DraftKings employee wins 350 K inside info
- Thread starter pepsicock
- Start date
Bernstine had a rant today on the Score about this. He was defensive, because there is a lot of ad money at stake. My concern with all of this is how MLB and other sports are embracing what are essentially betting venues, while telling players they'd better keep it clean. I was a little surprised to see that the Captain Morgan Club at Wrigley has been turned into a Draft Kings themed bar. What does that say if there is that level of connection between a gaming company and a MLB team?
How pissed are all of the other employees who have been doing this forever but have been smart enough not to make that much money?
I don't understand how the BTN has Fanduel as a sponsor. Keep that advertisement away from college athletics.
I don't do any fantasy sports so I don't understand the fascination with these one day games.
I don't do any fantasy sports so I don't understand the fascination with these one day games.
The fantasy part of sports is what allows stat person to declare Manning or Rodgers
GOAT. It also keeps
QBR alive.
I prefer winning, when you win and championships over stats.
I don't see anything wrong there. The guy is a grinder and I'm sure he has the numbers to back up his lineup. And it's not like he had a team full of barely owned players to take advantage of anything...plus the players had to actually put up the points.
partially true. The problem is knowing who is taken the least. I'm sure those guys are able to use those statistics in their favor to skew the odds, ie cheat. I saw in an article today that employees have won around 10 million.
The New York attorney general began an inquiry Tuesday into the prospect that employees of daily fantasy football sites have won lucrative payouts based on inside information not available to the public, asking two leading companies, DraftKings and FanDuel, for a range of internal data and details on how they prevent fraud.
Word of the inquiry came as the revelation that DraftKings and FanDuel allowed their employees — many with information not available to customers — to play at each other’s sites and win large amounts of money continued to rattle the sports world.
Some of the industry’s primary sponsors raised questions or distanced themselves from lucrative advertising and sponsorship deals. On Monday, both companies told The New York Times that they had temporarily prohibited their employees from playing in money games. In a statement Wednesday, FanDuel announced that it was permanently barring its employees from playing daily fantasy games on any site, and was prohibiting employees of other companies from playing on its site.
Major League Baseball, which owns a stake in DraftKings and has a sponsorship deal with it, said in a statement that it had a policy that “prohibits its own players and employees from participating in fantasy baseball games where money or something of value is at stake, and did not know that the situation was different at DraftKings.”
“We have reached out and discussed this matter with them,” it said.
ESPN reduced its association with DraftKings as well. On the network’s “Outside the Lines” show, the host, Bob Ley, announced that while the network will continue to air regular advertisements for the daily fantasy sites, it will no longer run individual segments sponsored by the sites.
The N.F.L., which recently struck a three-year deal with DraftKings to become a partner of the league’s International Series in Britain, declined to comment.
The attorney general’s move may shed light on the inner workings of the sites, which charge a fee and allow participants to build rosters of hypothetical teams and score points against hundreds of competitors based on the actual performance of players. The sites say payouts can reach $2 million.
In a letter to both companies, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman demanded the names, job titles and descriptions of any employees who aggregate and compile a wide range of data that perhaps could be used to gain a personal advantage — including ownership percentages and pricing algorithms.
The companies have until Oct. 15 to respond.
Continue reading the main story
Document: New York Attorney General Letter to FanDuel
Mr. Schneiderman also demanded that the companies turn over details of any internal investigations into their employees, including the one at the center of the current scandal, Ethan Haskell of DraftKings.
It was Mr. Haskell who admitted last week to inadvertently releasing data before the lineups of all N.F.L. games were locked in for the third week of the season in late September. That same weekend, Mr. Haskell, a midlevel content manager, won $350,000 at FanDuel.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
But Jason Robins, the chief executive of DraftKings, said Wednesday morning on the Fox Business Network: “We have great records of when data is pulled, when communications are sent, so it was quite easy for us to go pull those records and what we found was that he sent this data after his lineup was locked on FanDuel. So he had no ability to edit it. So it couldn’t possibly be a situation where that data was useful to him in setting that lineup.”
