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11

May

Addiction to Fantasy Sports?

UNLV professor Dr. Bo Bernhard did a study on fantasy sports last year and found only a few instances of the phenomenon taking over someone’s life.

“People talked about how ‘My wife banned me for a year,’ or ‘I spend so much time researching these players,’ ” Dr. Bernhard said. “… People talked about the time commitment and how that really sort of interfered with their everyday life, either their work life or their family life.

“So there certainly were horror stories, both in terms of effects on work and effects on family, but those seem to be very much the exception rather than the rule. But it’s certainly something that exists.”

http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/1259/1/Fantasy-sports-another-internet-addiction/Page1.html

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“I don’t think addiction or gambling is at all a problem in fantasy sports. Gambling addicts get in trouble when they lose big money in quick fixes. Regardless of how much money you might have invested in a fantasy team, your “bet” will be lasting over the entire course of a professional season. There’s really no harm there, and real gambling addicts don’t have that type of patience to see the hopeful return on their bets.”

—Danny, online fantasy sports columnist, age 23

**Response to Research Question

Author Note: While none of the subjects I interviewed have known anyone who has had an addiction or gambling problem as a result to fantasy sports, many of them see the potential for it.