DraftKings/FanDuel

[The Brandon Five]

I see this as very similar to gambling which, for some reason, the NFL staunchly opposes.

 

[Bledsoehasaring]

its one guy using one sites data to play the other site. Nothing to see here.. Lame post

It seems many of you did not like my post, so i will start by apologizing to fencer. I can see that my post was condescending. I was reacting to how dramatic i perceived his post was and since i have played both fanduel and draftkings i felt this story "not fencers post" is a non story. I did not convey this in my post so i just came across as a jerk. For those of you interested in my opinion of these sites as a user read on for those not skip it.

I played two games last year on fanduel and lost 50 bucks. This year I deposited 100 dollars into draft kings have played 4 games and have won each game and my winnings are at 900 dollars. This is my experience level on both sites.

Which site is better? IMO draft kings is the superior site because the salary from star players to average players is much more dramatic. For example last week jamal charles cost 7500 and the rb for buffalo carlos willaims was 3300. It is far easier on draft kings in my opinion to find value. Fanduel would have a situation more like charles is 8000 and carlos williams is 6200. Because of this i found the games much harder to get under the cap and much harder to avoid drafting star players because they were only fairly more expensive than non star player. Draft kings pays out to a ton of spots and it only takes a decent week to get your money back. That being said both sites are gambling and you obviously know that going in.

Why i think the story is no big deal. With so many different combinations in 9 different spots the winners of the low money buy in big money payoffs leagues are usually solo winners. Its not like 10 people have the same line up every week and split the jackpots. The sites also allow you to see your position and points real time in relation to everyone else. As the games go final you are also able to see what players your competition has picked. So you can see that going into sunday night and monday nite the players beneath you has say 1 wr and a defense left. The site wont show you which one until the game is final.

Having said all this I don't think what this guy did can be considered much of an advantage. He could have won the 350,000 cause he was lucky or cause he lives, breathes, and sleeps fantasy football. Its is similar to playing the lottery or a pick six in horse racing. Does it benefit you to have a solo ticket? Yes but you have to pick the right horses and right numbers first. What other people have done is a secondary concern to winning. Just cause he knew public tendencies doesnt help him pick players who will achieve on the field. Just cause everyone picks tom brady and nobody picks mike vick doesnt mean that picking mike vick is an advantage especially when tom brady throws for 500yd and 4 tds and vick for 125yd and 1td. I agree that it might help with the amount of money you win when picking a winning team but like the lottery you still have to pick the winning numbers.

So thats were i was coming from I think the media is blowing this out of proportion cause they dont understand how these sites work. I will not say you should try these site but i will say i dont think anything nefarious is going on. Compared to online poker these sites are fair and not a scam.

 

[pats4life12]

I have tried both sites not a fan of either of them. I still prefer full season fantasy football.

 

[Marinlik]

I see this as very similar to gambling which, for some reason, the NFL staunchly opposes. In fact it seems to me like there is even more money at stake here.

If they believe that legalized gambling potentially impacts the integrity of the games, then this stuff does so just as much.

What is really laughable is how NFL produced shows avoided gambling terms like the plague. Like avoiding saying over/under. On shows like Rich Eisen show it has been a bit of a running joke to avoid those terms. And boom Draft Kings and Fanduel comes along and it's all over the same shows that wouldn't even say over/under

 

[Aßßynormal]

The League has lost it's way. It's almost like watching storm clouds roll in. You just know a scandal will burst, a real one, not some bogus deflation. After pissing off all those Federal Judges, I wouldn't be surprised if one wasn't already started.

 

[farn]

...ok, NFL Live just made some kinda "apology" about this just now... WTf ?

Does this even have anything to do with ESPN following the game of professional football ? Or is this just "bedfellow" crap ?!

 

[fnordcircle]

If this leads to them being out of business so they don't run their 56 minute long commercials constantly then I'll be happy.

 

[IcyPatriot]

I can see where it's an unfair advantage ...
The only way to stop this is to have multiple levels of information access for employees ...
Which brings in exactly how will that be regulated and by whom ...

I play one $3 game each Sunday ... won $18 in week one so I'm up $3.

 

[TBR]

I set up a filter on my browser to block out all fantasy football related crap because it got that annoying. This is what the thread title looks like for me:

Maybe I'll do the same with "NFL" to automatically make it "NYFL"

 

[Fencer]

Something reeks of these gambling sites, something beyond the obvious. Wouldn't be shocked if they front for organized crime.

