I am interested in this topic because a lot of my friends play fantasy sports and are very invested in it. They have been persuading me to play it with them, but I have not given in because I am not sure that I want to risk my money. I have played the free versions of fantasy sports and have done well which makes me want to try leagues that wager money. If I am as successful as I was in the free version then I have the possibility to make a profit. If I do decide to play in the future, it could be illegal to play certain fantasy leagues in South Carolina. The possibility of specific fantasy sports sites being banned in the near future persuades me to play them before this happens. I want to find out why daily fantasy sports would be considered illegal and why it is only recently becoming a big issue. I have heard some people talk about how fantasy sports are not a form of gambling because it involves skill instead of relying on pure chance. Another section of this topic I want to research is why some fantasy sports cites have been banned and others have not. 


This article explains how fantasy sports could be violating certain laws that are about gambling. It gives a brief overview of what fantasy sports are and then defines a few federal laws that could make all fantasy sports illegal. The author continues to list out the view of each state on fantasy sports since this decision is mostly left up to the state to decide. 

The author states in the conclusion that "Fantasy sports leagues violate federal and state gambling laws" (Davidson 228). The article started off by giving the laws without saying anything else about fantasy sports at all. It later continues to explain how these laws make fantasy sports illegal and that it should be banned until it is considered gambling. 

The author of this article is Nicole Davidson. She knows about the topic because she is employed by the San Diego Law Review. Her work was also viewed by many of her peers and many professors from the University of Sand Diego School of Law. There is also a citation for every law and person that she uses in the work on the bottom of the page it is on. 


The general claim of this article is that "sports betting is here to stay, whatever federal or state laws are passed" (Rose 349). It states that a large group of people are saying it is illegal because of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. What the opposite party is arguing is that the choice of language such as bet and wager do not include fantasy sports because they involve knowledge of the game. 

The most interesting part of this article is how it attacks the language of laws that supposedly make daily fantasy sports illegal. It explains how fantasy sports are not gambling of wagering because they involve skill. This skill is clarified as how much the player knows about the game and how to predict which players are going to perform on any certain week. 

The author, Nelson Rose, had attended panels discussing this topic for six months before writing this article. Big name companies such as FanDuel were there defending themselves from becoming illegal. He is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on gambling law and has written many books about online gambling specifically. 


The last source described how fantasy sports first came about and what it results in when individuals play it today. It explained how a few guys drew from a pile of baseball cards to get a team and whoever's players preformed the best, then that person won the game. Davis also explained how he interviewed a group of people in a league and they said that they had become closer because of fantasy sports. 

This article goes in a completely different direction than most of the others that I have found so far. Instead of trying to prove fantasy sports are legal or not, it describes how the game got started and that it isn't always about the money for everyone. This was made clear when he went as far to say that "males formed friendly alliances within fantasy leagues" (Davis 260).

Davis has a Chancellor's Research Fellow position where he researches the sociology of physical activity and psychology of sport and exercise. His work is also made more credible by having almost three pages of citations at the end. This article was also thought to be credible by other people researching this topic because it has been used and cited in many other works. 

