What are fantasy sports? Why does your dad bet hundreds of dollars each sports season on it? Today, on “Sports With Florence,” I’m diving into what exactly fantasy sports are and why they seem so addicting to millions of people.

Fantasy sports in a nutshell are games where you can create a virtual team from a pool of real-world players, and based on performance, you get points. Within your team that you picked, you must enter that team into a fantasy “league” where you compete with other people’s teams 1-on-1 on a week-to-week basis. Then if you win so many games, your team can make it to the playoffs where you face off against other good teams for the championship.

What’s so interesting about it? Fantasy sports can be interesting in a number of ways. Some people do to feel a sense of power and almost a general manager kind of position. Others do just because their friends told them to. Then, there are the gamblers and the fantasy punishers.

Throughout the course of time, betting on competitive events has been extremely popular. In the world of fantasy sports, many people pay an entree fee to get into a league and usually the pool of money contributed is used as the reward money.

I think the fantasy punishers are the legends of fantasy. Instead of a prize pool or a reward of money, it’s more a race of not getting last place. Whoever gets last place is punished in whatever way the group decides.  The most popular punishment I’ve seen online is the dog cage punishment. Where the loser gets into a dog cage, and the group pelts condiments, flour, milk, and an assortment of other things at the loser. Digusting? Yeah. Funny? Also, yeah.

When you have a group of people who all watch a sport and are heavily into them, it’ s fun to have a fantasy group. It makes every win and loss more meaningful for everyone. So if you didn’t know, now you know.