The two companies said they had investigated Mr. Haskell and cleared him of wrongdoing.
“It’s something we’re taking a look at — fraud is fraud,” Mr. Schneiderman said in a radio interview early Tuesday before the inquiry was announced. “And, consumers of any product, whether you want to buy a car, participate in fantasy football, our laws are very strong in New York and other states that you can’t commit fraud.”
Neither DraftKings nor FanDuel would specify how many of their employees competed and won money on other sites.
In a statement, DraftKings said, “We have just received and reviewed the letter from the N.Y. attorney general, and the company will fully cooperate with the inquiry.”
Continue reading the main story
Document: New York Attorney General Letter to DraftKings
In Washington, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, called on the panel to examine “whether permitting a multibillion-dollar industry to police itself serves the best interests of the American people,” while Senator Robert Menendez and Representative Frank Pallone Jr., both Democrats of New Jersey, asked the Federal Trade Commission to implement safeguards to ensure a fair playing field.
Also in Wednesday’s statement, FanDuel announced that it had asked Michael B. Mukasey, a former United States attorney general, to “review the facts and evaluate our internal controls, standards and practices.”
“His mandate is to conduct a review to identify ways that we can ensure we are doing the right things to maintain the trust we have with our players,” the statement said. “He will have the freedom and authority to look at any areas he thinks appropriate.”
The company also said it was creating an internal advisory board, led by Michael J. Garcia, a former United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, to “provide ongoing advice, recommendations and guidance to ensure that we are always taking every step possible to ensure the integrity of our site and our games.”
Daily fantasy has its roots in informal fantasy games that began years ago with groups of fans playing against one another for fun over a full season. They assembled hypothetical teams and scored points based on how players did in actual games. But companies such as DraftKings and FanDuel have set up online daily and weekly games based on a similar concept in which fans pay an entry fee to a website — from 25 cents to $1,000 — to play dozens if not hundreds of opponents, with prize pools that can pay $2 million to the winner. Critics have complained that the setup is hardly different from Las Vegas-style gambling that is normally banned in the sports world.
Eilers Research, which studies the industry, estimates that daily games will generate around $2.6 billion in entry fees this year and grow by 41 percent annually, reaching $14.4 billion in 2020. So high are the potential financial rewards that DraftKings and FanDuel have found eager partners in professional sports teams and leagues and major media companies.
Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys and Robert K. Kraft of the New England Patriots have stakes in DraftKings. In addition, DraftKings has tapped hundreds of millions of dollars from Fox Sports, and FanDuel has raised similar amounts from investors like Comcast, NBC and the investment firm KKR.
Between the tens of millions of dollars in television advertising blitzing the airways and the potential for abuse in an unregulated industry, lawmakers now seem willing to examine whether daily fantasy games are pushing the boundaries of an exemption in a 2006 federal law that has allowed them to operate. The law prohibited games like online poker, but permitted fantasy play, deemed games of skill and not chance, under lobbying from professional sports leagues. The games are allowed in all but five states.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/sports/draftkings-fanduel-inquiry-new-york-attorney-general.html
Word of the inquiry came as the revelation that DraftKings and FanDuel allowed their employees — many with information not available to customers — to play at each other’s sites and win large amounts of money continued to rattle the sports world.
Some of the industry’s primary sponsors raised questions or distanced themselves from lucrative advertising and sponsorship deals. On Monday, both companies told The New York Times that they had temporarily prohibited their employees from playing in money games. In a statement Wednesday, FanDuel announced that it was permanently barring its employees from playing daily fantasy games on any site, and was prohibiting employees of other companies from playing on its site.
Major League Baseball, which owns a stake in DraftKings and has a sponsorship deal with it, said in a statement that it had a policy that “prohibits its own players and employees from participating in fantasy baseball games where money or something of value is at stake, and did not know that the situation was different at DraftKings.”
