NFFC Cheating Scandal: Caught Cheating & Fired, NFFC (1 Viewer)

[Dreamer]

It's Pandora's Box. The monkey's out of the bottle man.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

It's Pandora's Box. The monkey's out of the bottle man.

This ain’t rocket surgery.

 

[BassNBrew]

Ouch, this is going to bury them. I've been playing fantasy football for 30 years, since before the internet, scoring from the USA today on monday morning with a pencil and pad, and this was the year I finally trusted theses big name contests enough to throw my hat in the ring. Then the FBG NFFC contest got cancelled so I shelved the idea for another year. I doubt this can be repaired. I'm pretty sure this is the tip of the iceberg and I think the response should have been different so far. Shame on them.

What happened with the FBG nffc contest?

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

Ouch, this is going to bury them. I've been playing fantasy football for 30 years, since before the internet, scoring from the USA today on monday morning with a pencil and pad, and this was the year I finally trusted theses big name contests enough to throw my hat in the ring. Then the FBG NFFC contest got cancelled so I shelved the idea for another year. I doubt this can be repaired. I'm pretty sure this is the tip of the iceberg and I think the response should have been different so far. Shame on them.

What happened with the FBG nffc contest?

It’s still going. I’m in it. It’s fun. That one was a $50 entry with $50K grand prize IIRC.

The contest in question is $300 with $150K grand prize.

 

[Max Power]

The same player seems to have changed his lineup after lock in a different NFFC playoff contest. (The below tweet quotes another user who found transactions that suggest it's the same scenario as the others. Gretch is one of the Ship Chasing guys.)

https://twitter.com/yardspergretch/status/1750931764015694138?s=46&t=-3IpndNWuR0Gb8f7k4gPqQ

Ben Gretch
@YardsPerGretch

Whole lineup was submitted an hour after lock, including a low-owned Kareem Hunt, who scored Cleveland’s first TD. Then a swap off Hunt to Nico, presumably after Nico’s TD. This sucks.

I thought the owner talked to the employee and this was a one time thing.

 

[Dreamer]

Ouch, this is going to bury them. I've been playing fantasy football for 30 years, since before the internet, scoring from the USA today on monday morning with a pencil and pad, and this was the year I finally trusted theses big name contests enough to throw my hat in the ring. Then the FBG NFFC contest got cancelled so I shelved the idea for another year. I doubt this can be repaired. I'm pretty sure this is the tip of the iceberg and I think the response should have been different so far. Shame on them.

What happened with the FBG nffc contest?

It’s still going. I’m in it. It’s fun. That one was a $50 entry with $50K grand prize IIRC.

The contest in question is $300 with $150K grand prize.

Did I imagine that getting cancelled? I've had a really busy year, I may be losing my mind.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

Ouch, this is going to bury them. I've been playing fantasy football for 30 years, since before the internet, scoring from the USA today on monday morning with a pencil and pad, and this was the year I finally trusted theses big name contests enough to throw my hat in the ring. Then the FBG NFFC contest got cancelled so I shelved the idea for another year. I doubt this can be repaired. I'm pretty sure this is the tip of the iceberg and I think the response should have been different so far. Shame on them.

What happened with the FBG nffc contest?

It’s still going. I’m in it. It’s fun. That one was a $50 entry with $50K grand prize IIRC.

The contest in question is $300 with $150K grand prize.

Did I imagine that getting cancelled? I've had a really busy year, I may be losing my mind.

Apparently so, because I’m in it. Lol

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

I thought the owner talked to the employee and this was a one time thing.

Another sleuth apparently found another instance. I still haven’t seen confirmation of that though.

 

[phandango]

Ouch, this is going to bury them. I've been playing fantasy football for 30 years, since before the internet, scoring from the USA today on monday morning with a pencil and pad, and this was the year I finally trusted theses big name contests enough to throw my hat in the ring. Then the FBG NFFC contest got cancelled so I shelved the idea for another year. I doubt this can be repaired. I'm pretty sure this is the tip of the iceberg and I think the response should have been different so far. Shame on them.

What happened with the FBG nffc contest?

It’s still going. I’m in it. It’s fun. That one was a $50 entry with $50K grand prize IIRC.

The contest in question is $300 with $150K grand prize.

Did I imagine that getting cancelled? I've had a really busy year, I may be losing my mind.

FBG had a season-long $350 contest with FFPC that ended in 2022. Last year, FBG announced it had partnered with NFFC for a $350 contest for the 2023 season, but it seemed that it was canceled when the contest wasn't filling fast enough. So you're both right. (Or you're both losing your mind.)

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[Max Power]

I thought the owner talked to the employee and this was a one time thing.

Another sleuth apparently found another instance. I still haven’t seen confirmation of that though.

I don't know anyone involved and reading through the original thread it seems like a good group of guys and this employee has support outside of this event.

Feel bad for the owner having to learn crisis response PR on the fly, but not a good look to guarantee its a one time thing when it may not have been. It's doubling down on a bad situation.

