Daily Fantasy Sports in Canada: A Game Mixed of Chance and Skill

Abstract

As so well asserted by renowned doctrine as sports team fans, we often passionately criticize the decisions of coaches and managers with regards to team strategy. For example, most fans often engage in discussions with friends and colleagues on their personal take for team selection. That is their own «fantasy team» of players whom they believe have what it takes to win the match and indeed the championship. However, each of these assembled fantasy teams remains untested because there is simply no method to measure our ability to select the winning fantasy team. Thus, with each new sports season come the chats and critical appraisals of team selection all over again. However, all of this changed in the 1960s. Since then, sports fans in the United States have had the opportunity to form such «fantasy teams,» (albeit not in the mainstream way of today) and engage in «competition» with other «fantasy teams». The winning fantasy team is determined by the actual performance of their players in real-life competition. This has been made possible by the use of widely available performance statistics for players and teams which takes place in an IA (Intelligent Ambient) or, more commonly, on a virtual and computerized reality. Make no mistake: daily fantasy sports are a dazzling form of entertainment. But there have been ongoing difficulties to ascertain as to whether they are a game of chance or skill. This is crucially important in light of the current Canadian legal landscape. This paper avowedly asserts that Daily Fantasy Sports in Canada should be regarded as a game mixed of chance and skill as both features ought to be synergetic-ally combined in order to achieve a definition that can thoroughly encompass its complexity in light of Canada Criminal Code. This is the main aim of this manuscript.

Introduction

a) The concept of intelligent ambient or IAm [1,2] (from the English Ambient Intelligence) [3] represents a digital and pervasive ambient created by the convergence of the technologies of radio transmission and broadcasting (as an identification by radiofrequency (RFID) [4], agents of software, sensor networks, processing of data by personal mobile devices, which provides, in cyberspace, the integration and the interaction of the devices named as «intelligent» [5]. This digital-borne reality is ever-present in the computerized society we live in. Moreover, this digital-borne reality portrays an ambient (intelligent) in which the daily fantasy sports players are surrounded by intuitive interfaces embedded in every corner (even the most inhospitable ones) of their electronic equipment (such as portable devices, laptops, tablets) [6]. A provisional conclusion can be withdrawn: Ambient Intelligence enabled daily fantasy sports reality. Being an axiom that daily fantasy sports are a digital-borne reality, question is to fathom its legal and social implications from a juridical standpoint: is it a game? Are daily fantasy sports solely dependent on the (vast or narrow) array of skills of the player? Let us take a closer look.

b) In Canada, provincial lottery corporations are the entities responsible for conducting and managing all «gaming» and «betting» in Canada. «Game» is defined in the Canadian Criminal Code (the Code) to mean «a game of chance or a game of mixed chance and skill». By implication, this means that none of the offences relating to an unlawful «game» apply to a game of skill alone. «Bet» is defined in the Code to mean a bet that is placed on any contingency or event that is to take place in or out of Canada, and without restricting the generality of the foregoing, includes a bet that is placed on any contingency relating to a horse-race, fight, match or sporting event that is to take place in or out of Canada. Draft Kings and Fan Duel offer DFS contests to players located in Canada. DFS operators claim that DFS contests are games of skill. As games of skill, DFS contests would not be subject to the gaming and betting provisions of the Code, and would not have to be conducted and managed by the provincial lottery corporations. There has not been a definitive pronouncement from a Canadian court regarding the legality of fantasy sports. Accordingly, whether DFS contests are considered bets, games of chance, games of mixed chance and skill, or games of skill, is not settled law [7,8].

As far as the aforementioned goes, there should be an accurate definition of Daily Fantasy Sports. It should be thoroughly outlined whether they are games of skill or chance or games of mixed chance and skill either.