http://espn.go.com/chalk/story/_/id/13825667/newyork-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-launches-inquiry-draftkings-fanduel

An employee of one site got access to some information ahead of time and coincidentally or not, won $350k at the rival. New York Times had an article up about it earlier today.

10/6/2015 10:23:27 PM

unrelated...but i'm convinced you can type anything into the "promo code" box and receive a promotion thing. every radio station in america has a promo code for this. TYPE IN PROMO CODE DICKJUICE69 FOR A FREE WEEK TODAY.

10/6/2015 11:10:26 PM

I read the article, but unless they're allowed to change their lineups after whatever the cutoff time is, I don't get it. Did they have Biff's sports almanac or something too?

10/6/2015 11:13:01 PM

They could see the "core" players the guys with algorithms (sharks) were using. They just copied the sharks' lineups and used them on the other site. Basically... an unfair advantage.

10/6/2015 11:14:45 PM

Interesting. Still a lot of luck involved. Wonder how many different days/weeks they did this before they won enough to get caught. It's not like the sharks/sharps in Vegas win 90% of the time or anything.

10/6/2015 11:20:33 PM

When you're playing against meatballs who just signed up the odds are pretty well stacked for the sharks. They win on volume, anyway.

10/6/2015 11:22:45 PM

Workers from Draftkings have won around $6million total on fanduel according to ESPN today.

10/6/2015 11:34:07 PM

Crede, you may be right but I think they saw the ownership percentage of all the players and then built lineups with players that had low ownership, so if their teams "popped"'' they'd be the sole winners and collect the whole pot to themselves. Odds were still against them winning but it upped the odds considerably. Basically taking players like Ted Ginn or Tavon Austin who usually suck but can pull two touchdowns out of their ass.

[Edited on October 6, 2015 at 11:55 PM. Reason : x]

10/6/2015 11:54:44 PM

i watch more of their commercials during a football game than the football game itself.

10/6/2015 11:58:24 PM

^ Believe I do too.

10/7/2015 5:51:35 AM

^^^ not sure they are using the info to pick the Ted Ginns, but rather picking the studs that for whatever reason the majority is fading. If you read all of their "expert" writings, they talk about be contrarian in the millionaire maker type contests and staying closer to the majority in things like 50/50s

10/7/2015 6:41:59 AM

dear god, please let this be the catalyst to kill daily fantasy sports.

10/7/2015 10:37:33 AM

^ This a million times over. So fucking sick of all the commercials and the obvious on-air advertising during shows like Mike and Mike. Don't most the leagues like MLB have an ownership stake in these companies along with Disney/ABC/ESPN?

10/7/2015 12:38:03 PM

i agree that they're oversaturated, but what do you want mike & mike to do? decline to read paid ad copy?

10/7/2015 12:44:29 PM

Not adcopy man. They constantly drop references to each site during interviews and commentary. Like "X player will be a hot pickup on DraftKings" or "I like X player, got him on my DraftKings team". Yeah it is probably what they are paid to do, but it is fucking annoying.

10/7/2015 12:50:14 PM

http://awfulannouncing.com/2015/lets-talk-bradley-c-349-big-winner-featured-fanduel-commercials.html

10/7/2015 5:20:36 PM

Can anyone give a nutshell version of how money is won with these sites? I've never played fantasy football so that probably doesn't help. That is, is the amount you win proportional to how much you "bet"?

10/7/2015 8:55:44 PM

It's not really bets but more like entrance fees and you can win a percent of those entrance fees. I tend to liken it to a poker tournament. Everyone puts in $50 and first place might get 50%, second 35 etc...

Of course the take their cut of the pot. You can play bigger games against 1000s of people for bigger payouts but tougher to win or smaller games. Entrance fees vary.

10/8/2015 5:41:02 AM

They also have 50/50 type games where the top half of the entrants win. They take .20 on the dollar , so say you are in a $5 50/50 contest with 100 people, if you place 50th or better you win $9, (your $5 entry back and $4 in winnings).