“We have reached out and discussed this matter with them,” it said.
ESPN reduced its association with DraftKings as well. On the network’s “Outside the Lines” show, the host, Bob Ley, announced that while the network will continue to air regular advertisements for the daily fantasy sites, it will no longer run individual segments sponsored by the sites.
The N.F.L., which recently struck a three-year deal with DraftKings to become a partner of the league’s International Series in Britain, declined to comment.
The attorney general’s move may shed light on the inner workings of the sites, which charge a fee and allow participants to build rosters of hypothetical teams and score points against hundreds of competitors based on the actual performance of players. The sites say payouts can reach $2 million.
In a letter to both companies, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman demanded the names, job titles and descriptions of any employees who aggregate and compile a wide range of data that perhaps could be used to gain a personal advantage — including ownership percentages and pricing algorithms.
The companies have until Oct. 15 to respond.
Continue reading the main story
Document: New York Attorney General Letter to FanDuel
Mr. Schneiderman also demanded that the companies turn over details of any internal investigations into their employees, including the one at the center of the current scandal, Ethan Haskell of DraftKings.
It was Mr. Haskell who admitted last week to inadvertently releasing data before the lineups of all N.F.L. games were locked in for the third week of the season in late September. That same weekend, Mr. Haskell, a midlevel content manager, won $350,000 at FanDuel.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
But Jason Robins, the chief executive of DraftKings, said Wednesday morning on the Fox Business Network: “We have great records of when data is pulled, when communications are sent, so it was quite easy for us to go pull those records and what we found was that he sent this data after his lineup was locked on FanDuel. So he had no ability to edit it. So it couldn’t possibly be a situation where that data was useful to him in setting that lineup.”
The two companies said they had investigated Mr. Haskell and cleared him of wrongdoing.
“It’s something we’re taking a look at — fraud is fraud,” Mr. Schneiderman said in a radio interview early Tuesday before the inquiry was announced. “And, consumers of any product, whether you want to buy a car, participate in fantasy football, our laws are very strong in New York and other states that you can’t commit fraud.”
Neither DraftKings nor FanDuel would specify how many of their employees competed and won money on other sites.
In a statement, DraftKings said, “We have just received and reviewed the letter from the N.Y. attorney general, and the company will fully cooperate with the inquiry.”
Continue reading the main story
Document: New York Attorney General Letter to DraftKings
In Washington, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, called on the panel to examine “whether permitting a multibillion-dollar industry to police itself serves the best interests of the American people,” while Senator Robert Menendez and Representative Frank Pallone Jr., both Democrats of New Jersey, asked the Federal Trade Commission to implement safeguards to ensure a fair playing field.
Also in Wednesday’s statement, FanDuel announced that it had asked Michael B. Mukasey, a former United States attorney general, to “review the facts and evaluate our internal controls, standards and practices.”
“His mandate is to conduct a review to identify ways that we can ensure we are doing the right things to maintain the trust we have with our players,” the statement said. “He will have the freedom and authority to look at any areas he thinks appropriate.”
The company also said it was creating an internal advisory board, led by Michael J. Garcia, a former United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, to “provide ongoing advice, recommendations and guidance to ensure that we are always taking every step possible to ensure the integrity of our site and our games.”
Daily fantasy has its roots in informal fantasy games that began years ago with groups of fans playing against one another for fun over a full season. They assembled hypothetical teams and scored points based on how players did in actual games. But companies such as DraftKings and FanDuel have set up online daily and weekly games based on a similar concept in which fans pay an entry fee to a website — from 25 cents to $1,000 — to play dozens if not hundreds of opponents, with prize pools that can pay $2 million to the winner. Critics have complained that the setup is hardly different from Las Vegas-style gambling that is normally banned in the sports world.