 

[tangfoot]

The email:

NFFC UPDATE​

Greetings NFC customers,

As many of you are aware, we recently learned that a former employee of ours used his access
to our back-end systems to make anomalous lineup changes on behalf of a participant in one of
our NFL playoff fantasy sports contests. While SportsHub understands that it will be subject to
certain inquiry and speculation because of our transparency, our disclosure results from our
voluntary publication of timestamps for each transaction within each of our contests. We
express our thanks to the Ship Chasing crew for its efforts. Based upon our initial internal
investigation, we are taking the appropriate measures. As I hope you can understand, we are as
stunned by these circumstances as you are, and we continue to move forward to remedy the
wrongdoing.

I have some massive problems with this first paragraph, so much so that I will never consider using their services.

"former employee" - He was a CURRENT employee

"access to our back-end systems" DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

"anomalous lineup changes" - While these changes were anomalous, that's not the right word for this. Call them "post-roster lock changes" or something similar. By using "anomalous", they also make me think that it's normal for an employee to make other kinds of lineup changes via the back-end systems.

"on behalf of a participant" - In coordination with the participant. In a conspiracy, even.

"our disclosure results from our voluntary publication of timestamps" - timestamps that no one ever looked at, clearly.

"Based upon our initial internal investigation, we are taking the appropriate measures" - Yes, you're taking measures but we have no idea if they are appropriate or not at this time.

"we are as stunned by these circumstances as you are" - We had our heads in the sand with no controls, process or ability to find this type of behavior, and no one should ever trust us again.

 

[GreenNGold]

I thought the owner talked to the employee and this was a one time thing.

Another sleuth apparently found another instance. I still haven’t seen confirmation of that though.

I haven't clicked on the links, but this article has links/screenshots to two other incidents involving the same user, one the nico collins swap that I believe was already mentioned here as well as a late swap in a regular season league: https://rotogrinders.com/articles/fantasy-football-scandal-intensifies-3999622

I haven't played in any NFFC leagues but always had some interest in them. I think if this turns about to be limited to a rogue employee and they can make assurances that better safeguards are in place going forward, they could bounce back from this, but we'll have to wait and see what else comes out and how everything is handled. Unfortunately for almost every company in every industry, security is a much lower priority than it should be.

 

[scoobus]

This is what the head of the company wrote about about the situation in case anyone missed it:

This morning I MUST address one thing: The employee involved.

He has been fired. His life has been ruined. His dream job is gone. He's let everyone down. He's let his kids, who he loves more than anything in this world, down. He let his wife, who he has been with since high school, down. He let me and Tom down more than you can imagine. He let down our management team who he has been working for since the 1990s, more than half of his life!!!

He knows he's damaged our contests very bad. He knows he damaged our reputation after 20 years of solid integrity. He knows he's let all of you in this great community down. He's let down some very close friends he's made through the NFBC and the NFFC. He knows they are VERY mad at him. He would be too. At heart, he's a fantasy player and he would go off on anyone who would be so stupid as to do something like this. He knows this is just so stupid it's unexplainable. He knows what everyone is saying about him now.

And yet I decided to text him yesterday and tell him that we all loved him and we all wanted to help him. I heard that he wanted to reach out to me but just couldn't do it. He was so ashamed of what he did, so embarrassed that he couldn't talk to me. I had just talked with him on Sunday and we talked about the Packers' loss. Little did I know that would be the easiest loss of the weekend.

So I reached out to him to say we want to help. It's obvious to me now that he has a demon. That demon gave him the courage to do something so inexplicably stupid that he can't even understand it. That demon gives him the courage to say stupid stuff on Twitter, an account that thankfully he has deleted. That demon must die. That demon MUST be eradicated.

I've never been aware of this demon, but it obviously is lethal. That's why we all need to help him if we can. He's a great guy. He's like a little brother to me. He's a family man. A smart guy who went to an Ivy League school. He's fun and this was his dream job. But his life isn't over and hopefully people will believe us when we say that this was not an on-going situation by any means and stay with our contests. But that's the least of my worries; I just want him to get help, prove to his family he's still a good man and pick up the pieces. I seriously mean that.

If I can forgive him -- and trust me, it's not easy -- then I hope many of you can, too. The next step is up to him. He has to step up, be a man, get the help he needs and be there for his family. It's time to man up, admit this stupid, stupid asinine mistake, own it and be better.

We as a company and as people you are supposed to trust took immediate action and we were as transparent as we could be with all of you. We're taking our lumps in the industry now and we'll never have this stain removed. We understand that. And we've taken steps to never let this happen again. But now it's up to him to do the same thing with his life, kill any demons he has and be a father again.

And finally, we owe a debt of gratitude to the guys who found the mistake on the Transactions page and alerted us on Monday morning. They caught the problem before anything more happened and thankfully it's in a contest that is still going and we could delete the affected team and every other team associated with this owner. Had this demon been allowed to live out of our sight, even worse things could have happened in the future.

Sorry for the long rant, but I'm not giving up on him and I'm not giving up on our contests. I'm not going to let the actions of one person we trusted with every tool at his disposal ruin what we've built over 20 years (and 34+ years in this industry). We're going to regain the trust of this great community and our industry and move forward. And I hope he does as well. Please do that D, will you?

There's so many goofy things in that statement with respect to the severity of what happened it's insane.

 

[tangfoot]

That was possibly the worst attempt at spin I've ever seen. The head of the company should have said absolutely nothing until he hired a crisis management team.

