By ZACH WOYAK 

The Mirror reporter

One of the most popular ways to gamble among friends would be to create one or many fantasy football leagues.

Fantasy football has been around since 1963, three years before the first Super Bowl was won by the Green Bay Packers and 43 years after the NFL was founded in 1920. The first fantasy football league was drafted in Oakland at a bar called Kings X. There were eight teams involved and the first overall pick taken in this draft, and in fantasy history, was George Blanda the legendary quarterback and placekicker for the Houston Oilers. He was the first pick of many to follow.

Fantasy football is a competition between buddies or complete strangers. The participants of the league select NFL players for their fantasy team and have their team face off against the other league members each week of the NFL season.The players score points based on their actual performance from that week and whichever team racks up the most points for that week wins the matchup.

The most popular sites that offer fantasy football are ESPN.com, NFL.com, and Yahoo.com. Each fantasy team normally has eight starters: a quarterback, two running backs, two receivers, a tight end, a running back/wide receiver position, a team defense and a kicker. Along with that come a few bench members. Not all fantasy settings are the same. Some leagues have more quarterbacks or any other position, some leagues don’t have a bench and have everyone play and some aren’t week-to-week but are throughout the whole season.

Personally, I have played fantasy football since I was about ten. I recently began getting into leagues where I pay to play; the buy-in for my league this year was $25.The team I drafted was good enough to solidify my spot in the playoffs inching me closer and closer to winning my money back and then some. For others, that is not the case as they don’t make the playoffs and end up losing the money they put on their team because a player got injured or lost their starting job.

Many people end up paying a ridiculous amount of money to play fantasy football and then end up losing it all in the end. For some fantasy leagues the buy-ins are up to $1,600 for one team! In my opinion, that is way too much money unless you are a millionaire and could offer such a steep price. I think a good buy-in price is $20 especially if you’re getting into multiple buy-in leagues. Yet, if you only get in one or two leagues, I think $200 dollars is the maximum limit for the people who live on the risky side.