When I first heard about daily fantasy sports betting, my first reaction was I assumed that the betting was probably illegal or shady at best. I immediately associated it with online poker, which many people played well after it became illegal in the US. Many of the heavy poker players in fact are heavy daily fantasy sports players. But aside from the obvious associations, the bottom line is that daily fantasy sports is permitted and legal in most US states and in Canada. Here is an excerpt from the DraftKings FAQ page:
“We are a US-based skill games company, and all of our contests are operated 100% legally under United States and Canadian law. The US Government and 45 of the 50 states consider fantasy sports a game of skill. We do not allow residents of Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, or Washington to participate in our contests due to state-specific regulation against cash prize awards. We also require our users to be 18 years of age or older (19 in Alabama and Nebraska). We take the legal status of our contests very seriously. If you have any questions related to this topic, please contact us.”
Note: we have no special arrangement or affiliation with DraftKings. We frequently reference DraftKings tournaments because they are one of the largest daily fantasy sports betting platforms and we personally compete in their tournaments.
If you are interested in betting on daily fantasy sports but are uncertain about which provider to use, the most obvious answer is usually to use the biggest and most established platform. The two largest providers are DraftKings and FanDuel.
You can take comfort in each of these companies having backing from some major operating and investment companies. One of FanDuel’s backers is the venture capital arm of Comcast, while Walt Disney (majority owner of ESPN) invested $250 million into DraftKings in early 2015. DraftKings has stated that its 2014 betting volumes were $304 million, while FanDuel states that it awarded more than $560 million in the same year.
While it is always a possibility that laws can change, for now you can comfortably bet on daily fantasy sports platforms knowing it's fully legal.
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