DraftKings employee wins fanduel 350K with Inside Informatio

[KenGill]

Chad - totally agree with you about the scripts issue.

ChiTown - thanks for posting that long article which I skimmed through. Comments....
* Sud is a genius. Although if he's using scripts to change his lineups -- he's got an unfair advantage.
* Congressman Frank Pallone: is a leech. (like most of our politicians).... He needs to start doing something constructive for his state instead of trying to regulate something that doesn't need regulating. Needs to stop trying to figure out how to grab more taxes so that his democratic party can redistribute the money to their voters and/or donors. (or to his own pocket)

[Team Legacy]

I've been fairly quiet but I've been heavily involved educating my team at Scout with what's going on and of course, covering the story like every media company has to. However, I now have experience as both an operator and an advocate, from my days at the FPA, and if there ever was a reason for an FPA like org, this is it. We as players need to be on the same page.

Here are a few of my random thoughts for today.

1. Ethan Haskell has since removed ability to view his wins from Rotogrinders. Banning employees doesn't solve the issue but it's a good first step. They'll just open accounts in their wife or brothers name, no? Access MUST BE removed, and limited strictly to incoming customer support requests on an individual lineup basis only.

2. Nobody is talking about the fact that once ownership was published on DK, that everyone who saw that article had a huge advantage going into 4:00 games due to late swap.

3. Everyone talks about evidence that this didn't help him , yet we've SEEN zero evidence, only claims from the CEO, no reports, no data, no logs. If there was evidence to support the claims, why wouldn't they post the technical looking logs from the database to support it?

4. Everybody talks about owned percentages from thursday as the readily available info everyone has access to.

4.1 That's nonsense. Players shouldn't be required to play at Fanduel to be on a level playing field with the pros at dk.

4.2 Realize things change between Thursday and Sunday. Knowing percentages owned is without a doubt extremely valuable information to most and especially to those who treat their player exposure like a portfolio. What percent change will Julio be today based on the Schefter report? How about Hankerson, Roddy etc?

5. Scripting:

Scripting is flat out unfair when it comes to late swap, if some code is found and determined that mid day, it evaluates teams ahead, projects which players are in lineups and adjusts your lineups with differing players. How could we humanly compete with something like that?

We need to fully understand scripting, and what’s approved and how it’s continuously monitored. I could easily see a site, “yes this is approved, you now have access”, then just tweak the code. Who is regulating this and how? If I sit at a poker table (another game of skill) we are not allowed to consult with my computer program before deciding to fold.

6. Amaya aka Pokerstars, who bought Victiv and rebranded as StarsDraft has just yesterday BANNED Florida residents. They had previously and recently banned Michigan residents. They are taking a cautious approach as they truly understand regulation from their years being regulated by the Nevada Gaming Commission. This is scary for DFS. If even a few big states take a hardline approach to Daily fantasy, it's lights out. That would be a huge revenue hit.

Now that there is no question in the industry this is taken on a state by state basis, (yes Im talking to you season long sites, you know who you are) if there ever was a time for FSTA to help guide and advise DK and FD, this is it. Fire up those lobbyists and attorneys, the daily industry has a battle to fight and it may be fighting for all of us, season long included.

[Coyote Streakers]

I give it 2-3 years before DFS is gone just like Poker. The 50 million commercials plus all this crap will not bode well for the daily industry. Its just a matter of time before Govt. gets involved and regulates. I hope I am wrong but I fear the heat is coming.

[Sandman62]

I've dabbled in DFS and it is absolutely an advantage to know the %'s ahead of time. IMO anyone who doesn't thinks so, doesn't understand how to be a successful DFS player.

I'm sure there are NFBC'ers who think a current adp report is meaningless, ie, u should have a general idea where players go. Those folks are called dead money in my book

One has nothing to do with the other. Obviously I don't understand how to be a successful DFS player and I should just be quiet. But I disagree with you and I disagree with anyone who says that knowing % owned has any major effect on your chance of winning. It doesn't. No football player is going to play better or worse because of how much he is owned in fantasy football and these "successful" DFS players would do no better or worse if they knew the numbers. Reason is, they basically already know the numbers. Its pretty simple to predict these trends. Won't help you win. Are we all of a sudden making DFS a game of skill? Million dollar contests are simply a lottery ticket, proven by 3 of the 4 "million dollar” winners at FanDuel this year having hardly ever played before.

