Fantasy compliance

As summer turns to autumn, the US finally has some Sunday night television worth watching again: the sight of 300lb pound men smashing into each other at high speeds. Yes, it’s the start of the new NFL season. And that also means the re-emergence of an office staple: the guy who insists on everyone signing up to a workplace fantasy football league.

But here’s something you may not know: it’s possible that fantasy football leagues can become a compliance risk. For starters, that pocket change put up by staff might be considered gambling under certain states’ laws – meaning the firm needs to either ban fantasy football outright, or stress that participation shouldn’t take place during work hours if money is involved.

The real hidden risk, though, is that fantasy football can be used to support a claim of harassment or discrimination. Employment law blogger Daniel Schwartz ran a Google Scholar search on fantasy football and employment law and discovered a number of such cases – including, for example, a female employee who used an office fantasy league she’d been excluded from as evidence of sexual harassment.

So in the absence of any clear and explicit legal guidance on the subject of fantasy football, it may be that these leagues represent a bit of gamble for private fund  CCOs – even if they resist the temptation to sign up themselves.