It's definitely valuable. Players do it every week. (Since the information is publicly available.)

Connect the dots and reach your own conclusions.

http://larrybrownsports.com/fantasy/...profile/276741

One business model that could succeed in the medium to even long term is that these companies could carpet bomb the sports viewing audience with advertisements, counting on short attention spans and shorter memories to keep the fish pools stocked.

If accurate, that win rate in MLB contests is insane, even with multi-entry.

I doubt Ethan was using this data, or anything else, to play on FD. But you'd never be able to tell from looking at results if he was so that larrybrown article is just beyond stupid. Ownership %s wouldn't be any help at all for NFL, as as Joe has said that is publicly available from Thursday contests.. MLB it would be worth something and in some specific cases could be fairly valuable (DraftCheat claimed 100% increase in ROI from that data.. i think that's just crazy hyperbole even for the most helpful situations. Good players already have a decent idea of what ownership is going to be just from playing the games).

That said, as others have mentioned there is no reason that he should have access to that kind of data, and it implies that he would also have access to specific players lineups (which is the actually scary part of this kind of thing). It's good that this is all happening now before something actually bad happened. The sites forced to finally to put real rules in place so that no employee with that kind of access is allowed to play on any other site.

Regulation is coming in some form.. it's definitely needed, just hope it's not awful. Sites should have been on top of this a long time ago.

Odd post. You implicitly acknowledge the worst possible scenarios (e.g., insiders are cribbing lineups from the best/profitable players, making small changes, and entering them) then say it's great this is all happening now "before something bad happens." Isn't the potential already there that something bad has already happened?

It seems like a big unknown as to who has access to what data, precisely, and this was only discovered because Ethan mistakenly posted roster data he shouldn't have had access to. If these people were more careful and Ethan doesn't make that mistake, isn't this all still kind of subterfuge? It's not like this was discovered by their own internal audit.

And then you conclude the sites, who seem to at least having their reputations more sullied day after day, will 'finally be forced to put real rules in place'? Seems like that is not a certain proposition. Surely they may say just that. But the more you read about the industry, the more it seems like the operators are increasingly indistinguishable from the sharks and engaged in all kind of incestuous chicanery. Even more troubling is how quickly sites like RG go to put out the fires when this happens. The lines between employees, high volume profitable players and the surrounding sites that cover them seems like one big blurry mess at this point. Not exactly confidence inspiring for anyone with even the slightest bit of cynicism. You don't have to read many Michael Lewis books to know this has all the hallmarks of other industries and markets that bubble; you can't help but think this is also headed for a highly combustible outcome.

It's hard to say how this will all manifest and certainly one possible outcome is change for the better. You sound optimistic but it's not clear why.

Fair enough, it's possible that the worst case scenario has already happened, i think it's unlikely from the two major sites (certainly more possible for any of the fringe ones).

I don't think it's optimistic to believe the sites are going to do something about it, given they've already stopped all employees from playing for the time being. They're not going to go from that temporary measure to something that permits this kind of breach again.

Thats not to say there will be a perfect fix, unless they do like Nate Silver says which seems too impractical, but they're pretty much forced to put more protections in place.

I guess? You read through stuff like this, where FanDuel's pricing expert is crushing DK:

https://dfsreport.com/6898/follow-up...nduel-mishaps/

...combined with the fact with what little information DK and Ethan have released doesn't really align -- where Ethan initially said he was the only one with the lineup data, then said he had to request it (from who? That person clearly has it, too).

And other 'coincidences' like the single-bullet, new player guy from MA who is followed by Zach Sanders and Ethan Haskell on twitter and won $150k in the MM.

None of these in isolation or even in total are fully incriminating but you get the sense the industry is like, kind of shady and not transparent in ways we have all seen before.

This:

...seems like putting alot of faith and trust in entities that appear more unseemly and untrustworthy the more you learn about them.

This one has even been debunked in the conspiracy laden RG thread. He opened the twitter account the day he won. So, no one was following this nobody before he won, literally no one.

I definitely do not have a ton of faith in the sites.. i think they've made a lot of dumb decisions and are late in responding to a lot of issues. This just seems like a very straightforward thing to fix, and one that they have to address because of all the attention it's getting.

and the matt boccio thing is almost as silly as larrybrown, someone that would be good at his position at FD (and pinny) would have the exact skill set to be good at DFS. good results doesnt imply that he cheated.

I don't know that I would argue any of these guys outright cheated. Particularly Matt. I've been careful not to say anyone is outright cheating.

And of course most of these guys who are in the industry are going to be otherwise skilled. No doubt about that.

And I'll even grant the value of knowing ownership percentages isn't huge.

But it's similarly true that if Ethan and Matt can get access to ownership percentages, it's not a leap to say they can also get access to rosters/picks, and have good insight if not perfect data into who the profitable players are, and what they do in roster construction. Of course alot of this is available post hoc but I'd like to get a peak at maxdalury's rosters a half hour before kickoff. It seems unknown how many people at DK/FD are capable of that and their behavior in this area seems suspect. None of the answers or responses to the issues about the control of that data have been compelling or straightforward.

