DraftKings Lineup Leak Rocks Daily Fantasy Sports Industry

[AgentUnknown]

I hate the commercials with their douche bags all sweatin' while watching a game.

 

[NoTine42]

What gets me is that some guy always, always manage to pick the highest point players for any week. I mean, how?? :awe:

Who will start against the Jets? Who will start against the Bears?
Those are the sort of guys you start :awe:

 

[HomerJS]

I listen to WIP in Phila and they are completely silent on the issue. They've stopped running their commercials (1/3 - 1/2 of their total). No mention of the story at all.

Sports station chiefs must be crapping their pants. Again media = no integrity

 

[kranky]

I suppose it's possible for an internet-based gambling site to be completely fair to the players, but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[DrPizza]

I don't really see the big issue here... When it comes to fantasy football, a lot of times you decide to pick-up players based on how other people are doing. You are able to look at how many people picked that player up in the last week in order to see there is a sudden rush to get that player (e.g. main starter RB was injured last week, hence the back-up will be likely starting). It's no different than when they have 3x the payout if <insert shitty team here> wins vs. 1x payout If the New England Patriots win.

Having the ability to see what the majority of people are picking doesn't mean that player is going to be any better. Plus there are plenty of sports websites that talk about fantasy and gambling, and that is "expert opinions" as well.

Or am I failing to see what is so wrong about this?

It messes with expected value of choices. I'll use an over-simplified analogy to explain. Let's say there's a roulette table, the house keeps 10%, and the players split the winnings. It's $10 to play, and 100 people are playing. 75 players picked red, 25 players picked green. If red comes up, $900 is being split 75 ways. If green comes up, $900 is being split 25 ways.

Now, if you entered the game with no knowledge, there's a 50/50 chance of what you'd pick. However, someone with the insider information, though it wouldn't guarantee that they'd win - (which is understood by everyone) - in the long run, that insider information would result in much better earnings.

 

[holden j caufield]

I think regular fantasy users don't understand the edge this gives the DFS guys. I actually don't play DFS, just the regular FS, people who are pretty smart say it's like being able to act last in any game knowing what the previous person did.

Usually in games it's rotating so that the person acting last and has the most info isn't constantly having this edge. At least in the Price is Right or Poker you know who's acting last and has all the info. It's very shady for an insider to have this info and use it.

I think it's worse is that I believe they can have multiple entries and it happens daily so though this edge doesn't look huge (it actually is a big edge) it's even compounded that it is used multiple times a day.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

it's an issue because they have a slight edge if they decide to play on another site although it doesn't matter if Fanduel doesn't care.

It's an even bigger issue if there's collusion going on. This guy accidentally leaked this info out. However what happens when he passes that info along to a friend who can play no DK?

You do everything to get EV in your favor.

 

[SSSnail]

As someone who plays FF in different formats, I don't think it matters one bit. For instance, in my pick-em league, you're presented with the percentage of people that have picked either team to win. That doesn't mean your odds of winning are any better if you didn't know about the percentage.

And of course everyone and their dogs will pick the popular players, it's finding the fringe player that happens to have a big day when you pick him, that's where the payout is, so no analysis is going to help you if you don't pay attention.