Call For Regulation Of DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports) Grows Amid Shady Insider Trading Possibility At DraftKings

[HacheMan]

ESPN ends DraftKings-sponsored segments

ESPN said Tuesday that it's pulling on-air segments sponsored by one of the companies implicated in a possible scandal that's rocked the billion dollar world of fantasy sports.

During an afternoon appearance on "Outside the Lines," ESPN anchor Bob Ley detailed how the company is adjusting its partnership with DraftKings.


"ESPN today continued running commercials for the two main daily sports fantasy companies, but has removed sponsored elements from within shows," Ley said.

A spokesperson for ESPN confirmed to CNNMoney that the channel has pulled DraftKings billboards and sponsorship out of news programming on Tuesday, adding that it is "standard procedure for us to pull these kind of sponsorships and integrations when we are covering significant news, to avoid any suggestion of influence on our coverage."

The spokesperson said that ESPN is evaluating the integration of DraftKings in its programming on a day-to-day basis.
And contrary to Ley's on-air statement that the commercials are still running on ESPN, the spokesperson said that DraftKings pulled its ads on the channel on Tuesday.

The decision comes a day after the New York Times reported that a DraftKings employee admitted to inadvertently releasing data prior to the slate of Week 3 NFL games, prompting claims that the employee may have used insider information to win a $350,000 prize at FanDuel.

Related: Fantasy sports giants ban employees from games over cheating concerns

That admission forced DraftKings and FanDuel, two of the biggest companies in fantasy sports, to defend their business practices. The two companies said that they have banned employees from playing fantasy games for money.
There's been no avoiding DraftKings ads on ESPN. The two sides completed a deal over the summer making DraftKings the official daily fantasy company of ESPN.

As a result of that deal, DraftKings was integrated across ESPN's programming. Matthew Berry, ESPN's senior fantasy analyst, even serves as a paid spokesman for DraftKings.
Last month, well before the insider trading scandal erupted, Berry was forced to defend this arrangement after he was inundated with criticism from readers.

Berry said that his integration of DraftKings changed little about what he had written and, above all else, he is a fan of the company he's paid to promote.

"I really enjoy playing daily fantasy and I really enjoy doing it on DraftKings," Berry wrote. "I'd recommend them anyway, so if they want to send me a check to do it? You bet. Where do I sign?"


CNNMoney (New York) October 6, 2015: 4:18 PM ET

 

[WorldNumberOne]

Does this mean no more Cynthia Freelund on ESPN ? That would suck, cause I'd really like to bang her while she's telling me who to start this weekend..

 

[ML Dog]

DraftKings has announced that they "found no wrongdoing" in this matter. Good Lord. Who is legal representation for this company? Jackie Chiles?

One thing is certain DK needs to fire their "Legal Team" cuz to allow them to issue this statement is ridiculous. Did any one of you here ask DraftKings to investigate anything? Because you expected that their "investigation" would, like, provide some insight into this?

After failing to create contracts with employees that would have prevented this mess DK's Legal Advisors do not dissuade them from making this comment? That their investigation has found on wrongdoing?

For a lawyer, Failing to anticipate this situation and mold legal language to prevent it from happening is tantamount to a what would be for a mechanic working on your car and failing to secure a Brake Line or noticing that there is a fire on the underbelly of your car as you drive away and deciding its probably nothing to be concerned with.

Similar degrees of Absolute Failure.

DK has idiots for Lawyers and this announcement that they've found no wrongdoing demonstrates that DK thinks that the rest of the world is as stupid as their lawyers are.

 

[Wanger]

New York Attorney General Letter to DraftKings

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...torney-general-letter-to-draftkings.html?_r=1

 

[doubledeuce22]

Pretty good read here, someone might want to post the whole thing.. This guy who started the controversy win rate is absurd.

http://larrybrownsports.com/fantasy/ethan-haskell-draft-kings-fanduel-profile/276741

 

[doubledeuce22]

http://larrybrownsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/ethan-haskell-fanduel-success.jpg

 

[PatsFan1283]

Pretty good read here, someone might want to post the whole thing.. This guy who started the controversy win rate is absurd.

http://larrybrownsports.com/fantasy/ethan-haskell-draft-kings-fanduel-profile/276741

Yeah this is the problem when people write about DFS who know nothing about it.