 

[candian fantasy guy]

Ouch, this is going to bury them. I've been playing fantasy football for 30 years, since before the internet, scoring from the USA today on monday morning with a pencil and pad, and this was the year I finally trusted theses big name contests enough to throw my hat in the ring. Then the FBG NFFC contest got cancelled so I shelved the idea for another year. I doubt this can be repaired. I'm pretty sure this is the tip of the iceberg and I think the response should have been different so far. Shame on them.

What happened with the FBG nffc contest?

It’s still going. I’m in it. It’s fun. That one was a $50 entry with $50K grand prize IIRC.

The contest in question is $300 with $150K grand prize.

Did I imagine that getting cancelled? I've had a really busy year, I may be losing my mind.

Apparently so, because I’m in it. Lol

No, there was 300$ or so tournament that was cancelled and it was the Footballguys tourney.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

This is what the head of the company wrote about about the situation in case anyone missed it:

This morning I MUST address one thing: The employee involved.

He has been fired. His life has been ruined. His dream job is gone. He's let everyone down. He's let his kids, who he loves more than anything in this world, down. He let his wife, who he has been with since high school, down. He let me and Tom down more than you can imagine. He let down our management team who he has been working for since the 1990s, more than half of his life!!!

He knows he's damaged our contests very bad. He knows he damaged our reputation after 20 years of solid integrity. He knows he's let all of you in this great community down. He's let down some very close friends he's made through the NFBC and the NFFC. He knows they are VERY mad at him. He would be too. At heart, he's a fantasy player and he would go off on anyone who would be so stupid as to do something like this. He knows this is just so stupid it's unexplainable. He knows what everyone is saying about him now.

And yet I decided to text him yesterday and tell him that we all loved him and we all wanted to help him. I heard that he wanted to reach out to me but just couldn't do it. He was so ashamed of what he did, so embarrassed that he couldn't talk to me. I had just talked with him on Sunday and we talked about the Packers' loss. Little did I know that would be the easiest loss of the weekend.

So I reached out to him to say we want to help. It's obvious to me now that he has a demon. That demon gave him the courage to do something so inexplicably stupid that he can't even understand it. That demon gives him the courage to say stupid stuff on Twitter, an account that thankfully he has deleted. That demon must die. That demon MUST be eradicated.

I've never been aware of this demon, but it obviously is lethal. That's why we all need to help him if we can. He's a great guy. He's like a little brother to me. He's a family man. A smart guy who went to an Ivy League school. He's fun and this was his dream job. But his life isn't over and hopefully people will believe us when we say that this was not an on-going situation by any means and stay with our contests. But that's the least of my worries; I just want him to get help, prove to his family he's still a good man and pick up the pieces. I seriously mean that.

If I can forgive him -- and trust me, it's not easy -- then I hope many of you can, too. The next step is up to him. He has to step up, be a man, get the help he needs and be there for his family. It's time to man up, admit this stupid, stupid asinine mistake, own it and be better.

We as a company and as people you are supposed to trust took immediate action and we were as transparent as we could be with all of you. We're taking our lumps in the industry now and we'll never have this stain removed. We understand that. And we've taken steps to never let this happen again. But now it's up to him to do the same thing with his life, kill any demons he has and be a father again.

And finally, we owe a debt of gratitude to the guys who found the mistake on the Transactions page and alerted us on Monday morning. They caught the problem before anything more happened and thankfully it's in a contest that is still going and we could delete the affected team and every other team associated with this owner. Had this demon been allowed to live out of our sight, even worse things could have happened in the future.

Sorry for the long rant, but I'm not giving up on him and I'm not giving up on our contests. I'm not going to let the actions of one person we trusted with every tool at his disposal ruin what we've built over 20 years (and 34+ years in this industry). We're going to regain the trust of this great community and our industry and move forward. And I hope he does as well. Please do that D, will you?

There's so many goofy things in that statement with respect to the severity of what happened it's insane.

IIRC I linked to it in the OP

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

Ouch, this is going to bury them. I've been playing fantasy football for 30 years, since before the internet, scoring from the USA today on monday morning with a pencil and pad, and this was the year I finally trusted theses big name contests enough to throw my hat in the ring. Then the FBG NFFC contest got cancelled so I shelved the idea for another year. I doubt this can be repaired. I'm pretty sure this is the tip of the iceberg and I think the response should have been different so far. Shame on them.

What happened with the FBG nffc contest?

It’s still going. I’m in it. It’s fun. That one was a $50 entry with $50K grand prize IIRC.

The contest in question is $300 with $150K grand prize.

Did I imagine that getting cancelled? I've had a really busy year, I may be losing my mind.

Apparently so, because I’m in it. Lol

No, there was 300$ or so tournament that was cancelled and it was the Footballguys tourney.

Apparently it was both. I’m in a $50 FBG tourney right now. Still going. I’m top 10% at the moment.

But the $300 didn’t happen? I dunno. I only know what I know.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

There's so many goofy things in that statement with respect to the severity of what happened it's insane.

it was a haphazard initial statement.

For sure if I were advising Greg I would have advised against
1. Making any sort of definitive statement about the number of instances
2. Reaching out to the now ex-wmployee
3. Mentioning demons or whatever excuse for that now ex-employee

It seems like a well-intentioned message. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as the expression goes.

