What Exactly Are Daily Fantasy Sports?
Very select people really understand the essence of daily fantasy sports (DFS). Moreover, the majority are not even familiar with the concept. In simple words, fantasy sports are a game in which the main focus is the player’s ability to pick and allocate the best players from all the possible choices in a certain sporting event, like football, hockey, basketball, baseball or any other sport. The drafted players become an imaginary (fantasy) team whose performance is calculated by adding up points awarded to each player for their success in real sporting events, for example for a goal scored, goal assist, saves, etc. The main difference between DFS and fantasy sports is that in the former the scoring takes place over a much shorter time interval – often not more than a week or even a few days, thus increasing the game’s tempo and players’ enjoyment.
The Origins of Fantasy Sports
Fantasy sports first appeared in the US back in the 1960s. William Gamson, a sociologist at Harvard, first took over the “Baseball Seminar” organization – in which participants had to show their knowledge, not only of the game itself but also of its players, drafting the most effective in their opinion, to build a virtual team of active baseball players. The idea was a success in the sports community, and this format began gaining popularity all over the world in just a few short years.
Fantasy sports became a favorite entertainment for bar visitors, fans began playing at work and even against like-minded people from abroad. Of course, the emergence of the Internet contributed to an even greater interest towards fantasy sports. Today the calculation of fantasy scores has become much easier thanks to digitization, and many sports websites offer an opportunity to take part in fantasy tournaments.
Types of Fantasy Sports
As the interest in fantasy sports grew, so did the number and types of games available. Today there are several classifications, based on:
- The kind of sports – the ingenuity of the fans knows no bounds, so new sports are constantly being added to the repertoire. The most popular today are football, hockey, and baseball.
- The length of the game – there are seasonal, weekly and daily fantasy leagues.
- The format of the game itself – one-to-one matches and team tournaments are available, where several players or just a single player can win. There are also 50/50 tournaments, in which victory is guaranteed to half of the participants.
- Prizes – tournaments are played for cash prize pools, sports merchandise and tickets to real matches, as well as “for interest” (without actual prizes).
Fantasy Sports Rules
There’s no such thing as universal rules in fantasy sports – each platform may establish its own rules, which may not necessarily comply with the rules used by other organizers. The rules regulate the process of creating a fantasy team, establish the order of prize pool distribution, as well as fantasy scores assigned to the players according to their performance. That’s why anyone who starts playing fantasy sports on a new platform should first carefully study the drafting and scoring rules of that particular organizer.
Fantasy Sports in the UK
DFS is less popular in the UK than it is in the US or Canada, where, according to statistics, every fifth fan takes part in this game. Nevertheless, the rapid growth of its popularity is astonishing – in the US, for example, the most famous DFS websites not only form partnerships with the largest sports clubs but also pour millions of dollars into sponsorship and advertising. Given the overseas trends, it is very likely that the epidemic of DFS will also conquer Europe very soon. In the recent past in the UK, DFS was seen as something “alien” and incomprehensible, whereas today more and more sports fans and poker players are becoming interested in it. That’s because the strategies used in DFS are not only interesting and exciting but also give players a chance to earn a stable income.