Eilers Research, which studies the industry, estimates that daily games will generate around $2.6 billion in entry fees this year and grow by 41 percent annually, reaching $14.4 billion in 2020. So high are the potential financial rewards that DraftKings and FanDuel have found eager partners in professional sports teams and leagues and major media companies.
Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys and Robert K. Kraft of the New England Patriots have stakes in DraftKings. In addition, DraftKings has tapped hundreds of millions of dollars from Fox Sports, and FanDuel has raised similar amounts from investors like Comcast, NBC and the investment firm KKR.
Between the tens of millions of dollars in television advertising blitzing the airways and the potential for abuse in an unregulated industry, lawmakers now seem willing to examine whether daily fantasy games are pushing the boundaries of an exemption in a 2006 federal law that has allowed them to operate. The law prohibited games like online poker, but permitted fantasy play, deemed games of skill and not chance, under lobbying from professional sports leagues. The games are allowed in all but five states.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/sports/draftkings-fanduel-inquiry-new-york-attorney-general.html
It doesn't make sense..but it makes money so there is your answer. I have became jaded to the hypocrisy.
Another interesting article from the NYTimes on Draft Kings and Fan Duel:
A decade ago, I worked in a big building in downtown Washington. Every Thursday during N.F.L. season, a smiling guy would come around to distribute sheets for the office football pool. You’d make your picks, hand the guy $5 and not win. Neither would anyone else you knew.
The next Thursday the guy would be back with another sheet. At the bottom was an entry for who, supposedly, won the previous week — but names at the bottom were always smudged and illegible. After a while it dawned on me that I never met anyone in the building who received the pool money. No wonder the guy was always happy!
I thought of the smiling guy Monday, when FanDuel and DraftKings defended their integrity after accusations of what amounts to insider trading. I always wondered if that office pool could be trusted. Perhaps now we should wonder the same about DraftKings and FanDuel.
These sports wagering websites — officially, fantasy leagues that award prizes — take over TV, and NFL.com, during football broadcasts. NFL Network’s highlights channel is now “N.F.L. RedZone Presented by DraftKings.” ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” now has a “FanDuel Chalk Talk” segment.
This season, fans can sip cocktails and place wagers at FanDuel or DraftKings lounges in pro football stadiums. As of Sunday, Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck and Peyton Manning were, in a sense, endorsing Internet gambling: DraftKings just signed a deal with the N.F.L. Players Association, giving the union a fee in return for use of pro football players’ images in the company’s ads. Washington-area Metro buses now bear DraftKings side banners.
As enterprises, DraftKings and FanDuel are entirely legal; they accept wagers only on game statistics, not on who covers the spread. The distinction is explained here.
Both ventures have extensive Fortune 500 support: back to that in a moment. First, the glitz. FanDuel: “$75 million paid out every week!” DraftKings: “$1 billion in prizes in 2015!” FanDuel vows to distribute $2 billion in winnings during the N.F.L. season; DraftKings vows a weekly $1 million grand prize.
“The giant check is no myth,” a DraftKings advertisement assures, showing a triumphant guy celebrating. That ad ends, BECOME A MILLIONAIRE!
In a FanDuel television ad, a man — viewers have no idea whether he’s an actor — says to the camera, “Every single week I can win money on Fan Duel!” Can is quite a fudge word: Statements of this nature would not pass scrutiny in breakfast-cereal advertising. Then another man says he put down a mere $35 and won $2,136,431. The second man is “Scott H.” Real player? Actor?
I asked both companies for the names of big winners. Sabrina Macias, head of corporate communications for DraftKings, suggested David Gomes, a 2014 big winner; it’s him celebrating in the DraftKings ad. When I asked for more names, Macias said, “We have had 20 winners of $1 million prizes.” She promised to get back to me with a list of those names, and never did.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Emily Bass, public relations manager for FanDuel, suggested Scott Hanson, “Scott H.,” a 2014 big winner. When I asked for more names, Bass said her company has “a huge number” of big winners. She promised to get back to me with a list of names, and never did.
