Fantasy sports are online games where participants build virtual teams of real professional athletes and earn points based on the athletes' actual statistical performances in real games. The concept has deep roots, tracing back to the 1866 tabletop game Sebring Parlor Base Ball, and evolved through dice-based simulations like National Pastime (1930) and APBA (1951), which used player cards to mimic real-life performances. The 1961 game Strat-O-Matic heavily influenced Daniel Okrent, who later pioneered modern rotisserie baseball, and that same year, John Burgeson coded an early fantasy baseball simulation for an IBM 1620 computer. The first organized leagues emerged in the 1950s when Oakland businessman Wilfred "Bill" Winkenbach created fantasy golf and baseball games, though they failed to gain public traction. In 1960, sociologist William A. Gamson founded the Baseball Seminar league, where players drafted active MLB stars and compared their season-ending stats. These early experiments laid the groundwork for the massive, internet-driven fantasy sports industry enjoyed by millions today.