A football coach from back in the day once said, “Three things can happen when a QB throws a pass, and two of them are bad.” What he meant was the pass can either be caught by the receiver for a large gain, dropped for no gain at all or worse intercepted by the opposing team for a loss of possession or a defensive score by the other team. The probability of either event happening depends on many factors: the skill sets of the QB, wide receiver, and the defender involved in the play. On top of that game planing comes into play both offensive and defensive. A good QB has a higher percentage of his passes caught, but only if his wide receiver is equal to his skill set.
But, knowing all this information about the players involved, it’s still unpredictable what’s going to happen in the game. And when one dollar is placed on the performance of players to a chance event with three possible outcomes, that’s the definition of gambling.
I used to play fantasy baseball over 20 years ago and never bet a dime because winning money was never the goal. The challenge was to act like a “fantasy gm” draft players that would be exclusive to your team in a league of only a dozen teams, and accumulate points based on a players performance. The guy with the most points wins the league and that’s it. I won my league and got a 5 inch wooden plaque and was extremely proud of myself.
Later, I lost interest and went on to other things. But, the money leagues started in fantasy baseball first, then crept into football where the gambling aspect has been a major part of that game for decades. And I don’t appreciate being bombarded with commercials for DraftKings or FanDuel without anyone acknowledging it’s gambling. Let’s call a spade a spade first and then deal with it from there.