The relevance of fantasy sports is increasing among the young people. Fantasy Sports is a digital system of virtual sports game where entirely the game rely on real-life sports The players create replica squads of real participants who will be taking part in an upcoming game or match day, and then engage in a virtual match day competition based on the achievement of in-game statistical achievements of the real-world players involved in the official game. The higher the performance of the players, the bigger the points the user gets toward the profile. Session by session, users will play the dual role of a coach or team manager, making the necessary moves to get a player they think has the most potential to the team, meaning to drop him, recruit him, or trade him off. Matches have been set and the recent changes in teams have been locked before a match starts. Fantasy sports are close to real-life sporting events with players making their own league and fielding a virtual team, thus giving sports fans a meaningful involvement with their favorite sports. Sometimes it is even more than watching the sport because it grants another aspect to involve yourself into the gaming world while for others her main purpose is the gameplay and strategy in this exclusive game. Apart from this, researchers indicate that fantasy sports participation serves as an addition to the traditional sports consumption habit for those who take part in fantasy sports games.
The market for worldwide fantasy sports is supposed to reach USD 76.51 billion by 2030, according to the estimations, with a CAGR of 13.2% from the year 2022 to 2032. Football (soccer), basketball, baseball, and ice hockey are stalwart sports in the fantasy sports world. At the forefront of this booming industry are major providers like sports betting, daily fantasy sports and online casino platform DraftKings which is well known for its seamless integrating fantasy sports and sports betting that allows players of all types to enjoy the excitement, ESPN Fantasy Sports has an extensive coverage that extends across numerous sports and Yahoo Fantasy Sports which is remarkable with its simple to use interface and large community. Every platform has its special touch – DraftKings concentrates on innovative real-time fantasy games with rich contests and instant payouts, ESPN prefers to focus on in-depth soccer analysis by experts and Yahoo is dedicated to creating an engaging environment for its users where participants communicate and support each other. Fantasy sports is not just about competition but its social component also plays a big role- making fans communicate with other fans, swap tactics and express their love for sports. Such the interactivity feature and today’s development of online platforms have caused the continuous growth of fantasy sports.
Methods Fantasy Sports Companies Use to Earn Income
The fantasy sport organizations employ different revenue-making strategies to maintain their meaningful existence. They make money, namely by organizing competitions with cash awards, which have a fee paid in advance. After that, the organizers keep a part of the prize for themselves and charge it as a substantial part of the total income. These companies make use of creating engagement by creating fantasy leagues that span across the season, with gamers also having an option to participate in weekly games as well. This hence lends to the possibility of earning fees throughout the whole season and getting gamers hooked up in large numbers.
Apart from the direct participation fees, these businesses also explore other ways of revenue such as advertising, securing sponsorships from the tournaments and co-creating video content with others. The strategy behind the online advertising is to divert traffic that will eventually lead to the bettering of the competition’s market thus the ad revenue will also increase whenever the campaign was run successfully.
Additionally to involve the users with a wider spectrum, in some cases, fantasy sports companies offer free leagues as a start for the new joiners. They intend to pique the interest of the curious beyond the savings but are not willing to go all-in monetarily, giving them a free pass to the sport. With this policy, the wide audience is taken to the platform and urges them to continue in the paid contests through different promotional strategies therefore the company will grow its income outlets.
Does Fantasy Sports Qualify as Sports Betting?
The difference between fantasy sports and sports betting depends on their operating bases; the sports betting involves betting on outcomes for a specific game, whereas fantasy sports are about selecting your players and collecting the points that are based on the performance of the players. Fantasy sports involve a lot of studying the athletes constantly and drafting a team, as well as the whole planning process, therefore characterizing sports simulations as the games of skill in which you can succeed just in case you do all the preparations properly. Contrarily, as far as sports betting is concerned an aspect of such is that you can get to win regardless of the depth of knowledge you have concerning the sport.
Fantasy sports and sports betting may have dissimilar ways of going about it. However, all the same, they have a motive of anticipating the games result in common. Although their ways would be different, both activities feature the same notion of money made on betting the outcome of sports games. In the meantime, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), prohibits fantasy sports as being a type of gaming of chance, instead attempting to differentiate it from online gambling by highlighting the element of skill involved as opposed to odds of success.
In a similar vein, the potential risks of engaging in fantasy sports for people prone to sports gambling addiction are high as well. Although fantasy sports are usually referenced as innocent recreation, this can become an enjoyable pastime and impulsive spending is often involved which may lead to huge financial losses, that is, just like traditional sport gambling.
Potential Dangers Linked to Engaging in Fantasy Sports
Through recent research, interest in the association between fantasy sports gaming—primarily teenagers and adults—has been sighted and the rises in gambling problems are also observed. This correlation may surely indicate the critical public health issues, which could be the tip of the iceberg of the fact that the more teenagers are involved in fantasy sports, the higher their chances of assuming gambling problems. Consequently, it’s necessary to establish tougher controls of youth visits to different websites or else there will be nothing to stop them from falling prey to the harmful content.
Finally, It is important to have strict legal frameworks that distinguish between fantasy sports and gambling, as the boundary of the two. However, the objection here is that quite close to a half of the emerging fantasy sport models operate on a principle of chance rather than skill, especially when the entry fee gets directly into the prize pool and under such circumstances this model of fantasy sports may be considered as gambling activity which needs to be carefully regulated otherwise.
The risks of the addictive powers of fantasy sports to the mental health of the involved population is also of great concern. It has been found out that gamblers’ frequency of online gaming, degree of problem gambling, and comorbid conditions, which might involve thoughts of suicide, are likely to be higher in those who engage in daily fantasy sports. A 2021 survey after fantasy soccer relied on players visibility and the result was that many players did not report a mental health issue, but those who spent more time on this game faced poor mental health approached poor compared to those who did not spend much time on this game.
Financial risks were the other side of the coin, with fantasy sports ads mentioning this at an open slack. The amount of money lost due to the entry fees fluctuates when you consider different platforms. Hence, some platforms set lower entry fees so that participants won’t have to worry too much for their money. Even with these measures, players addicted to this kind of games may avoid them by taking part in several tournaments more or by creating several accounts which on the other end may escalate the costs.
