League, law agree: Fantasy football not gambling

Billion-dollar busines not getting procescuted.

Eddie Pells, Associated Press
Sunday, December 17, 2006

For many NFL fans, there are millions of dollars up for grabs over the final weeks of the season. They watch every game, every player, in the hopes that those receivers, running backs and quarterbacks can turn small investments into big money.

Their hopes are pinned on the fates of their fantasy football teams. Sounds a lot like gambling, doesn't it? But in the eyes of the NFL and the legal code of the United States, there's nothing illegal about it.

Fantasy football received a free pass in a recently signed law that seeks to ban most online gambling, specifically targeting online poker. The law, signed by the president in October, was backed by the NFL and its well-paid lobbyist.

"It's hard to assume anything," said Anthony Cabot, an attorney who specializes in gaming law and internet gambling. "But it's fairly clear from the correspondence related to the bill that an NFL lobbyist was, in fact, very active in the effort to get this bill passed. And there's no question the NFL is a significant beneficiary of the exemption on fantasy sports."

An estimated 12.8 million players, including a handful of NFL players themselves, play fantasy football.

The NFL says there was no explicit effort to get the exemption, which excludes "participation in any fantasy or simulation sports game," worked into the bill.

"Fantasy football has never been considered gambling by congressional leaders," league spokesman Brian McCarthy said. "As a result, there was little if any discussion about the issue at the time the Internet gambling bill was signed into law earlier this year."

A Growing Obsession

A descendant of rotisserie baseball, fantasy football took off about five years ago, around the same time the Internet became commonplace. Fantasy football was concocted as another way for fans to follow America's favorite sport.

It worked.

Participation in fantasy sports grows between 7 and 10 percent each year, and the economic impact is estimated between $1 billion and $2 billion annually, according to a recent study done by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association and University of Mississippi.

Yahoo is the largest fantasy football site, its popularity based mainly on its strategy of offering leagues for free.

The next two biggest fantasy sites are cbssportsline.com, with 1.3 million users in the fall of 2003, according to a study by Nielsen NetRatings, and espn.com. Those sites charge between $14.95 and $500 to participate in leagues. In many cases, prize money goes directly from the site to the league winners. Millions more dollars exchange hands among prize pools created by the players.

Those Web sites are affiliated with two networks who combined to pay the league about $1.7 billion to televise this season's games. The NFL's Web site, nfl.com, also links to the fantasy site run by cbssportsline.com.

"It doesn't seem to be consistent," Nelson Rose, an expert on gambling law, said of the NFL's approval of fantasy football. "It doesn't make sense to me given how antigambling the pro and college sports have always been."

Gene Upshaw, chief of the players union, said it's ridiculous to assume NFL players are doing anything sinister by playing in fantasy leagues.

"Fantasy football is expanding the game, and anytime you do that, I don't see that as being negative," Upshaw said. "We haven't had any issues whatsoever. I don't think it's related to gambling. That's a stretch, a real big stretch."--AP