Abstract: A computer-based interactive fantasy sports gaming system that enables players to create a fantasy sports team for virtual participation. The fantasy gaming system implements and manages gaming sessions that correspond to and last for a single real-world sporting event. A user-interface is provided to facilitate athlete selection under constraints that limit the overall pool of athlete candidates to just those participating in the corresponding real-world event, and that limit teams to a smaller subset of the athletes participating in the real-world event. The gaming system is fully integrated with social media channels such as, without limitation, Twitter®, Google+®, and Facebook®, through which players can challenge, communicate and play with their friends.