His point is that currently in the US "games of skill" are legal where "games of chance" are not. Fantasy is legal because it is classified as a game of skill where black jack is not.
Fantasy is legal because of this text of in the UIGEA
`(D) does not include--
`(ix) participation in any fantasy or simulation sports game or educational game or contest in which (if the game or contest involves a team or teams) no fantasy or simulation sports team is based on the current membership of an actual team that is a member of an amateur or professional sports organization (as those terms are defined in section 3701 of title 28) and that meets the following conditions:
`(I) All prizes and awards offered to winning participants are established and made known to the participants in advance of the game or contest and their value is not determined by the number of participants or the amount of any fees paid by those participants.
`(II) All winning outcomes reflect the relative knowledge and skill of the participants and are determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of the performance of individuals (athletes in the case of sports events) in multiple real-world sporting or other events.
`(III) No winning outcome is based--
`(aa) on the score, point-spread, or any performance or performances of any single real-world team or any combination of such teams; or
`(bb) solely on any single performance of an individual athlete in any single real-world sporting or other event.
In reality, success in most games comes from a combination of luck and skill. Part of "skill" is dealing with and capitalizing on the randomness of "luck".
In practice, who typically ends up drawing this distinction? Appellate judges?
The skill you point out is also generally luck, the only time skill comes into play is when you're doing something that the casino will kick you out / stop offering those terms
It's also misleading since in, for instance, blackjack, even when you play at the highest (casino-allowed) skill, you will lose. That's not true of poker or DFS.
There's still plenty of nuance (luck prevails in the short term while skill prevails in the long term).
counting cards in a casino or professional setting will get you blacklisted and thrown out of said casino. the preventative measures against card counting are extensive, to say the least. Your example still works, but it's not applicable in America, where the daily sports issues arise.