The latest email statement is better, but yeah, there’s still some goofy stuff. I, too, scoffed at calling him an ex-employee, as if someone from years ago came back and hacked them. It read very poorly in my eyes. Like trying to distance themselves from a dude they literally just fired.

As expected, tip of the iceberg. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better. Fair or not, people are going to pick apart every communication that comes out.

They should hire a professional comms person to manage this crisis, because they’re demonstrably not very good at it.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

That was possibly the worst attempt at spin I've ever seen. The head of the company should have said absolutely nothing until he hired a crisis management team.

This. 100%

I just said that in my last post without seeing this reply 1st.

 

[massraider]

There's so many goofy things in that statement with respect to the severity of what happened it's insane.

That statement didn't answer any questions, and probably increased the number of questions.

 

[Dreamer]

There's so many goofy things in that statement with respect to the severity of what happened it's insane.

That statement didn't answer any questions, and probably increased the number of questions.

The statement was a huge fumble.
"What I should have said, was nothing."
John Mulaney

 

[Craig_MiamiFL]

This is what the head of the company wrote about about the situation in case anyone missed it:

This morning I MUST address one thing: The employee involved.

He has been fired. His life has been ruined. His dream job is gone. He's let everyone down. He's let his kids, who he loves more than anything in this world, down. He let his wife, who he has been with since high school, down. He let me and Tom down more than you can imagine. He let down our management team who he has been working for since the 1990s, more than half of his life!!!

He knows he's damaged our contests very bad. He knows he damaged our reputation after 20 years of solid integrity. He knows he's let all of you in this great community down. He's let down some very close friends he's made through the NFBC and the NFFC. He knows they are VERY mad at him. He would be too. At heart, he's a fantasy player and he would go off on anyone who would be so stupid as to do something like this. He knows this is just so stupid it's unexplainable. He knows what everyone is saying about him now.

And yet I decided to text him yesterday and tell him that we all loved him and we all wanted to help him. I heard that he wanted to reach out to me but just couldn't do it. He was so ashamed of what he did, so embarrassed that he couldn't talk to me. I had just talked with him on Sunday and we talked about the Packers' loss. Little did I know that would be the easiest loss of the weekend.

So I reached out to him to say we want to help. It's obvious to me now that he has a demon. That demon gave him the courage to do something so inexplicably stupid that he can't even understand it. That demon gives him the courage to say stupid stuff on Twitter, an account that thankfully he has deleted. That demon must die. That demon MUST be eradicated.

I've never been aware of this demon, but it obviously is lethal. That's why we all need to help him if we can. He's a great guy. He's like a little brother to me. He's a family man. A smart guy who went to an Ivy League school. He's fun and this was his dream job. But his life isn't over and hopefully people will believe us when we say that this was not an on-going situation by any means and stay with our contests. But that's the least of my worries; I just want him to get help, prove to his family he's still a good man and pick up the pieces. I seriously mean that.

If I can forgive him -- and trust me, it's not easy -- then I hope many of you can, too. The next step is up to him. He has to step up, be a man, get the help he needs and be there for his family. It's time to man up, admit this stupid, stupid asinine mistake, own it and be better.

We as a company and as people you are supposed to trust took immediate action and we were as transparent as we could be with all of you. We're taking our lumps in the industry now and we'll never have this stain removed. We understand that. And we've taken steps to never let this happen again. But now it's up to him to do the same thing with his life, kill any demons he has and be a father again.

And finally, we owe a debt of gratitude to the guys who found the mistake on the Transactions page and alerted us on Monday morning. They caught the problem before anything more happened and thankfully it's in a contest that is still going and we could delete the affected team and every other team associated with this owner. Had this demon been allowed to live out of our sight, even worse things could have happened in the future.

Sorry for the long rant, but I'm not giving up on him and I'm not giving up on our contests. I'm not going to let the actions of one person we trusted with every tool at his disposal ruin what we've built over 20 years (and 34+ years in this industry). We're going to regain the trust of this great community and our industry and move forward. And I hope he does as well. Please do that D, will you?

There's so many goofy things in that statement with respect to the severity of what happened it's insane.

Yeah it really came off as him treating it like a local league where one of the co-commissioners went rogue.

The initial statement was ludicrous. "I forgive my buddy. Please I hope you can forgive him too. The demon got him" . Like what?!?!?! (Is the :whoosh: (sp) emoji no longer available?)

As mentioned above, Greg/whomever really should have someone else handling communications at this point.

 

[BassNBrew]

I looked into one of the post season contests. Don't like that you need to "log in" to view the view where I'm sure you're authorizing them to sell your info. Even when I decide to giveinto that, I could figure out how much vig they were taking in the post season contest.

 

[Soulfly3]

Waiting on some users to finally pipe up and say "I emailed them about this X times on X date(s) and never got a response/reply/was brushed off"

I mean... It had to have happened, no? Gamblers are like HAWKS for stuff like this, there's absolutely no way it wasn't caught beforehand and reported by users.