Naturally, many who win lawfully at gambling would prefer their identities not be disseminated. State lotteries and some casinos prove that prizes were distributed by issuing audited financial statements, such as this one. As long as the auditors do a good job, players know that purses were paid and shills weren’t hired to leap up and scream, “I won!”
As privately held start-ups in a business area that is unregulated, DraftKings and FanDuel are under no obligation to substantiate their numbers. “We do not disclose financials; that is company policy,” Mohammed Dieye, a DraftKings official, told me. FanDuel says it paid $560 million in prizes in 2014 — click “press kit.” But the statement is a promotional claim, not an auditor’s attestation.
Thus neither company offers anything, beyond its say-so, backing up the advertising. What about the experiences of David Gomes and Scott Hanson?
Gomes, 25, grew up in Boston, is studying to be a physician assistant, and reports that he wisely saved the after-tax portion of his $1 million prize. His big payday came last season, from selecting New England’s Jonas Gray for a fantasy team days before the undrafted free agent ran for a surprising 201 yards and four touchdowns against Indianapolis.
“Sure there was luck involved, but this wasn’t just a wild guess,” Gomes said. “Gray caught my eye in training camp, and the Colts were weak against the rush in 2014. So it was a calculated risk. With state lotteries, a machine issues a number — how do you know if other numbers really won? With online fantasy sports, yes it’s gambling, but you watch the games and know for sure whether your choices were good or not. This is more honest to the public than lotteries based on random numbers.”
Hanson lives in Pasadena, Calif., was an elementary schoolteacher for a while, worked as a sports analyst for the analytics website ProFootballFocus, and this year is playing daily fantasy sports full-time. Hanson’s insight late in the 2014 season was to select little-known Cincinnati tailback Jeremy Hill when the Bengals were facing the Browns and the erratic rookie quarterback Johnny Manziel.
Hanson said, “I figured Manziel would turn the ball over, giving Hill some carries in the Cleveland red zone, where he’d score.” Both things happened. Hanson also tabbed the Carolina backup quarterback Derek Anderson, whom few other players wanted. Anderson threw a touchdown pass but no interceptions, which was great value in fantasy-sports terms.
“FanDuel and DraftKings are more like stock investing than you’d probably expect, including the need to diversify,” Hanson said. “Don’t wager a lot unless you really know what you are doing. If you’re just in it for some fun, don’t spend more than $20.”
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Gomes and Hanson converted their smarts into winnings — though both say they are down so far this season. FanDuel and DraftKings are run by plucky entrepreneurs, the type of people society rightly admires. On the flip side, both enterprises are using national television, and the imprimatur of the highly subsidized N.F.L., to make incredible promises while leaving the public no way of knowing whether the claims are true — and while tempting the unsophisticated to throw their money out the window.
In fiscal 2014, Americans’ largest gambling outflow was on state-sponsored lotteries: about $63 billion spent that year, about $255 per adult. If fantasy-based sport betting reaches even a fraction of that sum, it’s a substantial economic development.
David Brooks contends that most gambling targets those who can’t afford to lose. Neil Irwin of The Upshot, in contrast, thinks that legalizing wagering on point spreads would improve the situation for small-money players.
Whoever is right about the ethics of gambling, this much is certain: The house always wins. Be it online lotto (now offered by the nation’s capital), daily fantasy sports, blackjack, the ponies or James Bond versus a well-dressed supervillain at baccarat, as a group, players always come out behind. The business model of FanDuel and DraftKings — and others entering the market — makes sense only if most players lose money.
DraftKings and FanDuel seduce men and women into a dream of instant wealth. A handful do achieve instant wealth; for most, this dream only worsens inequality. And should the N.F.L., which draws about $1 billion annually in taxpayers’ money, be encouraging average people to gamble even more — that is, to lose even more?
