Life-Changing Payouts From Fantasy Sports

Many people's only involvement with fantasy sports is with free games or low stakes entry fee games. However, don't think that there isn't big money to be won playing fantasy sports. This is true even though fantasy sports is not gambling. Yes, NOT gambling. People can bet on sports but playing in a fantasy sports contest is not gambling.

What makes fantasy sports different from typical sports betting is how fantasy sports contests operate. In a nutshell, fantasy sports games operate as contests. These contests can either be free or pay-to-play. We'll discuss the pay-to-play as one of the generally accepted elements for gambling isn't met - consideration.

To be gambling, typically an activity needs all three elements - prize, consideration and chance. For the free to play games, if there is no cost to enter, then there isn't any consideration and therefore it's not gambling. So, isn't pay-to-play then gambling because there's consideration? Not necessarily because of the element of chance. Fantasy sports generally is viewed as a skill game. Generally, because states can have different interpretations of what constitutes chance. Overall, in about 41 of the 50 states, fantasy sports are viewed as a game of skill rather than chance.

In the UIGEA, fantasy sports contests are defined as a game of skill and exempt from internet gambling restrictions if they operate within certain guidelines. Basically, you can't have a fantasy team be 100% of a real team, you have to explicitly state your prize structure and levels and not have them vary with the number of game participants, and the real-world games used as basis of games should be more than just a single game.

As stated at the beginning of the post, most people only deal with free games or games with low stakes and prizes. But there are some life-changing payouts out there playing fantasy sports, even in a contest format.

From the Fantasy Sports Business blog, they list a few of the high-stakes fantasy sports contests and top payout levels:

World Championship of Fantasy Football - $300,000
RapidDraft.com - $100,000
Footballguys Players Championship - $100,000
Fantasy Football Players Championship - $100,000
National Fantasy Football Championship - $100,000

So, the top prizes for these five non-gambling fantasy football contests total $700,000. Life changing payouts for playing fantasy football and getting to watch LOTS of NFL games! How cool is that?