DraftKings Employee Ethan Haskell Caught Cheating

[chinamaniac]

There is still no proof of insider info being used as far as I am aware. I could be wrong but this seems to be the media and people jumping all over this.

I'm not saying it couldn't be happening or didn't happen but is there proof that it is happening or happened? The stuff that kid Ethan posted was not that public knowledge at the time and then he won on Fanduel?

But the # of saying Draftkings employees won xxx at fanduel is just stupid because they are only talking about payouts here. it is like the old hendon mob thing where some guys have 10 million in tourney scores where they are breakeven players etc..

It doesn't matter if there is proof that they used the info for profit.

It matters that they COULD have, and it further matters that circumstantial evidence shows that they did.

At the very least, we have evidence that:

1) DraftKings employees (though we're not sure how many) had access to very valuable info
-and-
2) DraftKings employees who had the access played on FanDuel and did really well

That by itself is a huge scandal, even if it turns out that it was a sheer coincidence that they had access to such data and also kicked ass on FanDuel.

How do u know they could have seen the info? Im not saying i believe the guy but the draftkings ceo says nobody can see that info till lineups lock. So there is no proof and yes u need some kind of proof. Not just that some employees won money. They are allowed to play on competing sites. Draftkings internal investigation turned up nothing and thats not surprising. However on outside the lines they did report that there is an independent investigation from some firm headed by some former u.s. Attorney.

If there is proof they were getting insider info then thats more or less theft. But there is still 0 proof this stuff is even accessible.

Unless i missed the part where it is proven that draftkings employees have access to all of the data openly on their site then this is just a media blowup over nothing and people are taking the bait

[4Dragons]

OMG Conan NAILED IT

[Shizzmoney]

This DraftDuel one is pretty good too

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/6ef...=imwdge.nv62q1

[Daly]

Many people at both companies have access to all the data and in real time. That's a 100% fact.

I work for a Fortune 500 company in corporate accounting. I have real time access to my companies financials.

The main difference between me and the DF guys is my information is guarded 24/7 by an army of IT folks/systems and with a compliance department that monitors the security of the information at the request of government regulators. The DF data as far as we can tell is unguarded proprietary information and there is no oversight internally or by any external regulators. Furthermore the DF guys can share info with friends with little consequence, if I shared I'd go to jail.

They can either tighten up the ship or get ass fucked by regulation. And you are all kidding yourself if you think this info wasn't being shared by friends up until 48 hours ago.

[chinamaniac]

Many people at both companies have access to all the data and in real time. That's a 100% fact.

I'm sure it's possible but where is the proof that they do or the proof that someone is using it to gain an advantage to play on other sites?

I also think the government is going to get involved with this stuff and put some hard regulations on it at some point. It is too big now not too and it is gambling on professional sports.

[chinamaniac]

here is an interview with Voulgaris on the Le Batard show. I think he hits the nail on the head on every one of his opinions

http://tunein.com/topic/?topicId=101505740

[Daly]

Many people at both companies have access to all the data and in real time. That's a 100% fact.

I'm sure it's possible but where is the proof that they do or the proof that someone is using it to gain an advantage to play on other sites?

I also think the government is going to get involved with this stuff and put some hard regulations on it at some point. It is too big now not too and it is gambling on professional sports.

There is no reason to provide proof that the data exists. That point is self evident if you know anything about Information systems.

Does anyone have a smoking gun that the data is being used to gain an edge at DFS? I'll give you that, to the best of my knowledge no there isn't. I know enough about human nature to know it's more probable than not that someone is using the data and where there is smoke there is fire. But like the whole Brady thing you can't put anyone is jail over "maybes".

100% the government gets involved. Either they try and close the UIGA loophole or they use it to scan some regulatory oversight jobs.

[Brittney Griner's Clit]

I'd be most worried about guys having access to the winning players lineups and simply cutting and pasting them to the other site. This other stuff still doesn't mean much to me. But then again I don't DFS.

[garrett]

There is still no proof of insider info being used as far as I am aware. I could be wrong but this seems to be the media and people jumping all over this.

I'm not saying it couldn't be happening or didn't happen but is there proof that it is happening or happened? The stuff that kid Ethan posted was not that public knowledge at the time and then he won on Fanduel?