The tournaments style that they promote with the big payouts are different and the higher you place the more you make. Typically you have to place in the top 20% or so to get a small win. The strategies are obviously different because in the 50/50 format you are only looking to beat half the field so you would want more chalk picks, but the tournaments require contrarian picks if you want to make the million or whatever, which is why having advanced knowledge of ownership %s is such a big deal. If those guys can find a high ceiling guy that has low ownership that's a huge avantage. Not saying they will automatically win, because that guy could lay an egg, but over time that insider info will pay off and it has for them in the past.

10/8/2015 7:16:12 AM

Quote :

"Don't most the leagues like MLB have an ownership stake in these companies along with Disney/ABC/ESPN?"

Yeah. Kraft does as well.

Sports leagues are onboard with gambling on sports as long as they're the ones making the money. No different to being steadfast against ticket scalping and then they became business partners with Stubhub.

[Edited on October 8, 2015 at 12:34 PM. Reason : /]

10/8/2015 12:33:56 PM

Quote :

"Interesting. Still a lot of luck involved. Wonder how many different days/weeks they did this before they won enough to get caught. It's not like the sharks/sharps in Vegas win 90% of the time"

The top 1.3% of players (the sharks/pros) on Fanduel and Draftkings do win 90+% of all prize money

10/8/2015 6:37:36 PM

Decided to give it a try...figured with all the news about sharks and employees this wold be a good week.

What are the best games to enter? tourney? small head to head?

10/8/2015 7:29:02 PM

From what I read in the past couple days, avoid the tourneys. The small head-to-heads it's much lower money, but you have a better chance of winning.

10/8/2015 10:01:01 PM

Look for "beginner" events, only people who have not won much can enter.

I do $3/week in NASCAR and definitely feel I get that much entertainment out of it. Top 20% doubles your money and you have a 1/40k shot to win $10k. Plus its easy to keep up with 40 drivers compared to hundreds of NFL players. I use practice speeds to pick lineups and would win every damn week if they would stop getting penalties/crashing/blowing up! Hah

10/9/2015 8:03:18 AM

i think i read that you can't cash out until you get up to at least, like, $25 or something. but i may be wrong about that

10/9/2015 8:19:07 AM

for DraftKings the minimum amount you can deposit (at least on the first deposit, not sure about subsequent deposits) is $25. The minimum amount you can withdraw is $20

I've been doing the $3 millionaire maker event every week, and have been in the money every week but one. The most I've won is $6 (lol).

I also enter in the free MLB/College football contests fairly often.

I think I'm up a couple dollars since I started, but I think the entertainment value of it is better than my normal week-to-week fantasy league, so it's worth it

10/9/2015 8:36:08 AM

http://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-justice-department-investigating-daily-fantasy-sports-business-model-1444865627

FBI and Department of Justice are now doing an inquiry, although no wrongdoing has been accused yet.

Quote :

"The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are probing whether the business model of daily fantasy-sports operators violates federal law, according to people familiar with the matter. FBI agents from the Boston office have been contacting customers of DraftKings Inc. to ask them about their experiences with the Boston-based company, one person familiar with the matter said. The probe is in the preliminary stage, two people said. It is part of an ongoing discussion within the Justice Department about the legality of daily fantasy sites, in which customers pay entry fees to draft virtual sports teams that compete against each other for prize money based on the real-world performances of athletes. Congress in 2006 prohibited financial companies from transferring money to online gambling sites and several were shut down. But so-called games of skill were exempted. Fantasy-sports sites have since operated under that exemption. So-called daily fantasy sites like DraftKings and FanDuel, Inc. didn’t become popular until after the law was enacted. The Justice Department is trying to determine whether daily fantasy games are a form of gambling that falls outside the purview of the exemption. No decision on the matter has been reached, these people said. ...FanDuel has said daily fantasy is a game of skill, not luck, and is therefore exempt under the 2006 [gambling] law. "

So for the record, if I analyze the data and bet $50 on the Broncos to win against a 5-point spread, and Peyton Manning throws a pick-six interception that loses me my bet as Denver wins 21-17, that's luck. But if I put Peyton Manning on my fantasy team, and his pick-six interception loses me a fantasy game, that's skill? It's an incredibly poorly thought out loophole they put in the '06 law. But I don't expect much better from Congress.

