CCTR Hosts Seminar to Explore Gambling Concerns in Fantasy Sports
The C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) held a Discovery Dialogue on Monday, May 9 at the Main Hospital’s Learning Center. Brendan Dwyer, Ph.D., director of research and distance learning for the VCU Center for Sport Leadership, led the presentation titled, “Exploring Gambling Concerns in Fantasy Sports Participation.”
Dwyer has studied fantasy sports behavior for nine years. One of the first individuals to research the subject back in 2007, he watched fantasy sports participation take off with the growth of the internet.
It is estimated that in 2007, 19.4 million people in the United States and Canada were playing fantasy sports. That number grew to 56.8 million people in 2015 [source].
“I like to think of fantasy sports as a competitive form of book club,” Dwyer said. “Some people take it seriously and read the books, others don’t, but just like in book clubs, people seek fantasy sports for social interaction, entertainment and escape.”
The concern, Dwyer notes, is that unlike in book clubs there is a financial aspect to fantasy sports that can lead to problem gambling, especially in daily fantasy sport games where there are multiple opportunities to play. In 2006, the United States Congress passed a legislation called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) which regulates online gambling, but an exemption for fantasy sports led by the National Football League (NFL) was established.
With the estimated total market impact of fantasy sports to be around $4.6 billion, the NFL has skin in the game tied to brand-building and increased sports consumption. In 2006 the NFL was able to successfully argue that fantasy sports was not a form of gambling because months can pass before any money is exchanged and fantasy sports involves more skill than chance.
Today, because of the passing of the UIGEA, it is up to the individual states to make decisions regarding fantasy sports and whether they violate state gaming prohibitions.
First image up top: Brendan Dwyer, Ph.D., director of research and distance learning for the VCU Center for Sport Leadership
Categories Education, Research