They'll be GOLDEN if this didn't happen... Would be a massive W for them to have never brushed aside accusations like this... But if those dialogues start leaking, it's RIP imo.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

I looked into one of the post season contests. Don't like that you need to "log in" to view the view where I'm sure you're authorizing them to sell your info. Even when I decide to giveinto that, I could figure out how much vig they were taking in the post season contest.

I don’t really care what the vig is. They’re gonna get theirs as the host. It’s a business not a charity. I accept that.

When you go to sign up for a contest you can click the link to rules and see all the payouts, and how it’s all structured.

I had no issue with the way their contests were run, other than, you know, this massive cheating scandal. lol

 

[Dez]

I am pretty sure this is not the death of their site. I think they will take a hit in business in the number of people that play that will likely go down which sucks for Greg and Tom but I think the site will be fine.

They do baseball so they probably been doing drafts for a while now for this so we will see what kind of hit they take there.

The regular season contest would be harder to do any of these kind of moves you have teams in 12 team leagues and this means if you are doing well a team in your league is going to be playing you and will know your lineup before the games start so any kind of switch would stick out much more. Like in some of my higher stakes leagues I actually put their lineups on a spread sheet I look at my opp lineups at Thursday kickoff then Saturday night fill the rest in and recheck Sunday at 1 PM to see if they changed anything ect.

The post season they probably thought they could get away with it since no one is playing H2H and only someone who would go through all lineups right before a kickoff would catfch it and someone did just that.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Do not post unsubstantiated anonymous rumors accusing people of serious things here.

This thread will be gone if that kind of thing continues. If you have news or opinion, post the link with the source.

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

That was a sobering thread to read. I get that there's a lot of money at stake, and the game's integrity was damaged. But people were talking like they found out a good friend was a serial killer. He's ruined his life, he's fighting demons, how can we move forward from this. Are they talking about a fantasy game, or 9/11?

Any time big money is changing hands, you're going to have people looking for an edge, or an opportunity to cheat. Is it really that shocking?

Again, I get that it's a big deal, and people have poured their lives and careers into the game. Now it's threatened because somebody went rogue. But I'm pretty sure nobody died. The lesson for me was that there are people waaay more invested in the game than I am, mentally, emotionally, financially, etc. I need to keep that in mind in the heat of the next playoff race.

Well yeah, when playing for $200K, people take that ish seriously.

I forget what the top Hold ‘Em payout is for the $300 league in question, but it’s substantial.

The last few years for my bday I’ve treated myself to a 3-pack of NFFC leagues.

There are folks with 100+ teams across a dozen contests. To say there’s a chasm between my reaction to this & those folks would likely be a dramatic understatement. Or maybe not.

That said, so long as it’s policed sufficiently, I think it’ll all work out. But it’ll probably get a little ugly as more info comes out, and as more of their customers learn about this.

I’d be willing to bet that only about 20-30% of the NFFC customer base knows this even happened. Like I said, I had to randomly find out on Twitter when Razzball tweeted about it.

The one thing NFFC has going for it is their reputation is very good. Ambrosious isn’t new at this, and as @Joe Bryant pointed out, he’s known for being a top industry person. I’m sure FBG is very selective about who hosts their contests, and they trust NFFC, along with 1000s of FF players for a reason.

I’m hopeful this all gets worked out with a high degree of professionalism to everyone’s satisfaction.

Good points. The real victims are the people who have spent decades building a reputation, just to see one person ruin it. I hope they bounce back.

I probably shouldn't have said anything, since I never play high stakes. Even if it's discretionary money and it's budgeted to be lost...I found I don't enjoy it. The money takes something away for me. If I made 750K a year (I don't), I think a $300 league would still bother me. I'd always remember when that was a lot of money to me. Just don't have the gambling gene, I guess.

I still think some of the responses were over the top, but I get why it's a black mark on a game with a sterling reputation.

I would say the real victims are the customers who lost $ to the internal cheaters. Really anyone ever in any contest with this guy, or guys. Any contest this guy won prizes in should be recalculated and every other player moved up one spot in the standings. Retroactive refunds or prize increases to anyone else in said contests.

Surely there are victims, who would have made more money had they moved up a spot (that person wasn't there). Potentially thousands would be at stake, depending on where he finished. But to me, that's a small loss compared to the people who spent 30+ years in the industry and are in danger of losing their livelihood that literally took decades to build. Not to mention their reputation, which is already tarnished for good.

You can compensate the people who lost out on money based on where they would have finished. How do you make the company owners whole? How do they get their livelihood back? One guy could bring down one of the most well-respected games in the industry. They might continue, but they'll never fully recover. And realistically, they might only last a couple more years and then fizzle out.

I consider them the most-impacted victims, but I'm not minimizing those who lost some money as well.

 

[JohnnyU]

That was a sobering thread to read. I get that there's a lot of money at stake, and the game's integrity was damaged. But people were talking like they found out a good friend was a serial killer. He's ruined his life, he's fighting demons, how can we move forward from this. Are they talking about a fantasy game, or 9/11?

Any time big money is changing hands, you're going to have people looking for an edge, or an opportunity to cheat. Is it really that shocking?

Again, I get that it's a big deal, and people have poured their lives and careers into the game. Now it's threatened because somebody went rogue. But I'm pretty sure nobody died. The lesson for me was that there are people waaay more invested in the game than I am, mentally, emotionally, financially, etc. I need to keep that in mind in the heat of the next playoff race.