Here's as good of an explanation of why knowing ownership percentage matters as I've seen (CBS):

Ownership percentage is a very nuanced issue that could be covered as a series of articles, but I'm going to try to give a short explanation in a few paragraphs. Let's start with Devonta Freeman and Eddie Lacy this week, who are both $7,600. Freeman was about 40 percent owned and Lacy about 5 percent owned in Thursday night contests.
For the purpose of simplicity, we'll use a GPP with 100,000 entries as an example. In example A, you use Devonta Freeman and he is once again the top running back in his price range by a good margin. There are 40,ooo Devonta Freeman lineups in this contest, so you need your other eight players to beat the eight players of 40,000 other entries. Much better off than the 1-in-100,000 odds you originally faced, but still not great.

In example B, you use Lacy and he is the top running back in the price range, even better than Freeman. There are 5,000 lineups with Eddie Lacy in them, so now you have approximately 1-in-5,000 odds. Those are great odds compared to where you started, or even where you would have been in Example A.

In fact, your position would be eight times as good as it would have been in example A. Now, Lacy has to actually be better than Freeman for this to work. At this point what you need to decide is this; Is it eight times more likely that Devonta Freeman is better than Eddie Lacy in Week 5? If you think so then you should still play Freeman (or find someone else in that price range). Generally the answer to that question is no when you're dealing with two players in the same price range.

http://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/footba ... ent-plays/

[Team Legacy]

Well, add our friends at StarFantasyLeagues.com to the list of companies banning Florida residents.

According to Chris Grove @OPReport
https://twitter.com/OPReport/status/652940580838866944

I have independent confirmation that federal grand jury convening in Florida to consider charges against DFS operators. No official word yet.

Florida always has been one of the states we've been warned about that was "on the fence". Well, if they thought that way about season long, how do you think they feel about DFS?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Florida always has been one of the states we've been warned about that was "on the fence". Well, if they thought that way about season long, how do you think they feel about DFS?

Just an FYI: Florida has never really been "on the fence" about fantasy sports. In 1991, their Attorney General Bob Butterworth wrote an opinion that he felt fantasy sports was gambling and in fact he tried to prosecute a fireman who was running a local fantasy football league while working at the Ft. Lauderdale firehouse. Butterworth made a big splash about this and heck I even had to go down there on behalf of the fireman to testify as an expert witness. The case was dismissed before it went to court, but Butterworth's opinion is what people refer to when saying Florida is "on the fence." No legislation has ever been brought up since 1991, but that case against a local citizen running a small dollar fantasy football league is what has scared some folks about Florida.

This is all a serious problem and DFS companies have a lot of explaining to do. Let's see how they handle things going forward. The ball is in their hands to make this right, that's for sure.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Apparently the negative publicity didn't hurt Fanduel and Draft Kings last week as they both set record numbers this week:

http://espn.go.com/chalk/story/_/id/138 ... nfl-season

[Sandman62]

Apparently the negative publicity didn't hurt Fanduel and Draft Kings last week as they both set record numbers this week:

http://espn.go.com/chalk/story/_/id/138 ... nfl-season

I wonder how many people, like myself, naively thought that with all the negative publicity, they might back off a bit this week on the shenanigans. Maybe I just suck, but I fared worse than most weeks.

[BillyWaz]

I give it 2-3 years before DFS is gone just like Poker. The 50 million commercials plus all this crap will not bode well for the daily industry. Its just a matter of time before Govt. gets involved and regulates. I hope I am wrong but I fear the heat is coming.

I agree with Mike, but I think it could be even less. EVERY sporting event you watch is swamped with at least 10 DK and 10 Fan Duel commercials. These guys are literally exposing themselves so much that they are cutting their own throats and don't even know it.

[King of Queens]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-justice ... 1444865627

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/sport ... ports&_r=0

The news just keeps getting better and better...