With March Madness in full swing, thousands of people are placing bets on daily fantasy sports websites. But as these sites gain popularity, the legal community is grappling over whether they’re gambling enterprises, while California lawmakers are scrambling to pass legislation that would regulate this business.Daily fantasy sports contest providers such as DraftKings and FanDuel spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising in the hopes that the general public will give it a try and join daily fantasy contests. It is nearly impossible to watch a sports event on television and not see at least one daily fantasy sports ad. More and more people are flocking to daily fantasy online sites with the hopes of winning millions of dollars. The ultimate question remains: Is playing daily online fantasy sports contests really just another form of sports gambling?

In traditional sports gambling, if an individual places a wager at a casino on a particular sports game, the result of the actual sports game and the player’s wager are critical to the casino. The potential winnings or losses to the casino are directly related to the end result of the game. The casino has risk and a stake in the outcome of the game and the player’s bet, and it wants the player to lose. In contrast, a daily fantasy sports player pays a predetermined entry fee to participate in a contest that pays out predetermined prizes to winners of the contest.

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