So I don't doubt alot of this is conspiracy mongering but the optics are bad and the sites seem to be not particularly forthcoming. The likelihood that the appropriate steps will be taken from this point forward has to be diminished in light of the sites prior conduct.

I think we need and deserve a very clear debrief from both sites that includes:

What information is available to their support staff in advance of the public?

How many people have access to this information and who are they?

Are there any restrictions on what these people can do with that information?

Can they see which player submitted each lineup or is it blank until the contest starts?

I think at least for NFL that the damage you can do with the information is small enough for it not to matter that much, but in smaller sports I think this is extremely important and needs to be addressed immediately.

The biggest problem going forward is public perception. There are headlines everywhere touting DK employee with insider info wins 350k. If the mass public doesn't trust the site, the money will stop rolling in. It really appears to be an error in massive proportions for these sites.

My father is a 58 year old commercial litigation attorney who knows nothing of FanDuel or Draftkings and asked me this morning if I heard about the fantasy sports scandal that happened this weekend.

When it's reaching people like that, it's scary.

It was one of the three stories on the cbs eye opener this morning.

Edit- The teaser, then in the actual eye opener. But the fact that they put it in the top 3 is not good for public perception.

I also agree with everything in Zims post

for over a month anyone who watches any sports has been suffocated with these ads, now front page story breaks down to the industry being an insider circle jerk rigged for employees. why would anyone who hasnt signed up yet do so now?

Advertising is great, but in the long run its not going to trump word-of-mouth. I know guys who adore season-long fantasy contests among a small group of friends, but they've already heard about the whales dominating DFS and won't touch it with a ten-foot pole.

Somebody who sees these ads is likely to ask friends if they've played, and when everyone he talks to says "yeah, but I lost" its going to keep him from joining. Whether its cheating or not, its clear that the whales are crushing everyone and that's just not good. Who's going to invest in the stock market when all the stocks are losers? The industry won't grow if virtually all the average joes are losing.

They already talked about it this morning on CNBC and at the last commercial break the tease was upcoming "The Fantasy Sports Scandal". This is big news and big business and with the plethora of advertising everybody knows about them and will likely never again trust them.

Sidenote: That Ethan character has a very punchable looking face.

To think this is probably a non issue if their 9am response wasn't pure generic and actually their 9pm response. That PR person is fired

Never in a million years could I have imagined this would blow up like this, even when it was blowing up within the industry yesterday. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if this is covered (poorly) by every 6pm cable and network national show.

Even when I went to bed a few hours ago I thought this would blow over soon enough, now I'm not so sure, leaning to this really ****ing everything up beyond repair.

I wonder if DKS will add more single-entry tourneys as a response

Yes, Im personally worried Mass will do what it always does and try to protect lottery/union/casino interests by banning this. I will be surprised if there isn't at least an effort, but at least there are dollars available to fight this unlike in poker.

I actually feel a little ashamed because I was (as you pointed out) repeating debunked conspiracy theories.

But it sort of proves the point here that these sites just seem to be inviting scrutiny. I think the problem is in a few obvious areas:

1) the marketing is way too ubiquitous and screams "fast money scam" -- they could have marketed it differently to avoid suspicion and appear more reputable, rather than screaming "click a few players, win tens of thousands, JUST THAT EASY!"

2) the sites rules and policies seem way too deferential to high volume sharks. It's way worse than online poker in terms of a huge, fast money funnel from amateurs to shark players. When a recreational player enters a $2 10 person 50/50 and see 5 dudes who enter 103953593 tournaments a day, the notion the deck is super stacked against you is not hard to come to. Sites seem anywhere from happily willing if not outright complicit to allow this to continue

3) common sense transparency and professionalism seems to be lacking with the operators. Like anything, that you discover Ethan Haskell is privy to ownership information and crushing it on FD, or Mike from FD is crushing it on DK -- most normal professionals in reputable industries and businesses would strive hard to not let their employees get caught looking like scamsters. That DFS management was blind to this, or didn't care, or endorsed it seems like a pretty obvious failing. Even if only in retrospect. As I said, I don't think what these guys did is cheating but to the public, the perception that it is is obvious, and most professional companies with normal standards wouldn't have ever allowed their high-level employees handling sensitive data to play anywhere else.

Someone will come along and say PokerStars employees can play on PartyPoker but it's not nearly the same thing.

Anyway, given that these guys can't get the absolute basics right, you're left to conclude that the marketing + policies + recent events suggests it's just a big cluster of insiders, operators, and high-volume sharks merging into some blurry incestuous mess and public isn't going to grant these people the benefit of the doubt.

I think this is one of the bigger issues. Everyone I hear with some knowledge of the industry has multiple interests in play. I'm yet to see someone say something where I think "ok, i know this person is trustworthy"

Not sure if its too late to get the genie back in the bottle. They should have followed the example of infamous gangster Meyer Lansky. Run a clean game and they will never leave you but cheat them once and they are gone forever.