But the # of saying Draftkings employees won xxx at fanduel is just stupid because they are only talking about payouts here. it is like the old hendon mob thing where some guys have 10 million in tourney scores where they are breakeven players etc..

The fact some mid level employee had literally the real owned %s before the late lineups locked, and was able to 'accidentally' tweet it out says enough. There wasn't even a reason this knucklehead needed it, for what to write some stupid article that honestly isn't even necessary, why even write articles about owned %s and have to do it before the contests even started, use your brain man their is no reason. They were using it to create their own lineups more optimally.

This is a game based off of who has the best information/data, and then best can utilize it by entering optimal or probably optimal lineups. The entire game is based off of information and its clear as day employees have been running around draftkings and fanduel with grossly inadequate practices of who can access it, why and when etc.

The entire game is based off of information and the fact these sites did not treat that information as sensitive and vital is problematic in and of itself. If nothing more THAT BETTER change moving forward. Its huge this information, and everyone who plays knows it can give people an unfair advantage if not this wouldn't even be a story!

[handicapme]

What I find lol about this whole thing is:

People truely believed that they could "win" just by playing only GPPs (Garrett...) and not use an algo to generate hundreds of lineups.

The real value will always be in the 50/50s and heads up where this advantage would have been miniscule unless they were able to see the lineups of the heads up opponents then everything is fucked. I dont think this has happened, or atleast in the stakes I play ($10-50).

I'm up so far this year around ~6kish which is an ROI of around 60% and this is all driven by large 50/50s and head to heads... my ROI in gpps is closer to 0 if not negative, but I'll always put 1 lineup in cuz I'm a sucker and is usually only 3% of my weekly buyin. Maybe I'm just "lucky" but being up close to 20k since week 1 of last year (dont play the playoffs) and I started off running $300 a week to now upwards of $1-2k a week, I think it's beatable. Also, fuck fanduel and thier kicker option.

Either way this scandal is ridiculous... but people like Garrett who believe that they can beat GPPs without algos and 100+ lineups and crying foul on this shit is just ridiculous. Just like poker, people want the big headshot of money and when they get taken advantage blame the cheaters vs thier inability to realize their lack of skill or willingness to grind it out.

Yes they manipulated the game.
Yes they should be banned and punished.

But don't think for a second if those 5-15 people didn't do what they did that it would have changed the outcome for the casual player. The people who should truely be angry are the high volume quant pros who didn't have that info, not the casual fan.

Sorry, all over the place in this post but hope my point gets across. Also, SHUT UP GARRETT.

[Sanlmar]

US lawmakers cannot create sensible "light regulation". Just not in their range and a decade has proven me right. Our form of government does not lend itself to this sort of thing.

What makes this different are the mom & Apple pie institutions that have invested, NFL & MLB. Mediocre NFL will suffer a huge hit without fantasy.

Portal to legalized sports betting or total ban? Rhetorical question. You know the answer too.

Of course, "changes are coming soon".

The idealism isn't attractive. Grow up.

Preet Bharara is already gunning for NFL over Toradol and all that shit.

You always bristle at my suggestion for "light regulation", but you never offer an alternative aside from the free market taking care of self-regulation.

This despite the fact that you are a poker player, have closely followed the various huge scandals over the years, and have seen proof positive that self-regulation does not work when such large sums of money are involved.

I will give you that the government is not good at light regulation, but the reform needs to come there (where light regulation is attempted and becomes the norm), rather than just throwing up our hands, conceding that we can't regulate effectively, and basically let the thieves continue stealing.

The bottom line is that government regulation of these industries is the lesser of two evils, and it CAN be done right.

Notice that the Nevada casinos are all under government regulation, and that generally goes pretty well. It's not perfect, but I can assure you that we would have FAR more shadiness in the industry if no such regulation existed.

The government is just a bit behind the times with effective online regulation, and they need to get up to speed.

I can argue NVG. Neither time nor place. Suffice for now that online has richer opportunity.

Laws and reg CAN be written - somewhere else, like Europe but not here.

Why don't you knock on PwC's door and propose PwC certifying online gaming company accounting and practices. PwC doesn't want to involve themselves in illegal businesses presently but given online gaming's Rich history consumers would recognize the value.

