WESTLAKE, Texas – Cameron Pettigrew could hardly believe it.
“I just kept thinking, all of this for a $20 fantasy football league. Are you kidding me?”
The 26-year-old lost what he calls a promising job at Fidelity Investments for violating a policy he felt most people at work ignored. The policy considered fantasy football to be gambling.
“Their reasoning for firing me versus others was … it’s ludicrous,” he told Fox 4 News at his Grapevine, Texas home.
Pettigrew says he was the league’s commissioner. Other team owners in his league included, he says, at least one manager. Pettigrew says the manager was not fired.
The move has gained attention in the world of fantasy football, where tens of millions of players play in leagues that run from the casual to the obsessive.
Fantasy football guru and syndicated columnist Ladd Biro called the move “a ridiculous and capricious application of an otherwise sensible rule (e.g., no gambling on company time)”.
Biro argues fantasy football is not considered gambling by most of society.
“There are no betting lines, no bookies, and, in the vast majority of leagues, no high stakes. In the case of the Fidelity league, the guys put up a whopping $20, for crying out loud,” Biro wrote.
Biro is urging his readers to contact Fidelity in protest.
