In a post about the blind spot in federal anti-gambling law regarding fantasy sports, Christine Hurt wrote the following last month:
So, let's get this straight for the audience back home. I live in Wisconsin. If I decided to bet with Jason in my suite (hi, Jason!) on the Green Bay Packers v. Minnesota Vikings game, that's illegal under WI law. If I called him or emailed about the bet, then we would also be breaking federal law (Wire Act). If I placed a bet with an offshore bookie, then I would be breaking both state and federal law. However, if Jason and I create a fantasy football league on espn.com, ESPN will never ask us if we are wagering on who will win the fantasy football league. We're just doing it for fun, right? We're just spending thousands of hours a week for fun, right?
Coming next March: Christine's proposal to subject the NCAA Basketball office pool to inclusion in the federal gambling laws. An act that will probably end her dreams of a political future in North Carolina, Indiana and the Westwood section of Los Angeles.
I was going to write a rejoinder, but her husband (God bless him), beat me to it in the comments:
Me: So, what are you doing?Christine: Blogging.
Me: It's 3:27 A.M. on a Tuesday. Shouldn't you be in bed?
Christine: I can stop any time I want to.
Of course, as a blogger and a 15-year veteran of a fantasy football league, this means that I'm a multiple vice addict.
Thanks to Michael McCann for the pointer.
I’ve just realized that sometime in the next couple of years, we will undoubtedly have a story in which someone finds that a baseball or football player has a lot of money at stake in a fantasy league.
Groan. Not looking forward to that.
In any case, I’d say common-sense gambling law would aim at the amount of money at stake, not the type of bet. Putting down $5-$10 on an NCAA office pool obviously isn’t going attract the mob to put the fix in. Neither would a low-key fantasy league with a few bucks at stake. If people have thousands at stake with shady unlicensed folks, whether it’s a straight-up bet or a fantasy league, that may warrant some scrutiny.
Of course, the biggest problem with fantasy leagues (and blogging) is that we get nothing done at work anymore.
i’m not sure what fantasy football service you use, but i have spent the last year developing a fantasy football game that i believe is substantially better than yahoo, espn, and the other big sites.
the address is fleaflicker.com.
it has lots of cutting edge features that nobody else has, like the ability to execute multi-team trades with future draft selections, players, or both.
if you switch to fleaflicker, i’m certain that you’ll be impressed.
thanks!