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With the lottery, you are expected to lose. I would the lottery in the same box as slots, blackjack, and other games where you play against the house. The house

With the lottery, you are expected to lose. I would the lottery in the same box as slots, blackjack, and other games where you play against the house. The house will always win. They spend a lot of money making sure the odds are in their favor. Fantasy sports is more like poker. Yes, it is a game of chance, but it is primarily a game of skill. Maybe most people don't have enough skill to make a difference, but given enough time, it can be acquired and you can have +EV. Also, in poker and fantasy sports, you don't play against the house. They just take their cut, and you play against other people. Note, I'm excluding blackjack from skill-based mainly because you are playing against the house, so its by their rules, and if you start winning, they'll kick you out.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Recent article posted here in HN shows that fantasy sports are not a game of skill, since a very few people win all the money (millions) and everybody else loses. Because those few have written software to game the leagues. So essentially just a money pit.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  I'm curious how you arrive at the conclusion that using software to help you win a game means it's not a game of skill. That's like the definition of self-contradiction.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Your skill is irrelevant against the automated betting bots.
    - thugthrasher 11y ago
      Only because their skill is much higher than mine. That makes it a game of skill, just one in which the top percent is MUCH better than most.
- reverend_gonzo 11y ago
  What? If very few people win all the money, it is most definitely a game of skill and not a game of chance,
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    ...or the game is essentially fixed, so that your skill is irrelevant.
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    It's a zero sum game, so the applicability of your skill is relative to the other players. The average bettor understands the mechanics of the bet and has an intuitive understanding of what he is betting on. The 25th percentile bettor is clueless or worse (I like green, go Jets!) and is operating a reverse ATM. Look at horse racing. At an off-season harness track where the purse is low and horses all suck, the professional handicapper loses a lot of his edge, as you never know when one horse is going to have a great day. At the Belmont/Preakness/Travers/Kentucky Derby, a pro has a huge edge, as they generally can call the winner with precision -- the pros are betting on the finishing order via exacta bets. The crowd tries to picks the winning horse, and in the event of a win, makes a lousy $0.50 on a $2 bet :)
    - Domenic_S 11y ago
      It's negative-sum, because of the rake.
- AaronM 11y ago
  That's not entirely true. They game the system by automating lineups that allow them to play multiple games a day.
ojbyrne 11y ago
A minor quibble with this argument, both in poker and fantasy sports, while you do compete with others, the house also always wins, because of the rake.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
TBH, the whole "game of skill" thing (notice how obsessively often this particular phrase pops up) is just a way to sneak fantasy sports through a loophole in anti-gambling laws. For your average Joe, it's indistinguishable from gambling - including all the addiction and collateral damage that causes gambling to be heavily regulated in the first place. But it is a good game for bored STEM undergrads, just like online poker is a good game for bored computer science undergrads. I had a few guys on my year who lived completely off online poker games while in university. They deployed custom-made scripts to automate playing on multiple tables at the same time, and probably did some other things that they didn't tell me. It's the same thing with fantasy sports, except you spend most of the time maintaining complex spreadsheets.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Recent article posted here in HN shows that fantasy sports are not a game of skill, since a very few people win all the money (millions) and everybody else loses. Because those few have written software to game the leagues. So essentially just a money pit.

waterlesscloud 11y ago
I'm curious how you arrive at the conclusion that using software to help you win a game means it's not a game of skill. That's like the definition of self-contradiction.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Your skill is irrelevant against the automated betting bots.
  - thugthrasher 11y ago
    Only because their skill is much higher than mine. That makes it a game of skill, just one in which the top percent is MUCH better than most.
reverend_gonzo 11y ago
What? If very few people win all the money, it is most definitely a game of skill and not a game of chance,
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  ...or the game is essentially fixed, so that your skill is irrelevant.
- Spooky23 11y ago
  It's a zero sum game, so the applicability of your skill is relative to the other players. The average bettor understands the mechanics of the bet and has an intuitive understanding of what he is betting on. The 25th percentile bettor is clueless or worse (I like green, go Jets!) and is operating a reverse ATM. Look at horse racing. At an off-season harness track where the purse is low and horses all suck, the professional handicapper loses a lot of his edge, as you never know when one horse is going to have a great day. At the Belmont/Preakness/Travers/Kentucky Derby, a pro has a huge edge, as they generally can call the winner with precision -- the pros are betting on the finishing order via exacta bets. The crowd tries to picks the winning horse, and in the event of a win, makes a lousy $0.50 on a $2 bet :)
  - Domenic_S 11y ago
    It's negative-sum, because of the rake.
AaronM 11y ago
That's not entirely true. They game the system by automating lineups that allow them to play multiple games a day.

ojbyrne 11y ago

A minor quibble with this argument, both in poker and fantasy sports, while you do compete with others, the house also always wins, because of the rake.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

TBH, the whole "game of skill" thing (notice how obsessively often this particular phrase pops up) is just a way to sneak fantasy sports through a loophole in anti-gambling laws. For your average Joe, it's indistinguishable from gambling - including all the addiction and collateral damage that causes gambling to be heavily regulated in the first place. But it is a good game for bored STEM undergrads, just like online poker is a good game for bored computer science undergrads. I had a few guys on my year who lived completely off online poker games while in university. They deployed custom-made scripts to automate playing on multiple tables at the same time, and probably did some other things that they didn't tell me. It's the same thing with fantasy sports, except you spend most of the time maintaining complex spreadsheets.