Well yeah, when playing for $200K, people take that ish seriously.

I forget what the top Hold ‘Em payout is for the $300 league in question, but it’s substantial.

The last few years for my bday I’ve treated myself to a 3-pack of NFFC leagues.

There are folks with 100+ teams across a dozen contests. To say there’s a chasm between my reaction to this & those folks would likely be a dramatic understatement. Or maybe not.

That said, so long as it’s policed sufficiently, I think it’ll all work out. But it’ll probably get a little ugly as more info comes out, and as more of their customers learn about this.

I’d be willing to bet that only about 20-30% of the NFFC customer base knows this even happened. Like I said, I had to randomly find out on Twitter when Razzball tweeted about it.

The one thing NFFC has going for it is their reputation is very good. Ambrosious isn’t new at this, and as @Joe Bryant pointed out, he’s known for being a top industry person. I’m sure FBG is very selective about who hosts their contests, and they trust NFFC, along with 1000s of FF players for a reason.

I’m hopeful this all gets worked out with a high degree of professionalism to everyone’s satisfaction.

Good points. The real victims are the people who have spent decades building a reputation, just to see one person ruin it. I hope they bounce back.

I probably shouldn't have said anything, since I never play high stakes. Even if it's discretionary money and it's budgeted to be lost...I found I don't enjoy it. The money takes something away for me. If I made 750K a year (I don't), I think a $300 league would still bother me. I'd always remember when that was a lot of money to me. Just don't have the gambling gene, I guess.

I still think some of the responses were over the top, but I get why it's a black mark on a game with a sterling reputation.

I would say the real victims are the customers who lost $ to the internal cheaters. Really anyone ever in any contest with this guy, or guys. Any contest this guy won prizes in should be recalculated and every other player moved up one spot in the standings. Retroactive refunds or prize increases to anyone else in said contests.

Surely there are victims, who would have made more money had they moved up a spot (that person wasn't there). Potentially thousands would be at stake, depending on where he finished. But to me, that's a small loss compared to the people who spent 30+ years in the industry and are in danger of losing their livelihood that literally took decades to build. Not to mention their reputation, which is already tarnished for good.

You can compensate the people who lost out on money based on where they would have finished. How do you make the company owners whole? How do they get their livelihood back? One guy could bring down one of the most well-respected games in the industry. They might continue, but they'll never fully recover. And realistically, they might only last a couple more years and then fizzle out.

I consider them the most-impacted victims, but I'm not minimizing those who lost some money as well.

This is why successful companies in today’s world have a successful IT department. One would think a loophole such as this would have been addressed instead of ignored.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

One would think a loophole such as this would have been addressed instead of ignored.

As someone who worked in IT for a decade, I sort of agree and sort of disagree.

Their software was arguably fine. But the human element was not. Obviously this dude had back-end system access, so i’m betting he was involved in the creation of those systems.

You have to have access for sysadmins - it’s when the person with that access goes bad that there’s an issue.

The human element is most often what fails. That’s certainly what happened in this case. The system worked as well as expected until a human with access became corrupt & intervened.

 

[JohnnyU]

One would think a loophole such as this would have been addressed instead of ignored.

As someone who worked in IT for a decade, I sort of agree and sort of disagree.

Their software was arguably fine. But the human element was not. Obviously this dude had back-end system access, so i’m betting he was involved in the creation of those systems.

You have to have access for sysadmins - it’s when the person with that access goes bad that there’s an issue.

The human element is most often what fails. That’s certainly what happened in this case. The system worked as well as expected until a human with access became corrupt & intervened.

The human element should have had a watchful eye with built-in security measures. This one obviously does not. The software isn’t “obviously fine”. The minute a lineup was changed after lock the system should have alarmed the website with a broadcast.
in other words, one person doing this activity should have alerted several people. If it’s legit (system malfunction), or has some valid reason, then it can be determined at that point.

 

[Joe Bryant]

That was a sobering thread to read. I get that there's a lot of money at stake, and the game's integrity was damaged. But people were talking like they found out a good friend was a serial killer. He's ruined his life, he's fighting demons, how can we move forward from this. Are they talking about a fantasy game, or 9/11?

Any time big money is changing hands, you're going to have people looking for an edge, or an opportunity to cheat. Is it really that shocking?

Again, I get that it's a big deal, and people have poured their lives and careers into the game. Now it's threatened because somebody went rogue. But I'm pretty sure nobody died. The lesson for me was that there are people waaay more invested in the game than I am, mentally, emotionally, financially, etc. I need to keep that in mind in the heat of the next playoff race.

Well yeah, when playing for $200K, people take that ish seriously.

I forget what the top Hold ‘Em payout is for the $300 league in question, but it’s substantial.

The last few years for my bday I’ve treated myself to a 3-pack of NFFC leagues.

There are folks with 100+ teams across a dozen contests. To say there’s a chasm between my reaction to this & those folks would likely be a dramatic understatement. Or maybe not.

That said, so long as it’s policed sufficiently, I think it’ll all work out. But it’ll probably get a little ugly as more info comes out, and as more of their customers learn about this.

