Fantasy Sports Trade Association suspends membership of site FantasyAces for not separating operating cash +player deposits

[Shizzmoney]

Considering that both DK (who just revealed they separate player funds as of LAST MONTH) and FD bankroll the FSTA, this is like the Fox guarding the hen house.....but, FYI either way:

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https://twitter.com/twt/status/826615693823053824

Fantasy Aces just declared bankruptcy

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https://twitter.com/twt/status/826817009027530752

[JoeD]

Liquidation (Ch 7) bankruptcy filed here in Orange County, CA. If anyone is owed money and wants to file a claim (assuming there's ever going to be any money to payout), I'm happy to help out.

[Dan Druff]

http://www.legalsportsreport.com/128...-fantasy-aces/

Bankruptcy filing:

The filing was made on Tuesday.

Aces claims it has assets of $1.8 million.

The company claims liabilities of just under $3 million.

A Bank of America account listed as “Players Account” has just $2,419.86 in it.

A another account listed as “Players Account” — on PayPal — has $791.43 in it.

One line under creditors owed called “Various User Accounts” is listed at $1.3 million.

A number of Fantasy Aces users are listed as “nonpriority creditors.”

[Dan Druff]

FantasyDraft, who was going to buy FantasyAces but backed out when they found out about the stolen money, has decided to partially make good on the FantasyAces balances anyway:

However, for balances over $5,000, this deal isn't likely to recover most of your money, unless you're a reliably winning fantasy player.

Here is their offer:

https://lockerroom.fantasydraft.com/...ount-balances/

FantasyDraft has entered into an agreement with the FantasyAces bankruptcy trustee to obtain player account and balance information in order to help reimburse missing FantasyAces player funds.

As members of the DFS community, committed to doing things the right way, we feel that we need to do our part to protect the lifeblood of the industry: the players.

Through this agreement, we have committed to reimburse Fantasy Aces players up to $1,000 cash to cover missing account balances, this makes 99.6% of the players whole. In addition, to help those with larger balances we are also going to offer the following:

Players with a Fantasy Aces cash account balance between $1,000 – $5,000:
We will provide $1,000 Cash + Remaining balance in FantasyCash up to $4,000 ($5,000 total)

Players with a Fantasy Aces cash balance >$5,000:
We will provide $1,000 Cash + $4,000 FantasyCash + a Pending Bonus for the remainder of your balance
Pending Bonus is earned at a rate of 4% for each $1 in entry fees paid in USD, and is paid as FantasyCash

Upon court approval, we will provide additional details on how FantasyAces players can claim their funds on FantasyDraft.

FantasyDraft is committed to being a responsible citizen of the DFS community. That means we do things the right way, and your funds will always be segregated and protected. We are licensed or registered in all states that have passed DFS regulation and are compliant in each.

When we say that We Put Players First, we mean it.

So basically they will pay you if your balance is less than $1k, will give you $1k plus the remainder in "FantasyCash" if your balance is between $1k and $5k, and $1k cash + $4k FantasyCash + a "pending bonus" for the remainder of your balance if it's above $5k.

FantasyCash appears to be a "1x playthrough" type of bonus money, where you have to use it to enter fantasy tournaments on the site, but where any winnings are paid in real money.

The "pending bonus" they're describing (for those with balances over $5k) looks like 26x playthrough. That is, you earn it at a rate of $.04 per $1 played on the site, and "earnings" become FantasyCash, which must be run through once more.

Examples:

1) If you have $975 balance on FantasyAces: FantasyDraft will pay you $975, with no play required.

2) If you have $3500 balance on FantasyAces: FantasyDraft will pay you $1000, with no play required. You will get $2500 in FantasyCash, meaning you will have to play at least $2500 worth of tournaments on the site with it. Whatever you win in those tournaments is yours to keep in cash, and there is no further play required after that.

3) If you have a $7000 balance on FantasyAces: Fantasy Draft will pay you $1000, with no play required. You will get $4000 in FantasyCash, meaning you will have to play at least $4000 worth of tournaments on the site with it, and you will receive in real cash whatever you win. You will also receive $2000 in "pending bonus". For each $25 played in tournaments (presumably with real-money buyins) at that point (presumably AFTER you've cleared out your $4000 in FantasyCash), you will earn $1 more in FantasyCash. This means you will have to play $50,000 more worth of tournaments to convert the $2000 bonus into $2000 FantasyCash, and then play another $2000 worth of tournaments to run the FantasyCash into real money. That means you have to play $52,000 worth of tournaments with that bonus money, and you'll be risking real money along the way. So this basically sucks unless you're going to run that type of money through anyway.

So this is great if you have a balance of less than $1k (they cover it with no strings attached), pretty good if your balance is $5k or less (they cover $1k of it, then give you up to $4k in one-time-playthrough freeplay), but not so great if you have significantly over $5k (because you'll have to risk real money in order to slowly recoup the amount of $5k, via a 26x playthrough bonus).

Better than nothing? Definitely.

But it's not quite "fully making good".

With that said, they claim that 99.6% have lower than $1k balances, so for those players, they really will be made whole with no strings attached.

Of course, these things are rarely done with altruism in mind. This is a marketing gimmick to get people over to FantasyDraft, though it will happen to benefit the lower-balance players (of which almost everyone there is) who got screwed.

[BeerAndPoker]

Seems tough for an upstart company to be even able to give any refunds like that in DFS because these noobs get whacked by pros then pros just have that money now meaning they will cash out.

Fantasy Draft approaching their marketing way different and cheaper then Draftkings and Fan Duel so perhaps they crunched the numbers and felt they could budget this promo where it the pros would outweigh the cons giving them good publicity to grow their site. I'm not sure if they are still doing it but for a while they were running zero rake head to head tournaments which is obviously a great thing for players.