the latter was syria. if you commit that you commit a crime. >> that's our show for tonight, i'm ali velshi. thanks for joining us. betting on sports, but outside of las vegas, it's pretty much, illegal, right? so what do you do? don't bet on the games. bet on game derived performances. in games that don't really happen. it started out as a way for fans to be their own general managers. drafting, trading, seeing how it all works out for fun. fantasy sports are now a multi-billion dollars business, and it's all legal. you want to bet? it's the inside story. ♪

>> welcome to "inside story," i'm ray suarez. what started out as a sub culture is now a huge business. assemble a team from real professional players. the real player's actual performances on the field, the court, the ice are converted into points and you win or lose against other players who have done the same and are hoping the teams they put together on paper beat yours. hobbyists, watched pro performs, and up and coming college players, and then there are league tables, standards, and commissioners keeping it cranking along. but the intimate has accelerated the growth of fantasy sports allowing you to play against people you don't know, and now you can risk and win money, and

websites assure you it's all legal. john henry smith takes a closer look. [ cheers and applause ] >> reporter: old school sports fandom, follow your team. new sports fandom, follow your fantasy league. rick runs a season that runs as long as the real season. >> yes, i'm a jets fan. but to also make some money along the way makes that that much more exciting. >> reporter: the winner of rick's league takes home hundreds of dollars. but for those of you who don't want to wait that long to win, there's a new way to play. if you have watched any major

sports programming this year, you have no doubt seen these ads. fan duals, are paying $75 million a week with a immediate cash payout. >> reporter: daily fantasy leagues offer the chance to win week. >> i have won to date so far, profit, almost $5,000. >> reporter: they offer their ability to play for high stakes with a cost to pay that could be as low as a single dollar, sometimes even less. and that's made for an army of converts and made powerhouses out of the industry's two biggest competitors. draft kings and fan duel are now valued at more than a billion dollars each, thanks to partnerships with heavy hitters who want a piece of the action. they are spending a lot of that capital to get you to play their game.

according to i-spot-tv. fan duel and draft king consistently rank the highest in the u.s. >> they are both won $375 million. and they are battling it out. >> they brought in a combined $60 million in entry fees. twice as much as football betting the old fashioned way brought into las vegas during the same time period. in fact many argue that playing daily fantasy sports is just gambling, the new-fashioned way. mark is a law professor in new york. >> is it gambling? absolutely. but is it illegal? >> reporter: the answer is no. playing daily fantasy sports online for money is legal, right now for one reason. when the federal law passed in

2006, lobbying from the major pro sports leagues resulted in lawmakers granting fantasy out. >> for the carve out to apply, first it has to be a contest based on the relative skill of the players, secondly the prizes have to be predetermined and it has to be based on the results of multiple real world players. >> reporter: the skill angle is one the industry points to repeatedly as the reason why the government shouldn't lump it in with the likes of on-line poker. representative frank of new jersey has called for an investigation, he says to him, daily fantasy sports clearly gam gambling. >> how is it any different? >> reporter: washington state senator has tried to keep her

state one of five in the country where playing daily fantasy sports online is illegal. >> having an online gaming gambling. >> since this market was developing, even as some companies like fan duel were making money, i don't think congressmen were paying that muched a tense. and now it has lead to a lot of people looking up and saying what is going on here. >> reporter: concerns of legality barely register with ricky anthony. or the other players. they are too busy playing. >> sunday is the most, because i'm a football phone. i'm constantly on the phone with fan duel, watching the television, so it's a 10-hour day for me. >> reporter: john henry smith, al jazeera.

>> joining us for a look at this new frontier, is drew who won a million dollars playing fantasy football. welcome to the program. as we mentioned in the report, 75 million people play. for the other 250 million of us. let's start with basics. what do you do at the beginning of the season? how do you start a team? >> yeah, so the difference between daily and season-long fantasy football, at the beginning of the season you have a draft and it's the same nine or ten other people that you are competing with, and you each pick your players and that's your team for the season. you can manage your team. you can put players in, but the guys you draft are generally the guys you are going to use for the entire season. the difference with daily fantasy sports basically every week is a new season. and instead of those assets being unique players that only

you can draft, you are drafting within a salary cap, so the people you are competing against can use the same players as well as long as you stay under a callty cap. >> well, now that you have done it and done it well, what is your judgment? is there a certain amount of chance to it? or is it a game of skill? >> it is certainly a game of skill. the more players play they tend to get better, and they make better scores and choices. in the game of skill angle has been carved out within the lawmakers parameters, and it's certainly a game of skill. i think you see a lot of winning players near the top of leader boards over and over again. >> is it gamble? >> i think gambling is a hot-button word for a lot of people. and i think if you use the word investing, it changes the perception for a lot of people.

