Right now, some of you reading this are enjoying perks you've purchased with that $200 you won in your friends' NFL fantasy pool. You ran the tables and bested your friends this year by making some late trades before the playoffs. Your $20 buy-in quickly turned $200 is money that you technically acquired illegally, according to Iowa law.

Iowa is one of five states, including Montana, Washington, Arizona and Louisiana, that has a law against gambling on fantasy sports. And thousands, if not millions, are transacted each year among friends trying to out-gamble the others. Both Iowa and Washington have bills in legislature trying to overturn the illegal fantasy gambling laws, with the other three states likely to follow, sooner than later.

The argument some lawmakers have against allowing fantasy sports gambling, and online gambling in general, is that it feeds into the gambling addiction, one that ruins lives. However, that argument is not valid in the sense that it already happens and is poorly enforced. No, one cannot legally put in his or her own address on DraftKings or FanDuel, but the loopholes are so easily accessed that literally anyone in those five states could find a way to play. Simply entering an out-of-state address from one of the 45 legal states would suffice in getting someone into a league for a couple hours.

That's how long these things last. You could enter at 10 a.m., put your $25 in, and by 7 p.m., you're either up $200 or out $25. And then you move on to the next day. These online fantasy sites don't require huge buy-ins and months of maintenance. You're in, you're out and you're done ... if you want to be.
It's time to move forward with our progressive technology and means of online entertainment. Maybe we don't have time, or money, to fly out to Las Vegas, put $100 down on a game, lose and fly back. But we've got ample time to sit at home, do some online work and, oh yes, attempt to bank another $200.
The concerns regarding addiction are insufficient to support the continued illegality of online gambling in the state of Iowa. If public well-being is the most prominent concern and reasoning for keeping the gambling sites illegal, then substances such as alcohol, nicotine or maybe even caffeine would be illegal as well.

The issue comes down to the fact that consenting adults should be able to do with their money as they choose and if the gambling sites and establishments are not predatory in their methods, then the state government should not move to ban them wholesale.

This is a reprint from iowastatedaily.com. to view the original, click here.