Of course he is going to play on FD, he can't play on DK and the other sites are way smaller.

As far as the win chart, he is putting multi entries into tournaments, you don't know how many of his entries are doing terrible. RotoGrinders doesn't even have that info.

He had 3 first place finishes in the span of a month. Hardly crazy stuff.

He is pumping tons of entries into tourneys every single night. Should he be allowed to do that? Probably not, no need for conflict of interest but those results alone that are posted in the article pretty much have no value.

Unfortunately this is what happens when people comment on an industry they know nothing about.

 

[PatsFan1283]

Working in the industry and playing everyday, I'd guess Ethan is a pretty good tourney player, knows what to do, etc. Also for MLB the ownership % can't really help you on FD because lineups lock at 7 and you can't get reliable DK info until lineups lock since most people make their lineups in the last 20 minutes.

 

[doubledeuce22]

I guess we can agree to disagree on this one.

 

[NBAcapper08]

Kid belongs in jail and these sites should be shut down until there's a gaurentee stuff like this cannot happen. Bad enough they are printing money even if they pay out every dime to real players but they want to steal our winnings too. I'm no longer a DFS player

 

[PatsFan1283]

Conclusion
The numbers seem suspicious to me, and the fantasy games are probably making the right move by preventing employees from playing on their own and competing sites. What do you think?



How could the author say the #'s are suspicious to him when he demonstrates in the article he knows nothing about the industry? That would be like me saying Lockheed Martin's rockets are highly defective when I know nothing about space equipment manufacturing.

If people don't wanna play until more regulation comes then that is fine, but not every negative article you read is going to be factual is all I am saying.

 

[CHOPTALK]

I dont even play DFS and I realize this is all a bunch of bullshit.
You gotta a guy who had premium info that was good info to have but hardly anything that assured winning 350K
He really got lucky to be honest.

He could have that same secret info for the next 10 years and never win 350K again.

The people writing these stories are making it out to be like this stuff is so rigged like someone putting helium in lottery balls or something and rigging the lottery.

The guy had some info that other people did not have.

Even with this info it did not increase his odds of winning 350K more then maybe .oooo1%.

Should this guy have this info and nobody else? NO

But the whole industry should not come down just because of one guy that took advantage of his position in the company to have this information.

Im sure people who are good at this stuff can probably figure out the ownership % of each player to around probably 5%.

Yes the industry needs to tighten some things up but the over reaction is out of hand.

Lets not compare this to a super user on a poker site who can see hold cards.

Thats not even close to the same thing.

This fantasy football based on live events that happen in front of our eyes.

It cant be rigged unless someone has a Biffs sports almanac.

The only way it could be rigged is if the lineups are not published for all to see once the first kickoff takes place.
From what ive been told all that info is viewable to the public so I dont see the fuss.

I can understand people from the New York Times not having a clue what they are talking about but im kind of shocked at what im reading from some of the sports minded people that post on this forum.

 

[JustinCruise]

The whole industry had this coming.

I hope it goes down in flames

 

[NBAcapper08]

I dont even play DFS and I realize this is all a bunch of bullshit.
You gotta a guy who had premium info that was good info to have but hardly anything that assured winning 350K
He really got lucky to be honest.

He could have that same secret info for the next 10 years and never win 350K again.

The people writing these stories are making it out to be like this stuff is so rigged like someone putting helium in lottery balls or something and rigging the lottery.

The guy had some info that other people did not have.

Even with this info it did not increase his odds of winning 350K more then maybe .oooo1%.

Should this guy have this info and nobody else? NO

But the whole industry should not come down just because of one guy that took advantage of his position in the company to have this information.

Im sure people who are good at this stuff can probably figure out the ownership % of each player to around probably 5%.

Yes the industry needs to tighten some things up but the over reaction is out of hand.

