These are great points. The NBA even partnered with FanDuel last fall:
http://m.espn.go.com/nba/story?story...rc=desktop&wjb

Other leagues see what they are doing and the NBA has a powerful lobby.

Loophole was a poor choice of words. Obviously I know and have known for years UIGEA specifically declared fantasy sports legal. I guess I was just trying to highlight what I deem as hypocrisy by Congress. But I want DFS legal as much as anybody.

Our government being hypocritical and inconsistent because of powerful lobbying? You don't say?

Don't be naive.

When fantasy sports were exempted in the UIGEA, the concept of a daily game did not yet exist. Thus at the time it was assumed that fantasy sports equal seasonal leagues. The daily game was invented as a clever way to capitalize on the fact that time frame is never mentioned in the definition of fantasy sports. Had the daily game existed at the time, it is very questionable whether it would have been likewise exempted.

Eventually stories will come out about people addicted to DFS and having their lives ruined because of it and the anti-gambling groups will get involved.

How possible is it for a Draft King tech employees to cheat a few GPP's a year or a bunch?

You are still making a lot of assumptions, assumptions about politicians thought processes. Do you know what the politicians were thinking giving the exemption in UIGEA to parimutuel wagering?

Parimutuel wagering (horse, harness, greyhound, etc) was also exempted in UIGEA. You can find some online horse racing data here: Oregon.gov Hub Handles as the licences are held in Oregon for most of the larger sites. And as you can see, legal US online horse betting is 4x the size of Daily Fantasy.

There are all sorts of reasons exemptions get into laws, don't be naive.

I dont see any way its possible without flat out changing lineups after contests begin since the sites don't have any control over the outcome of the scoring, and all GPP's are scored in real time.

I mean I suppose someone could figure out a way to delete an entry and replace it with a new one, but that seems far far less likely than the way the UB insiders cheated.

Id be a lot more worried about misappropriation of player funds than any kind of outright cheating.

The UIGEA clause only exempts dfs from triggering a UIGEA violation. Federal charges could still be brought under IGBA for violating applicable state law, specifically states in which dfs may be considered illegal gambling. Some state laws do not weigh the amount of luck and skill in a game insofar as any element of chance in the outcome of a game played with consideration is considered gambling.

Indeed, and thus the reason for DFS sites to have better KYC rules and regulation other just than "blocking" five states (Washington, Arizona, Louisiana, Montana & Iowa) at signe up. FWIW, the online horse racing industry self-regulate, blocks more states, geolocates and requires much more strict verification processes upon sign up.

gotta be wrong. theres a reason they made a carve out for fantasy. there are some big time forces that support fantasy sports. yahoo and cbs directly. the nfl indirectly.

i suppose, they could turn on daily fantasy so that they can monopolize the fantasy market with season long. doesnt seem likely.

I wonder what collateral was used to secure a $500k loan?

Looks like a tough market for the small players right now.

Really love FantasyAces but they are almost giving too much back to it's players. It's gotten reg infested due to basically unlimited bonus and monthly wins bonuses. You can get >100% RB there essentially.

Hey Guys,

If you have a chance, please take this survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ER_DFS_Survey

Thanks in advance,
Joe

Also, if there are any questions about the industry in general, they should go here.

So many people lately adamantly against "scripting" because "coding skill has nothing to do with the skill in DFS". By that logic, the sites should ban Excel as well. After all, ability to make a spreadsheet has nothing to do with the skill in DFS right? It's all tools that can be applied to DFS IMO, and everyone is equally able to learn these skills for DFS if they so choose. Maybe not everyone has the time to do so, but not everyone has the time to follow news, look at stats, make spreadsheets etc, and you can't ban any of those.

If you're upset that people who were doing something against the old terms of service have now been legitimized, fine, that makes sense. I kind of doubt though that there are THAT many people out there who thought to themselves "I could definitely make use of scripting for FD/DK, and I have the ability to code it myself or pay someone to do it for me, but I won't do it because it's against the ToS".

The "real problem" is that the FD/DK UI is not optimized for players that play a million lineups. But that honestly makes sense, as there are very few of those players and FD/DK are going to try to optimize their UI for the average player. And the people that put in a million lineups have the incentive to code or pay someone to code scripts that will improve upon the basic UI experience for their specific needs.

I don't understand why scripting for gpps is a big deal. Obviously bum hunting is a different story

Even for bum hunting, the underlying issue is that FD doesn't have a matchup blocker or a "opponents can only take 1 of my H2Hs" option. Bum hunting with a script isn't THAT much different from bum hunting manually.

Well put.

If a site is going to allow scripts, dont just let third parties build it, just offer them to your customers yourself.

This is the path now for DFS: https://developer.betfair.com/

I disagree with your excel argument. They ability to automate CHOOSING a lineup and ENTERING/EDITING a lineup are two completely different functions. I don't think anyone is arguing that automating your research tools is against the TOS or unfair.

IMO the technology for interacting with DK/FD sites has to be available for all participants for the games to be equitable. These policy changes don't allow this.

Can DK regulate or police the tools built for their games? Who really knows?

For the record I am very against automated entry and I feel it will destroy the ecosystem and raise rake going forward. I'll just sit on the sidelines with my single entry games.

Eilers Research DFS survey results released today:

http://t.co/r2Bv3wH3iM

The most shocking number to me is only 1420 participants in the survey, especially with the way they pimped this thing. Leads me to believe the pool of hardcore DFSers is smaller than we think.

Also, only 6% said they would quit DFS if sports betting were legal. I think that number climbs much higher when that day actually arrives.

I agree 1,420 is very low. With the participants that low, I'd guess the results are disproportionately representative of the RG crowd.

WRT legal sports betting, I think we'd see a noticeable drop-off in recreational DFS participation in some sports most notably NFL, NBA, and MLB. It's hard to imagine people who just want some action on a game they are watching would prefer DFS to a straight bet.

However I think DFS PGA/NAS offers a superior experience in all aspects to pure sports betting where the betting markets are mostly just extremely longshot pick winner markets and various H2H natchups.

100% agree with you on this.

I think a lot of causal DFSers wouldn't completely abandon it for sports betting, but I do think they would spend way more on bets than DFS entry fees.

Fanduel just raised $275M to increase advertising initiatives: http://recode.net/2015/07/13/fanduel...lar-valuation/

Great news for the industry and players.

why doesn't fanduel do pga? seems like a slam dunk with the success draftkings is having..

Just read an article yesterday that quotes FD CEO Nigel Eccles, he says they consider PGA tournaments a single sporting event and not legal under UIGEA:

http://www.legalsportsreport.com/228...golf-legality/