DFS Staff Knowing Player % Info and Using on Other Site Clearly an Edge
The Twitter Universe is now lighting up with folks blasting the Daily Fantasy Sports industry for not having a better handle on their employees and their ability to, not only gain access to player usage information, but utilizing said data to win big on competing DFS sites.
We are referring to the scandal that has rocked the Daily Fantasy Sports sector over the past 48 hours.
Users in online forums are asking whether a DraftKings employee might have used information about lineups to win $350,000 in a competing contest on the FanDuel site. The information detailed the percentages of entrants who selected certain fantasy players and was inadvertently published prior to the games starting. Such information gives an individual a tremendous edge as it includes players that are not in widespread use in any given contest. If those players perform well, the odds of the person holding them winning goes up dramatically.
"One really has to ask questions over at DraftKings what regulations they have in place and why an employee has access to so much information," said Marc Edelman, a law professor and sports business scholar at Baruch College, City University of New York. "One thing I find grossly troubling about DraftKings is they spend so much time and money advertising and a lot less time in internal controls and operating in a risk averse manner."
Peter Christensen, a contributor to RotoGrinders, has begun tweeting extensively about the incident using the hashtag #DraftCheat.
He tweeted:
DFS employees knowing own %s from their site and playing on another is CLEARLY an advantage. Not debatable. Just a matter of how big of one.
Christensen suggests that employees have yet to grasp the serious nature of this incident.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