I’d be willing to bet that only about 20-30% of the NFFC customer base knows this even happened. Like I said, I had to randomly find out on Twitter when Razzball tweeted about it.

The one thing NFFC has going for it is their reputation is very good. Ambrosious isn’t new at this, and as @Joe Bryant pointed out, he’s known for being a top industry person. I’m sure FBG is very selective about who hosts their contests, and they trust NFFC, along with 1000s of FF players for a reason.

I’m hopeful this all gets worked out with a high degree of professionalism to everyone’s satisfaction.

Good points. The real victims are the people who have spent decades building a reputation, just to see one person ruin it. I hope they bounce back.

I probably shouldn't have said anything, since I never play high stakes. Even if it's discretionary money and it's budgeted to be lost...I found I don't enjoy it. The money takes something away for me. If I made 750K a year (I don't), I think a $300 league would still bother me. I'd always remember when that was a lot of money to me. Just don't have the gambling gene, I guess.

I still think some of the responses were over the top, but I get why it's a black mark on a game with a sterling reputation.

I would say the real victims are the customers who lost $ to the internal cheaters. Really anyone ever in any contest with this guy, or guys. Any contest this guy won prizes in should be recalculated and every other player moved up one spot in the standings. Retroactive refunds or prize increases to anyone else in said contests.

Surely there are victims, who would have made more money had they moved up a spot (that person wasn't there). Potentially thousands would be at stake, depending on where he finished. But to me, that's a small loss compared to the people who spent 30+ years in the industry and are in danger of losing their livelihood that literally took decades to build. Not to mention their reputation, which is already tarnished for good.

You can compensate the people who lost out on money based on where they would have finished. How do you make the company owners whole? How do they get their livelihood back? One guy could bring down one of the most well-respected games in the industry. They might continue, but they'll never fully recover. And realistically, they might only last a couple more years and then fizzle out.

I consider them the most-impacted victims, but I'm not minimizing those who lost some money as well.

This is why successful companies in today’s world have a successful IT department. One would think a loophole such as this would have been addressed instead of ignored.

You may have exact insight and knowledge into this specific situation. I do not but I have some. It's my understanding it was not foolproof. But absolutely not "ignored". Again, you may have full knowledge of the specific position. If you don't, probably best not to speculate. Thanks.

 

[JohnnyU]

That was a sobering thread to read. I get that there's a lot of money at stake, and the game's integrity was damaged. But people were talking like they found out a good friend was a serial killer. He's ruined his life, he's fighting demons, how can we move forward from this. Are they talking about a fantasy game, or 9/11?

Any time big money is changing hands, you're going to have people looking for an edge, or an opportunity to cheat. Is it really that shocking?

Again, I get that it's a big deal, and people have poured their lives and careers into the game. Now it's threatened because somebody went rogue. But I'm pretty sure nobody died. The lesson for me was that there are people waaay more invested in the game than I am, mentally, emotionally, financially, etc. I need to keep that in mind in the heat of the next playoff race.

Well yeah, when playing for $200K, people take that ish seriously.

I forget what the top Hold ‘Em payout is for the $300 league in question, but it’s substantial.

The last few years for my bday I’ve treated myself to a 3-pack of NFFC leagues.

There are folks with 100+ teams across a dozen contests. To say there’s a chasm between my reaction to this & those folks would likely be a dramatic understatement. Or maybe not.

That said, so long as it’s policed sufficiently, I think it’ll all work out. But it’ll probably get a little ugly as more info comes out, and as more of their customers learn about this.

I’d be willing to bet that only about 20-30% of the NFFC customer base knows this even happened. Like I said, I had to randomly find out on Twitter when Razzball tweeted about it.

The one thing NFFC has going for it is their reputation is very good. Ambrosious isn’t new at this, and as @Joe Bryant pointed out, he’s known for being a top industry person. I’m sure FBG is very selective about who hosts their contests, and they trust NFFC, along with 1000s of FF players for a reason.

I’m hopeful this all gets worked out with a high degree of professionalism to everyone’s satisfaction.

Good points. The real victims are the people who have spent decades building a reputation, just to see one person ruin it. I hope they bounce back.

I probably shouldn't have said anything, since I never play high stakes. Even if it's discretionary money and it's budgeted to be lost...I found I don't enjoy it. The money takes something away for me. If I made 750K a year (I don't), I think a $300 league would still bother me. I'd always remember when that was a lot of money to me. Just don't have the gambling gene, I guess.

I still think some of the responses were over the top, but I get why it's a black mark on a game with a sterling reputation.

I would say the real victims are the customers who lost $ to the internal cheaters. Really anyone ever in any contest with this guy, or guys. Any contest this guy won prizes in should be recalculated and every other player moved up one spot in the standings. Retroactive refunds or prize increases to anyone else in said contests.

Surely there are victims, who would have made more money had they moved up a spot (that person wasn't there). Potentially thousands would be at stake, depending on where he finished. But to me, that's a small loss compared to the people who spent 30+ years in the industry and are in danger of losing their livelihood that literally took decades to build. Not to mention their reputation, which is already tarnished for good.

You can compensate the people who lost out on money based on where they would have finished. How do you make the company owners whole? How do they get their livelihood back? One guy could bring down one of the most well-respected games in the industry. They might continue, but they'll never fully recover. And realistically, they might only last a couple more years and then fizzle out.

