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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

#71

Post by shalmanese »

harryh wrote: post #59
jaynos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantage is in knowing what percentage of football players are started by the entire pool entrants. This information is released once that particular game is started (e.g. % start for NY Giants players would be known to all at 1 PM when their game started and % start for Denver Broncos players would be released at 4PM when that game started), but was known ahead of time by those who worked for the company. While…

But if you follow that strategy you might have a +EV but you are very very likely to lose in any given entry because you only win when all (or most of) your high variance players come through. And that is, by definition, unlikely. So this guy won big the first time he tried this? Or maybe he's tried 4 weeks now and has already won big? This still doesn't add up.

Top fantasy players make hundreds of submissions per tournament to smooth out variance.

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

#72

Post by callmeed »

supercanuck wrote: post #47
npkarnik wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Jerry Jones and Bob Kraft are both investors in Draft Kings

As are Fox, MLB, NHL, and MLS.

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

#73

Post by robk »

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…

Fanduel is Scottish

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

#74

Post by colordrops »

bluecalm wrote: post #70

I don't know much about DFS but it seems to me there is a simple solution to information leakage problem: 1)players construct their line-ups and have a local program compute a secure hash of it (with some player specific data in it like arbitrary 10 digit number at the start) 2)only hashes are posted before the game starts (or once a deadline for submissions is reached or w/e) 3)then a player is allowed to post a mat…

Yes, the problem is that it doesn't allow insiders to rig the game. See bitcoin et al. Good idea though.

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

#75

Post by icelancer »

zem wrote: post #18
icelancer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. If 60% of people pick Player X, his value goes down. This is parimutuel betting. You don't want significant overlap if you can help it; how would you beat the crowd otherwise? You find outliers and apply a pricing model that finds the best gaps. The information is incredibly valuable. Take it from someone who did this for a living at one point.

aha, looking up parimutuel betting made it a lot clearer. thanks!

No problem. It's intentionally hard to figure out. Parimutuel wagering is inherently extremely confusing on purpose.

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

#76

Post by icelancer »

iopq wrote: post #32
npkarnik wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

No, but the parent comment is not that far off. Their prices are public but with the weight and velocity of betting coming in, it informs them what the lines probably should be instead.

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

#77

Post by falsedan »

robk wrote: post #73
onewaystreet wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Fanduel is Scottish

Their engineering is in Edinburgh, and the sales & marketing is in New York (and much larger).

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

#78

Post by startswithaj »

bluecalm wrote: post #70

I don't know much about DFS but it seems to me there is a simple solution to information leakage problem: 1)players construct their line-ups and have a local program compute a secure hash of it (with some player specific data in it like arbitrary 10 digit number at the start) 2)only hashes are posted before the game starts (or once a deadline for submissions is reached or w/e) 3)then a player is allowed to post a mat…

I guess, the trivial inconvenience of the user having to return, recreate the lineup from scratch and remember the 10 digit number/salt (or pull from local memory/localStorage if its the same device) . They would have to do this after the start of the first game but before the end of all the events in the event group. I.E before winners are calculated. If you didn't force the players to do this early on, you wouldn't be able to see live rankings which would take some fun out of it I guess. There would be other problems I guess to with edit lineup functionality.

It is a good idea though and would certainly curb this kind of thing happening.

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

#79

Post by aianus »

bluecalm wrote: post #70

I don't know much about DFS but it seems to me there is a simple solution to information leakage problem: 1)players construct their line-ups and have a local program compute a secure hash of it (with some player specific data in it like arbitrary 10 digit number at the start) 2)only hashes are posted before the game starts (or once a deadline for submissions is reached or w/e) 3)then a player is allowed to post a mat…

Or more simply, you could just make the relevant information publicly available in real-time.

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

#80

Post by colordrops »

aianus wrote: post #79
bluecalm wrote: post #70

I don't know much about DFS but it seems to me there is a simple solution to information leakage problem: 1)players construct their line-ups and have a local program compute a secure hash of it (with some player specific data in it like arbitrary 10 digit number at the start) 2)only hashes are posted before the game starts (or once a deadline for submissions is reached or w/e) 3)then a player is allowed to post a mat…

Or more simply, you could just make the relevant information publicly available in real-time.

If we are assuming that the actors are bad, why would you trust the information they are putting out?
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