Lets not compare this to a super user on a poker site who can see hold cards.

Thats not even close to the same thing.

This fantasy football based on live events that happen in front of our eyes.

It cant be rigged unless someone has a Biffs sports almanac.

The only way it could be rigged is if the lineups are not published for all to see once the first kickoff takes place.
From what ive been told all that info is viewable to the public so I dont see the fuss.

I can understand people from the New York Times not having a clue what they are talking about but im kind of shocked at what im reading from some of the sports minded people that post on this forum.

Chop you're off on this. 2 players that cost 8500. 1 is owned by 85% of guys the other is owned by 12%. Picking the 12% guy gives you a huge leg up as far as your return if said player goes off.

 

[PatsFan1283]

I can figure it out +/- within a narrow range of margin of error if I am familiar with the tournament size, etc

It's definitely good info to just have for free without having to look at anything but it is hardly great info for tourney's.

I'd actually say it is better info for cash games (h2h, 50/50s, double ups) because then you can pretty much just crowdsource your lineup without doing any research. Even then though, I'm not sure how reliable it would be unless you can check it like 5 minutes before lock since most people don't finalize their lineups until the last 10-20 minutes.

 

[CHOPTALK]

Chop you're off on this. 2 players that cost 8500. 1 is owned by 85% of guys the other is owned by 12%. Picking the 12% guy gives you a huge leg up as far as your return if said player goes off.

I completely understand the advantage of knowing the ownership %.


But at the same time you could have that list of ownership % every sunday and still go 20 years without ever winning 350K.

Im not saying what the guy did was right.
Im just saying that this is not something worth bringing the entire industry down over.

Lets face it, if me and you had that guys job we would be doing the same thing he did.
Only difference is I would not be dumb enough to post it on the internet.

I would not ever hack into a poker site even if I could to read peoples hold cards. Thats outright cheating in my mind.


I consider this the equivalent of Tom Brady taking a few PSI out of a football.

Oh wait nevermind.
Most people over reacted that to so thats a bad example.


My point is yes I realize he would not be able to use info thats not viewable by everyone.
But at the same time this is not the end of the world and its not a vast conspiracy by DK and FD prevent having to pay people prize money.


And like I said earlier im sure the real pros have their ways of figure out which $8500 player is 80% owned vs the $8500 player thats 20% owned within a few percentage points anyway.

 

[PatsFan1283]

The script issue is worse IMO. Allows people to multi-enter tons of GPPs at once. The real problem is when news comes down they can instantly edit to get the cheap player in the lineup. Demarco Murray was questionable week 3 but most figured he would likely play, he didn't and Ryan Mathews was close to minimum price. He was a very good play with this news. So if someone has 500-2000 lineups they can instantly edit in about 20 minutes using a script, it is a big advantage.

That is probably the next elephant in the room.

 

[TheFunkMonkey]

Working in the industry and playing everyday, I'd guess Ethan is a pretty good tourney player, knows what to do, etc. Also for MLB the ownership % can't really help you on FD because lineups lock at 7 and you can't get reliable DK info until lineups lock since most people make their lineups in the last 20 minutes.

Yep --- many of the Fantasy employees & execs are computer/statistics/fantasy savvy, so of course they're going to have some success (with or without extra/early information). If Phil Ivey became a poker dealer, it wouldn't be outside-the-norm for him to win a tourney 2-3 months later.

That being said, DK and FD should have seen this coming, and should have installed protections & proactive policies.

 

[CHOPTALK]

Let me ask you regular DFS players a question.

If you had the same exact info Ethan had at your disposal every single Sunday how long would it take you on average to win at least $350,000 on a single entry ?

 

[CHOPTALK]

And how close is FDs owner % to DKs?

Is the scoring system the same?

If Ethan used DKs owner % and applied it to FD but they have a different client base and a different scoring system maybe the info he was using is not nearly as valuable as people are making it out to be.

Doesnt one of them use kickers and the other don't?

I think this was more a case of a sharp player that just happened to know what he was doing that only got a slight edge from this info.