fanatsy football and gambling, legal issues
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Question
Country: United States of AmericaState: FloridaI belong to a fantasy football league in the state of Florida.
It costs $110 to join and the pot is substantial (first place ends up winning around $2k to $3k).
1) Is this illegal to do in the state of Florida (or the US)?
2) I split a team and currently we are in first place with one game to go. If we lose this week and another guy wins, we end up tied in which case we go to the tie breakers. The first tiebreaker is a wash since we were 1-1 against him.
On Friday, we would have won the tiebreaker since it was total points scored (we have him by like 30 pts). I logged on Sunday and noticed that the tiebreakers were changed and now the other guy has the tiebreaker (it is total pts scored against the person you are tied against which he is up by 20 pts).
I wrote to the commissioner and he said that what he changed it to is what it should be (funny how this other guy is his good friend) and that the original rules state that in an email (sent out when we started the league 4 or 5 years ago).
Do I have any legal action I can take if I lose because of this tiebreaker? I have emails from the commissioner stating he changed the site to reflect the rules (I made sure I have a paper trail). Could I take this to small claims court or would the courts not listen because gambling is illegal in FL?
Of course all this might not matter if we just win this week.