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Fantasy Sports Employees Bet at Rival Sites Using Inside Information

nytimes.com

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Re: Fantasy Sports Employees Bet at Rival Sites Using Inside Information

#31

Post by 0verc00ked »

FanaHOVA wrote: post #8
ddlatham wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: The data that DraftKings acknowledged was released by its employee, Ethan Haskell, showed what particular players were most used in all lineups submitted to the site’s Millionaire Maker contests. Usually, that data is not released until the lineups for all games are finalized. Getting it early, however, is of great advantage to make tactical decisions, especially when your opponents do not have the…

Even with that, you'd still have to be good enough to pick the best roster. I don't think it's as useful as the article makes it sound.

Not true. If anything, it's even more useful than the article makes it sound. If you knew absolutely nothing about sports, but had access to this data and a fairly basic understanding of probability and statistics, you could use this data to be basically +EV in any large field contest you enter. The lottery analogy by slg is a great metaphor to understand it.

Re: Fantasy Sports Employees Bet at Rival Sites Using Inside Information

#32

Post by iopq »

npkarnik wrote: post #27
iopq wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? I can see the prices of players on DraftKings and other sites as a player. That "internal pricing model" is public knowledge.

Those are the advertised pricing for players. If you do not believe that these companies have a private, internal model to set those "prices" to maximize their returns...

Their return is constant and only dependent on the number of players. They have no need for "secret prices"

Re: Fantasy Sports Employees Bet at Rival Sites Using Inside Information

#33

Post by iopq »

0verc00ked wrote: post #30
iopq wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? I can see the prices of players on DraftKings and other sites as a player. That "internal pricing model" is public knowledge.

The controversy isn't about knowing player price points. That's like the gameboard and it's known to everyone. It's about knowing ownership percentages - which is the overall percentage of lineups in a contest that drafted a certain player. That info gets published once the contest starts (it's very compelling data), but having access to that ahead of time is the equivalent of insider trading - because you have knowl…

Yes, I realize that player owned percentages is a huge advantage (to bet against the field thus having a better chance of coming up). But not player pricing.

Re: Fantasy Sports Employees Bet at Rival Sites Using Inside Information

#34

Post by onewaystreet »

icelancer wrote: post #3

As someone who worked in the Internet gambling industry and has to sit and see these Daily Fantasy Sports idiots run their loophole into the ground, I can only laugh. You can't flout your "legality" in front of a bunch of US Senators, advertise fraudulent returns, and have zero regulations and expect to get away with it.

Daily Fantasy Sports probably wont go the way of poker for a couple of reasons:

1. DraftKings and FanDual are US based companies, most of the big poker sites were not.

2. There is an exception for fantasy sports in the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. You can debate whether Daily Fantasy Sports should qualify, but unlike poker it is at least starting on legal ground.

3. Daily Fantasy Sports has buyins from the NFL, NFLPA, individual teams, ESPN, the major broadcast networks, etc. Lots of peoples' hands have been greased from all of the money DraftKings and FanDual have been spending on promotion.

Re: Fantasy Sports Employees Bet at Rival Sites Using Inside Information

#35

Post by 0verc00ked »

This whole situation was bound to happen. As others have pointed out, this is an unregulated industry. I think DFS as a whole will be better off as a result this - since they'll be forced to securely store player pick data that can't be accessed by anyone other than the contest participant until the contest starts. FanDuel and DraftKings already have very strict internal rules about this, but I don't think their tech enforces those rules.. yet. Kind of surprising really when they're spending $15M a week on ads.

From there, I think the debate will turn into whether employees at one DFS site should be allowed to play on other sites (actually, that debates already on).

I, for one, think they should be able to. It gives employees the opportunity to experience what it's like to be a user of a similar product. It lets them stay up to date on their competition. And I just think it keeps people inspired. If you really like this stuff - enough that you want to work at a company that makes it - I think it's motivating to experience that when you can't use your own product due to its nature.

However, I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority. I think I actually saw that FD and DK have already banned their employees (in the wake of this) from playing on each others sites.

But to me.. that's silly. If you make it impossible for employees at DK to have access to the data ahead of time and vice versa, then there's really no unfair advantage. Plus, if their products weren't the exact same (and products in this industry WILL diverge), then it also wouldn't matter.

Re: Fantasy Sports Employees Bet at Rival Sites Using Inside Information

#36

Post by the_watcher »

onewaystreet wrote: post #34
icelancer wrote: post #3

As someone who worked in the Internet gambling industry and has to sit and see these Daily Fantasy Sports idiots run their loophole into the ground, I can only laugh. You can't flout your "legality" in front of a bunch of US Senators, advertise fraudulent returns, and have zero regulations and expect to get away with it.

Daily Fantasy Sports probably wont go the way of poker for a couple of reasons: 1. DraftKings and FanDual are US based companies, most of the big poker sites were not. 2. There is an exception for fantasy sports in the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. You can debate whether Daily Fantasy Sports should qualify, but unlike poker it is at least starting on legal ground. 3. Daily Fantasy Sports has buyins from…

There's also the fact that it seems extremely likely that gambling laws will continue to be relaxed, continuing to reduce their risk.

Re: Fantasy Sports Employees Bet at Rival Sites Using Inside Information

#37

Post by acconrad »

Former Fantasy Sports employee (engineer) here.

My guess is if he did use tournament data from DK to populate a team on FD, he did it for himself alone. But he absolutely has access to all of the data they say he did. This is definitely a huge advantage for the big tournaments, because you need low-percentage ownership players in order to stand a chance at having a top lineup. It would help to see how the top players picked their tournament lineups on DK so you could extrapolate that into a team on FD.

Re: Fantasy Sports Employees Bet at Rival Sites Using Inside Information

#38

Post by the_watcher »

npkarnik wrote: post #25
icelancer wrote: post #3

As someone who worked in the Internet gambling industry and has to sit and see these Daily Fantasy Sports idiots run their loophole into the ground, I can only laugh. You can't flout your "legality" in front of a bunch of US Senators, advertise fraudulent returns, and have zero regulations and expect to get away with it.

I used to think this exactly...but now, given how heavily the NFL, NFLPA, and individual teams have been promoting Draftkings/FanDuel, it's obvious that the business model involves paying kickbacks to all the important stakeholders in the sport. And regarding how relatively chummy the NFL is with elected officials, don't forget that commissioner Roger Goddell's father was both a senator and representative from NY sta…

I agree, but to be fair, the NFL has long known that a huge driver of its popularity is gambling related.

Re: Fantasy Sports Employees Bet at Rival Sites Using Inside Information

#39

Post by 0verc00ked »

iopq wrote: post #33
0verc00ked wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The controversy isn't about knowing player price points. That's like the gameboard and it's known to everyone. It's about knowing ownership percentages - which is the overall percentage of lineups in a contest that drafted a certain player. That info gets published once the contest starts (it's very compelling data), but having access to that ahead of time is the equivalent of insider trading - because you have knowl…

Yes, I realize that player owned percentages is a huge advantage (to bet against the field thus having a better chance of coming up). But not player pricing.

Oh.. right. I think we're saying the same thing then ;)
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