Now about the corporate backing. Comcast, Fox, Google, Time Warner, the N.B.A., Major League Baseball and the N.F.L. owners Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft have invested in FanDuel and DraftKings. Yahoo is preparing its own entry to the field.
“Just pick your game, pick your team and pick up your winnings,” a DraftKings ad declares. But set the phoniness aside: DraftKings and FanDuel wouldn’t make business sense to Comcast, Fox, Google, Time Warner and pro sports owners unless the websites allow participants quickly and conveniently to use their smartphones to lose money.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/upshot/the-big-winners-in-fantasy-football-and-the-rest-of-us.html
A decade ago, I worked in a big building in downtown Washington. Every Thursday during N.F.L. season, a smiling guy would come around to distribute sheets for the office football pool. You’d make your picks, hand the guy $5 and not win. Neither would anyone else you knew.
The next Thursday the guy would be back with another sheet. At the bottom was an entry for who, supposedly, won the previous week — but names at the bottom were always smudged and illegible. After a while it dawned on me that I never met anyone in the building who received the pool money. No wonder the guy was always happy!
I thought of the smiling guy Monday, when FanDuel and DraftKings defended their integrity after accusations of what amounts to insider trading. I always wondered if that office pool could be trusted. Perhaps now we should wonder the same about DraftKings and FanDuel.
These sports wagering websites — officially, fantasy leagues that award prizes — take over TV, and NFL.com, during football broadcasts. NFL Network’s highlights channel is now “N.F.L. RedZone Presented by DraftKings.” ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” now has a “FanDuel Chalk Talk” segment.
This season, fans can sip cocktails and place wagers at FanDuel or DraftKings lounges in pro football stadiums. As of Sunday, Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck and Peyton Manning were, in a sense, endorsing Internet gambling: DraftKings just signed a deal with the N.F.L. Players Association, giving the union a fee in return for use of pro football players’ images in the company’s ads. Washington-area Metro buses now bear DraftKings side banners.
As enterprises, DraftKings and FanDuel are entirely legal; they accept wagers only on game statistics, not on who covers the spread. The distinction is explained here.
Both ventures have extensive Fortune 500 support: back to that in a moment. First, the glitz. FanDuel: “$75 million paid out every week!” DraftKings: “$1 billion in prizes in 2015!” FanDuel vows to distribute $2 billion in winnings during the N.F.L. season; DraftKings vows a weekly $1 million grand prize.
“The giant check is no myth,” a DraftKings advertisement assures, showing a triumphant guy celebrating. That ad ends, BECOME A MILLIONAIRE!
In a FanDuel television ad, a man — viewers have no idea whether he’s an actor — says to the camera, “Every single week I can win money on Fan Duel!” Can is quite a fudge word: Statements of this nature would not pass scrutiny in breakfast-cereal advertising. Then another man says he put down a mere $35 and won $2,136,431. The second man is “Scott H.” Real player? Actor?
I asked both companies for the names of big winners. Sabrina Macias, head of corporate communications for DraftKings, suggested David Gomes, a 2014 big winner; it’s him celebrating in the DraftKings ad. When I asked for more names, Macias said, “We have had 20 winners of $1 million prizes.” She promised to get back to me with a list of those names, and never did.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Emily Bass, public relations manager for FanDuel, suggested Scott Hanson, “Scott H.,” a 2014 big winner. When I asked for more names, Bass said her company has “a huge number” of big winners. She promised to get back to me with a list of names, and never did.
Naturally, many who win lawfully at gambling would prefer their identities not be disseminated. State lotteries and some casinos prove that prizes were distributed by issuing audited financial statements, such as this one. As long as the auditors do a good job, players know that purses were paid and shills weren’t hired to leap up and scream, “I won!”
As privately held start-ups in a business area that is unregulated, DraftKings and FanDuel are under no obligation to substantiate their numbers. “We do not disclose financials; that is company policy,” Mohammed Dieye, a DraftKings official, told me. FanDuel says it paid $560 million in prizes in 2014 — click “press kit.” But the statement is a promotional claim, not an auditor’s attestation.
