Should Government Regulate Fantasy Football?

As football fans everywhere get set to watch this weekend’s slate of games, an ever-growing number of fans are taking a more active role in the game, drafting players and setting lineups of their own on fantasy football websites.

But paying to put your drafting skills up against thousands of others around the country could soon come to an end in Massachusetts, as the government is involving itself in the multi-billion dollar industry.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced this week she is reviewing the legality of daily fantasy websites like DraftKings — a Boston-based league supported by Patriots owner Robert Kraft — and FanDuel.

“The point is this: This is a new industry. It’s something that we’re reviewing, and we’ll learn more about it,” Healey said when asked about the legality of the business on Wednesday.

Daily fantasy websites allow players to pay to draft a team of NFL players, whose actual statistics in Sunday’s games translate into fantasy points for their owners in DraftKings and others. The teams with the most fantasy points in their fantasy league win cash prizes.

Some government representatives consider this gambling, no different than secretly meeting with a bookie to lay the points and bet the house on the outcome of Monday night’s game. Such games of chance are illegal, at least outside of government-regulated casinos.

That, according to Peter Schoenke, chairman of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, is the key difference. Playing fantasy football is not a game of chance; rather, an exercise of skill. The best fantasy players spent countless hours pouring over statistics, weekly match-ups and past performances to draft the best players while staying within a virtual salary cap. It is not chance that a fantasy owner wins. It is his or her skill in identifying the best players and formulating a strategy to get them that determines the weekly outcomes.

“These are skill-based games that match sports fans against each other in a contest of sports knowledge and strategy that is fundamentally different from wagering on the performance of an individual player or the outcome of a particular game,” Schoenke told the Boston Globe.

Healy is not alone among politicians in targeting fantasy football sites. The games are legal under U.A. and Canadian law, but are outlawed in Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana and Washington.

Congress may now involve itself in the fantasy world. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey on Monday told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that fantasy sites like DraftKings “blur the line” between fantasy sports and outright gambling. He recommended the committee put the sites under review.

What do you think? Should the government regulate skill-based games that involve money the same way it does gambling?