Edit: the U.S. facing sites (some) ARE legal elsewhere. PwC (to use an example) is worldwide.

If I were you Druff I would explore this anyway as an exercise.

Hope, inertia & love.

Peace out.

[FRANKRIZZO]

I am a fantasy league noob. Am I understanding the main crux of it correctly? Lets say 80 percent of the field in these huge million makers have pretty much the same picks. Does this in effect mean they are dead money? Robbins the vp or owner of draft kings seemes like a shady , lying motherfucking snake in the grass.

[smiflorida]

I received this email today from DraftKings:


As the three co-founders of DraftKings, we want to speak to you directly about what has been going on.

We know that you play DraftKings because it's fun and because it gives you a chance to showcase your skills against millions of other fans, and we know that you cannot do that without a level playing field.

The fairness and integrity of our contests has been at the heart of everything we have built since we started the company three and a half years ago.

Over the past week, questions have arisen around an employee of ours who won a significant prize on a competitor's site. While our internal investigation has reflected absolutely no wrongdoing on his part, this has still pushed us to reevaluate our processes.

Long before this happened, the wheels were in motion for an external review of our policies and procedures. Given the pace of our growth, we felt that an audit was critical to ensure the security of our platform, so we hired an external law firm experienced with these issues to conduct a full review.

But that is not enough. In addition to this audit, we have put in place a set of core measures that we believe are central to this process:
• We expanded our existing policy prohibiting DraftKings employees from playing on our site to prohibit participation in any public daily fantasy sports contests for money.
• We also will prohibit employees from any other Daily Fantasy Sports contest operator from participating in games on DraftKings.
• We are actively reviewing our organizational structure and will add resources to ensure compliance with all recommendations stemming from internal and external findings.
• We are working with multiple third parties to strengthen all internal policies and procedures.
The events of the past week have caused us to take a broader look and to ask those both here and externally to widen the scope of their analysis of our business.

We are aware that there is room for growth, regardless of the strength of our current platform. We will work tirelessly to improve all aspects of our customer experience, which is every bit as important to us as the effort we put into our product.

You will no doubt continue to hear from the media about both DraftKings and the industry. It is our prerogative to keep driving that conversation ourselves. We will work to respond to your concerns in complete transparency and to inform you of the steps we are taking to inspire your full trust.

Please know how grateful we are for the passion and loyalty you have shown DraftKings throughout our history and especially over the past week. You remain our greatest priority.

Thank you,

Jason Robins, Matt Kalish & Paul Liberman
Co-Founders, DraftKings

[Shizzmoney]

#LOL ESPN (this is NOT photoshopped)

[4Dragons]

#LOL ESPN (this is NOT photoshopped)

That's God on at least 3 levels.

[MumblesBadly]

https://vine.co/v/e01hHa7MrVK

[Shizzmoney]

This also not a good look for FD:

http://imgur.com/a/gXrqW

Also:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/twt/status/652586106777550848

[IAmProfessionalTalk]

Lets say 80 percent of the field in these huge million makers have pretty much the same picks. Does this in effect mean they are dead money?

All of those people with the same lineup have just the same expectation as super lucky guys like Ethan Haskell or Mike Boccio.

[Shizzmoney]

Newest NYT article on it:

Weeks before a leak of inside information led state investigators to question whether daily fantasy football games were a fraud, misleading thousands of players vying for millions of dollars in prize money, Madison Calvert, a regular player, became suspicious.

At a private party for DraftKings, one of the biggest daily fantasy websites, Calvert said, he discussed his baseball contest choices with a host, Jon Aguiar, an executive of the site, who suddenly made a quick check on his phone and, to Calvert’s surprise, informed him that his pick of a pitcher was a poor choice because many other players had selected him.

“I shouldn’t have pulled that up in front of you, ha-ha,” Calvert said Aguiar told him.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/12...ball.html?_r=0

[SrslySirius]

Druff mentioned that a few pages back. For some reason everyone else was pretty slow to put it together. The guy said "I don't want to out him by name, but he's the head of VIP services for Draft Kings."

Maybe he's not aware that Google and LinkedIn are things that exist