i view it similarly to investing. i'm cutting capital certainly at risk. i'm not always going to get a return on that capital, but i'm investing it with the expectation that over time i will be able to generate a return through my skill. so i view it as investing. and i think some people get hung up on the word of gambling . >> since you came from the world of finance first to fantasy football, is there a lot of overlap between the way you see the world and the way you work in those two arenas? >> certainly. there is a lot of similarity. each week i'm sitting there trying to assess the true value of a player, what i expect that player's value to be worth. so if draft king is saying a player is worth $6,000 or 12% of the budget, i have to decide if

that player is worth more or less than that number. and that's what a lot of investment people are doing when they are making decisions on stocks. they are trying to understand are they paying a price below or above the market expectation. so i think there are a lot of similarities between the two. >> drew stand by, we're going to pick this up in a moment. one of the most fascinating aspects of fantasy leagues is their relationship to real leagues. how have the leagues treated the rise of fantasy sports. fantasy sports, want a bet? it's the inside story. ♪ >> the cops is a legalized gang... it makes me scared for everybody >> fear and distrust

in baltimore... >> they've just been pepper spraying people at very close range... >> years of tension between the community and police erupt... >> she was on her way home to her kid, and she never made it... >> a former cop speaks out... >> if you had taken steps when a man was assaulted, maybe freddie gray didn't have to die. >> is there still a blue wall of silence in american cities? >> did somebody get shot? fault lines baltimore rising only on al jazeera america

>> the money fell victim to the politics.

>> they're more focused on getting jobs than our education.

welcome back to "inside story". i'm ray suarez. fantasy sport, as it grows and increases influence, businesses jump in to monetise the fund. it's not just the nerdy thrill of putting together a team, the possibility of risking and making money attracts new players to the draft. will fantasy leagues add to the growing availability of legal chance, encouraging people to turn over time and the expense of other things. jobs, family, other responsibilities, i'm back with drew and christine, you heard drew talk about the protections built into the websites, are they sufficient? >> yes, i think that it is

instructive to look at the online gaming site out of europe, for example. harvard medical school did a study. they found that they didn't find a high rate of problems. among the survivors, they did find that. they did find the ability to limit wages. >> we could look to that. of course, that study did not include u.s. audience, and, therefore, might not be generalised. i think it's worth looking at. >> is there a certain amount of self-identification that goes on, and they ask you questions. it's up to you to answer them honestly. before you can pass various thresholds. we have to conclude that no high school

boys are watching internet important or playing poker online if we thought the thresholds were enough. >> yes, i think it's tricky, i don't think there any guarantee. i think it's important to give people the ability to be informed about what is available, and to make a decision ahead of time. i think that it's also important to look at what the average wages are. i don't know, because we don't have studies of fantasy sports in the u.s. online studies indicate a low rate of wagering which leads us to believe that that is probably why there aren't many problems in that particular market. >> drew, one thing that is fascinating for me is watching how comfortable the big sports leagues in north america have become with the idea of this world existing based on

intellectual property that they create. it's like trading derivatives. the n.b.a., and major league baseball and the n.f.l. not only encourage it, but they have sights on their own website na give the points, help you figure out who to draft and so on. they are completely comfortable with this. >> yes, the leagues get a lot of benefit. there's a lot of engagement going along with fantasy sports. there's times you'll get a random thursday night game with the jaguars and tennessee tigers, maybe the fan team is not as strong. fantasy players are watching, they have players, and the leagues enjoy it. some of the other tertiary sports that are not as popular, they'll see growth in those aspects in terms.

viewership and audience because people are invested emotionally. it's a radioactive charge on gambling, for a lot of people in the sports leagues, they are wary about how to approach people who put money on the line. why is this different. is there a danger if you are not careful? >> i think the difference is drawn by the lawmakers and, you know, that's the distinction between fantasy sports and gambling, and the leagues are trying to toe the line. the general interest for the league in terms of engagement is covered on both ends. it helps to generate engagement. the main concern is throwing that. >> it is reduced by fantasy sports where individual layers are lected. >> is there research that should be done, that needs to be done to keep an eye on the world

because it's growing so fast. >> yes, i think it would be helpful to do more studies. it's an age at higher risk. it's a lot easier to recruit subjects for those studies, i'm hoping that we get studies that are representative of the nation, of the college student nationwide drew drinkmire join us us. specialist turned fantasy sports player, and christine riley, from the national center of the responsible gaming. thanks for joining us i'll be back in a moment for the final thought on the gaming and the games itself. stay with us, and send us your thoughts on twitter, or follow me and get in touch, we'd love to hear what you have to say.

>> the money fell victim to the politics. >> they're more focused on getting jobs than our education.

throughout the history of sports in america, the money has gotten bigger and bigger. cheating has been a danger, a threat. a boxer taking a dive, a jockey holding back a horse, a pitcher played to throw a game. a basketball player told to win, but not beat the spread. the governing authorities of various games tried to watch, control, rain in the apparently

human tendency to want to win so bad you cheat to do it. it's hard to see how fantasy sports warm their way into the game, affect and infect performers and performances. because you make your own teams and don't bet on games from real teams, the affect that any one quarterback, point guard or slugging center fielder has is muted and becomes a factor in a big collection of factors determining the outcome on the field and on your fantasy team. we are, as a society, flirting with moving the line. when sports please become a happy home for gamblers, invest in gambling sites and insist that the build-in protections are enough. you know the joke that ends on the internet - no one knows you are a dog. game the site, no one knows if you are a problem gambler or a kid. i suspect someone somewhere is

trying to figure out how to cheat. we'll adjust when they do. until then, play ball. i'm ray suarez, and that's >> baltimore's sandtown neighborhood. the heart of west baltimore, and one of the city's poorest areas. this is where freddie gray grew up -- known to friends as pepper. >> why was his nickname pepper? >> i never heard of pepper being bad for nobody, salt is bad for you, salt will kill you. i never heard nobody dying from pepper, everybody loves pepper. and he was dark skinned, so.