Whether you are playing fantasy sports or doing sports betting, you are ultimately trying to make money. Of course, it is fun to play and that is a reward in itself, but in this way sports betting and fantasy sports are very similar. For some reason they are viewed very differently though. The reality is that there are quite a few differences.
Playing fantasy is something that involves a commitment that gambling doesn’t. You can make bets on every game of a season if you want, but you aren’t tied down like you are in fantasy sports, for example.
Since they both involve very similar factors, it takes a more in depth look to figure out exactly how they differ. In this article, we will go over several ways that they diverge and are not the same.
They both take discipline
We’ll first look at the biggest similarity between sports betting and playing fantasy. This is the fact that to win, you have to really know what you are doing. The best bets NBA are not won by just by chance. There is a lot of research required to be able to win that bet and make money most of the time. Of course, you will also lose some but if you are willing to put in the time to research then you improve your odds tremendously.
The same goes for playing fantasy. The people that end up doing best are the ones that will put in a lot of preparation time ahead of the draft. They are able to look at the entire season and think about matchups when trying to decide who to draft. There are also trades that happen and the best prepared owners improve their team or shore up injuries with a good trading strategy.
In neither scenario is there much room for playing on a hunch and not using any strategy or preparation. People can get lucky and win a bet or even an entire fantasy season just by guessing but this is very rare and can end up losing quite a bit of money when betting.
Gambling is big business
There is one major difference between gambling and playing fantasy sports. Gambling is a big industry that is highly regulated. Since fantasy sports are not regulated, it is more of a hobbyist type of situation.
This means that you have to go through specific channels to place a sports bet legally. There are some places that allow sports betting in their casinos. Yet, many states have laws against sports betting either in person or online.
There are no such laws about playing fantasy sports. Since these are mainly friendly wagers, there really isn’t much reason to regulate it. There are few people that are losing their homes due to playing fantasy sports and losing as opposed to gambling. The amount of money that goes through Las Vegas on their sports books is a huge number. It is a fraction of that amount that is done playing fantasy sports.