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Dakota Midday: "The Fantasy Sports Gamble"

Dakota Midday host sits down with Walt Bogdanich, an investigative reporter at The New York Times FRONTLINE correspondent. 

FRONTLINE premieres “The Fantasy Sports Gamble,” a collaboration with the New York Times, tonight at 9:00 p.m. Central on SDPB-TV and online at pbs.org/frontline. 

Over the past several years, daily fantasy sports have become big business, with fans betting an estimated $2.6 billion in 2015.  Now, this booming industry is under fire as a growing number of states question its legality.  Do daily fantasy sports amount to illegal gambling, as several states’ attorneys general are now contending?  Or are they an entertainment product, as industry leaders DraftKings and FanDuel say they are? 

On the heels of the Super Bowl, FRONTLINE and The New York Times delve into the proliferation of online sports betting.  “The Fantasy Sports Gamble” investigates the meteoric rise of daily fantasy sports, the serious challenges now facing the industry, and the wider world of online sports gambling — which saw an estimated $140 billion in illegal sports betting in 2014, despite laws meant to stop it.

Lori Walsh is the host and senior producer of In the Moment.