http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/communities/atlantic-city_pleasantville_brigantine/fantasy-sports-betting-at-atlantic-city-casinos-won-t-be/article_c591f4ae-9027-11e2-827e-0019bb2963f4.html
By HOA NGUYEN Staff Writer
Denied the chance to authorize sports betting, New Jersey is turning to a similarly popular activity that carries little risk of being challenged in court, observers said.
The Division of Gaming Enforcement published temporary regulations Monday authorizing casinos to operate fantasy sports tournaments, allowing them to charge patrons an entry fee and pay out winnings through the casino cage similar to what gamblers of slot machines and table games experience but with one key difference. The activity is not considered gambling.
Fantasy sports tournaments are contests in which participants create and manage a team — made up of individual players from various real teams — which competes against other fantasy teams based on statistics players generate in the course of playing real games. While some people argue the activity is a form of gambling, professional sports leagues, who sued New Jersey to block the state from authorizing sports betting said in the course of that lawsuit that they viewed fantasy sports as recreation and not real wagering.
“This is an alternative,” Joe Brennan, director of the Interactive Media Entertainment Gaming Association, said of the state’s new fantasy sports regulations. “The leagues can’t argue against it, because they lobbied so hard for it.”