of fantasy sports. You’re a huge sports fan and decide to put a pool together for the big game. Too bad you lost to Janice from accounting. Of course, she doesn’t know anything about sports, but has your money and is now buying shoes. Damn you, Janice. Also, who knew that 85% of daily fantasy baseball were losers? We have friends that play fantasy baseball and we resent them being labeled losers. They might be douchy or even obnoxious, but they’re not losers.

Daily fantasy companies biggest claims are anyone player can win and they are games of skill, not gambling. Well, those are both lies. Most of the winning on daily fantasy is done by 1.5% of the players. These ‘winners’ are typically math nerds who write extremely detailed algorithms that can tabulate data including the hourly weather to project what players/teams have the best odds of winning. That’s not us! So, what did we learn: daily fantasy is not entertainment, not everyone can win, and it’s as much of a game of skill as poker is.

Oh well, better luck next time. Got to run, the team and I have an inside tip on a colt in the third race at Santa Anita.