I've always felt the reason gambling is banned in this country is the fixed 1919 World Series (and people such as Pete Rose along the way). The only argument for fantasy being legal and gambling not everywhere outside of Nevada I feel one can make is "it removes the possibility that the result of the contest could be altered". The higher the stakes involved, the more inevitable that's coming however. If your opponent has the top RB in the league and you have that team's QB, a nefarious guy could even just get an offensive coordinator, slip him some money, and say "pass the ball a lot today". The result of the game would never raise questions and the fans would blame the OC for being an idiot, but would never question whether he took money.

Another reason this probably won't go anywhere, this is a lot of heavy hitters that would lose a lot of money:

Quote :

"Hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital and player money are flowing into the booming fantasy-sports industry, which counts sports leagues, Alphabet Inc. ’s investing arm, and major media companies such as Comcast Corp. and 21st Century Fox Inc. among its investors. Wall Street Journal-owner News Corp and 21st Century Fox were part of the same company until 2013. Walt Disney Co. earlier this year scuttled a planned investment in DraftKings, though the companies maintain a marketing relationship."

Quote :

"The New York Attorney General’s office has asked both companies for a raft of internal data including the win/loss records of players, algorithms that determine the fantasy pricing for athletes and details on their policies to prevent fraud. The companies have until Thursday to respond. The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office is in talks with both companies over putting in place proper consumer protections, according to a person familiar with the discussions."

[Edited on October 15, 2015 at 10:00 AM. Reason : .]

10/15/2015 9:55:34 AM

Legalize all of it, regulate it, and tax it.

10/15/2015 10:49:44 AM

^ agreed

10/15/2015 12:12:17 PM

http://espn.go.com/chalk/story/_/id/13897401/daily-fantasy-outlawed-nevada-gaming-control-board-being-unlicensed-gambling

Nevada Gaming Commission says daily fantasy is gambling, and operators of it are outlawed until they get a gambling license. DraftKings and FanDuel both said they will disable Nevadans from playing instead of applying for a gambling license. (All while an executive in one company had posted on a message board how people in certain states could get around their state restrictions to play. )

Quote :

"Meanwhile, the NFL has been contacting members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in an effort to prevent a Congressional hearing on the league's relationship with fantasy sports, multiple sources told ESPN. Politico first reported the NFL's efforts to "ward off" a hearing requested by Congressman Frank Pallone in mid-September. Pallone, a ranking Democrat from New Jersey, asked the committee to examine the relationship between professional sports and daily fantasy sports and to review the legal status of fantasy sports and sports betting. The hearing is expected to be granted but hasn't been scheduled. The NFL hasn't responded to ESPN's request for comment."

[Edited on October 16, 2015 at 7:56 AM. Reason : /]

10/16/2015 7:50:36 AM

Quote :

"Legalize all of it, regulate it, and tax it."

yep, just like alcohol and drugs the prohibition causes more problems then if they were legal.
States don't want competition for their scratch off tickets

10/17/2015 8:03:54 AM

I noticed they toned down their commercials after the investigation. GG investigation.

10/18/2015 8:47:13 PM

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2015/11/10/daily-fantasy-fanduel-draftkings-new-york-illegal-gambling/75543644/

New York Attorney General classifies them as illegal gambling and issues cease and desist orders to both companies for taking deposits in the state.

Maybe all that advertising will get spent on political action ads.

http://awfulannouncing.com/2015/new-york-attorney-general-rules-draftkings-and-fanduel-are-indeed-illegal-gambling-operations.html

[Edited on November 11, 2015 at 11:49 AM. Reason : /]

11/11/2015 11:47:44 AM