Thus neither company offers anything, beyond its say-so, backing up the advertising. What about the experiences of David Gomes and Scott Hanson?
Gomes, 25, grew up in Boston, is studying to be a physician assistant, and reports that he wisely saved the after-tax portion of his $1 million prize. His big payday came last season, from selecting New England’s Jonas Gray for a fantasy team days before the undrafted free agent ran for a surprising 201 yards and four touchdowns against Indianapolis.
“Sure there was luck involved, but this wasn’t just a wild guess,” Gomes said. “Gray caught my eye in training camp, and the Colts were weak against the rush in 2014. So it was a calculated risk. With state lotteries, a machine issues a number — how do you know if other numbers really won? With online fantasy sports, yes it’s gambling, but you watch the games and know for sure whether your choices were good or not. This is more honest to the public than lotteries based on random numbers.”
Hanson lives in Pasadena, Calif., was an elementary schoolteacher for a while, worked as a sports analyst for the analytics website ProFootballFocus, and this year is playing daily fantasy sports full-time. Hanson’s insight late in the 2014 season was to select little-known Cincinnati tailback Jeremy Hill when the Bengals were facing the Browns and the erratic rookie quarterback Johnny Manziel.
Hanson said, “I figured Manziel would turn the ball over, giving Hill some carries in the Cleveland red zone, where he’d score.” Both things happened. Hanson also tabbed the Carolina backup quarterback Derek Anderson, whom few other players wanted. Anderson threw a touchdown pass but no interceptions, which was great value in fantasy-sports terms.
“FanDuel and DraftKings are more like stock investing than you’d probably expect, including the need to diversify,” Hanson said. “Don’t wager a lot unless you really know what you are doing. If you’re just in it for some fun, don’t spend more than $20.”
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Gomes and Hanson converted their smarts into winnings — though both say they are down so far this season. FanDuel and DraftKings are run by plucky entrepreneurs, the type of people society rightly admires. On the flip side, both enterprises are using national television, and the imprimatur of the highly subsidized N.F.L., to make incredible promises while leaving the public no way of knowing whether the claims are true — and while tempting the unsophisticated to throw their money out the window.
In fiscal 2014, Americans’ largest gambling outflow was on state-sponsored lotteries: about $63 billion spent that year, about $255 per adult. If fantasy-based sport betting reaches even a fraction of that sum, it’s a substantial economic development.
David Brooks contends that most gambling targets those who can’t afford to lose. Neil Irwin of The Upshot, in contrast, thinks that legalizing wagering on point spreads would improve the situation for small-money players.
Whoever is right about the ethics of gambling, this much is certain: The house always wins. Be it online lotto (now offered by the nation’s capital), daily fantasy sports, blackjack, the ponies or James Bond versus a well-dressed supervillain at baccarat, as a group, players always come out behind. The business model of FanDuel and DraftKings — and others entering the market — makes sense only if most players lose money.
DraftKings and FanDuel seduce men and women into a dream of instant wealth. A handful do achieve instant wealth; for most, this dream only worsens inequality. And should the N.F.L., which draws about $1 billion annually in taxpayers’ money, be encouraging average people to gamble even more — that is, to lose even more?
Now about the corporate backing. Comcast, Fox, Google, Time Warner, the N.B.A., Major League Baseball and the N.F.L. owners Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft have invested in FanDuel and DraftKings. Yahoo is preparing its own entry to the field.
“Just pick your game, pick your team and pick up your winnings,” a DraftKings ad declares. But set the phoniness aside: DraftKings and FanDuel wouldn’t make business sense to Comcast, Fox, Google, Time Warner and pro sports owners unless the websites allow participants quickly and conveniently to use their smartphones to lose money.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/upshot/the-big-winners-in-fantasy-football-and-the-rest-of-us.html
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