The story on poker sites is something like:

• Collusion/cheating is for obvious reasons a big concern.
• Strong analytic software is needed to defend against that.
• A byproduct of that is strong defenses against money laundering, and ...
• ... these companies have sufficiently strained relationships with regulators/law enforcement that they like having one area in which they're happy to cooperate.
• The foregoing notwithstanding, individual companies can be highly corrupt. (Example: Full Tilt Poker was a genuine leader in analytic software of the kind I outlined above. It turned out to be corrupt anyway.)
• If you're going to be corrupt, you probably don't need help from pre-existing organized crime, unless that happens to be a source of seed investment.
• All of the above applies to first-world countries. There are indeed countries were corrupt hackers are managed via organized crime.

Similarly, I conjecture that fantasy sports sites stand apart from organized crime, but could certainly be corrupt anyway.

 

[Fencer]

Here's an excellent explanation of what insider information is available and why it's valuable. The capsule answer is that in a pool of many thousands of bettors, portfolio uniqueness is key. So a breakdown of how many other bettors own a particular player is an enormous edge. (The sites publish that data after the fact, but the scandal erupted when an employee was shown to have it ahead of time...and won another site's jackpot.)

http://www.legalsportsreport.com/4548/draftkings-data-leak-faq/

Is this a fair summary?

To win, you need to outperform the vast majority of other contestants, so you get the best chance of winning not exactly by drafting the best players, by rather by drafting the ones who are "underdrafted" by everybody else -- which you can do much more easily if you know who everybody else was drafting.

(In other news, the top-drafted player was Julian Edelman. Binkie to the world!! )

 

[Fencer]

Tangentially related.

Years ago McDonald's had it's Monopoly game, and it turned out that people with connections to the company in charge of ensuring the game was fair were discovered to be winning the big prizes.

If big money is involved expect cheating.

A lottery employee was recently caught hacking the lottery, in some Midwestern state. (I want to say Iowa.)

 

[Fencer]

It seems many of you did not like my post, so i will start by apologizing to fencer. I can see that my post was condescending. I was reacting to how dramatic i perceived his post was and since i have played both fanduel and draftkings i felt this story "not fencers post" is a non story. I did not convey this in my post so i just came across as a jerk. For those of you interested in my opinion of these sites as a user read on for those not skip it.

Apology accepted.

As for the rest of your post -- I was hoping to elicit discussion/description from people who actually play these games. Thanks!

 

[102 Pat]

I started on Draft Kings a few weeks ago to go along with my Pro-Line tickets. it's a few bucks a week and if I win, great, if not, c'est la vie. If there are people who have a problem with this stuff, stay the f away from them then...

 

[CelticPatriot]

I don't see anything wrong with DraftKings etc, it's your money to do what you like with and it seems like fun (they recently got a UK license so will be here soon). You're less likely to lose big compared to just betting on sports in general. To be honest I think America's attitude to online gambling is ridiculous. People should be allowed to bet on whatever they want when and wherever they want (like they do here where you can gamble on any sport online and it's perfectly legal)

 

[XLIX]

I don't see anything wrong with DraftKings etc, it's your money to do what you like with and it seems like fun (they recently got a UK license so will be here soon). You're less likely to lose big compared to just betting on sports in general.

I looked at those leagues but quite honestly, I found the juice on those sits to be ridiculous.

In order to break even on sports gambling, you need to pick accurately 52.4% of the time (assuming you are playing the general bet $11 to win $10). In order to break even on those Fantasy sites, you need to win something like 60% of your games (if you are in a 50/50 league). It is a ridiculous number.

To be honest I think America's attitude to online gambling is ridiculous. People should be allowed to bet on whatever they want when and wherever they want (like they do here where you can gamble on any sport online and it's perfectly legal)

I agree, but I think society's opinions have pretty much shifted. There is more movement to legalize sports betting in the U.S. (outside Nevada). The problem is the leagues (especially the NFL) do everything they can to prevent that, including taking people to court who try to get it legalized.

 

[supafly]

I play one $3 game each Sunday ... won $18 in week one so I'm up $3.

Drinks on Icy.

 

[raduray]

Is this a fair summary?

To win, you need to outperform the vast majority of other contestants, so you get the best chance of winning not exactly by drafting the best players, by rather by drafting the ones who are "underdrafted" by everybody else -- which you can do much more easily if you know who everybody else was drafting.

(In other news, the top-drafted player was Julian Edelman. Binkie to the world!! )

Isn't that what Belichick does? Finds under appreciated players who are winners.

 

[fightingirish595]

In my opinion something fishy is going on. For one, These guys were using info the public did not have. they know what guys are underplayed. They clearly had some sort of advantage. Also Fan Duel and Draft Kings have not been transparent at all. For all we know employees may be changing lineups in the middle of games.

 

[captain stone]

Fantasy Football = football for those (pink hats and others) who are too lazy or too ignorant
to watch the real game.

Never played any FF, never will.