I consider them the most-impacted victims, but I'm not minimizing those who lost some money as well.

This is why successful companies in today’s world have a successful IT department. One would think a loophole such as this would have been addressed instead of ignored.

You may have exact insight and knowledge into this specific situation. I do not but I have some. It's my understanding it was not foolproof. But absolutely not "ignored". Again, you may have full knowledge of the specific position. If you don't, probably best not to speculate. Thanks.

I’ve worked as a Senior Programmer / Analyst for over 40 years and now a Data Engineer and I’m very familiar with security protocols. When I said ”addressed instead of ignored “, I am referring to management knowing issues with their system and fixing loopholes. I highly doubt they didn’t know this was a possibility. If they didn’t, then that is a whole new set of issues.

 

[Joe Bryant]

That was a sobering thread to read. I get that there's a lot of money at stake, and the game's integrity was damaged. But people were talking like they found out a good friend was a serial killer. He's ruined his life, he's fighting demons, how can we move forward from this. Are they talking about a fantasy game, or 9/11?

Any time big money is changing hands, you're going to have people looking for an edge, or an opportunity to cheat. Is it really that shocking?

Again, I get that it's a big deal, and people have poured their lives and careers into the game. Now it's threatened because somebody went rogue. But I'm pretty sure nobody died. The lesson for me was that there are people waaay more invested in the game than I am, mentally, emotionally, financially, etc. I need to keep that in mind in the heat of the next playoff race.

Well yeah, when playing for $200K, people take that ish seriously.

I forget what the top Hold ‘Em payout is for the $300 league in question, but it’s substantial.

The last few years for my bday I’ve treated myself to a 3-pack of NFFC leagues.

There are folks with 100+ teams across a dozen contests. To say there’s a chasm between my reaction to this & those folks would likely be a dramatic understatement. Or maybe not.

That said, so long as it’s policed sufficiently, I think it’ll all work out. But it’ll probably get a little ugly as more info comes out, and as more of their customers learn about this.

I’d be willing to bet that only about 20-30% of the NFFC customer base knows this even happened. Like I said, I had to randomly find out on Twitter when Razzball tweeted about it.

The one thing NFFC has going for it is their reputation is very good. Ambrosious isn’t new at this, and as @Joe Bryant pointed out, he’s known for being a top industry person. I’m sure FBG is very selective about who hosts their contests, and they trust NFFC, along with 1000s of FF players for a reason.

I’m hopeful this all gets worked out with a high degree of professionalism to everyone’s satisfaction.

Good points. The real victims are the people who have spent decades building a reputation, just to see one person ruin it. I hope they bounce back.

I probably shouldn't have said anything, since I never play high stakes. Even if it's discretionary money and it's budgeted to be lost...I found I don't enjoy it. The money takes something away for me. If I made 750K a year (I don't), I think a $300 league would still bother me. I'd always remember when that was a lot of money to me. Just don't have the gambling gene, I guess.

I still think some of the responses were over the top, but I get why it's a black mark on a game with a sterling reputation.

I would say the real victims are the customers who lost $ to the internal cheaters. Really anyone ever in any contest with this guy, or guys. Any contest this guy won prizes in should be recalculated and every other player moved up one spot in the standings. Retroactive refunds or prize increases to anyone else in said contests.

Surely there are victims, who would have made more money had they moved up a spot (that person wasn't there). Potentially thousands would be at stake, depending on where he finished. But to me, that's a small loss compared to the people who spent 30+ years in the industry and are in danger of losing their livelihood that literally took decades to build. Not to mention their reputation, which is already tarnished for good.

You can compensate the people who lost out on money based on where they would have finished. How do you make the company owners whole? How do they get their livelihood back? One guy could bring down one of the most well-respected games in the industry. They might continue, but they'll never fully recover. And realistically, they might only last a couple more years and then fizzle out.

I consider them the most-impacted victims, but I'm not minimizing those who lost some money as well.

This is why successful companies in today’s world have a successful IT department. One would think a loophole such as this would have been addressed instead of ignored.

You may have exact insight and knowledge into this specific situation. I do not but I have some. It's my understanding it was not foolproof. But absolutely not "ignored". Again, you may have full knowledge of the specific position. If you don't, probably best not to speculate. Thanks.

I’ve worked as a senior programmer / analyst and for over 40 years and now a a Data Engineer and I’m very familiar with security protocols. When I said ”addressed instead of ignored “, I am referring to management knowing issues with their system and fixing loopholes. I highly doubt they didn’t know this was a possibility. If they didn’t, then tat is a whole new set of issues.

Yes, I understand what you say you did. I'm saying unless you have specific insight into this specific situation, don't post here speculating on things you don't know. Please stop. Thank you.

 

[JohnnyU]

That was a sobering thread to read. I get that there's a lot of money at stake, and the game's integrity was damaged. But people were talking like they found out a good friend was a serial killer. He's ruined his life, he's fighting demons, how can we move forward from this. Are they talking about a fantasy game, or 9/11?

Any time big money is changing hands, you're going to have people looking for an edge, or an opportunity to cheat. Is it really that shocking?

Again, I get that it's a big deal, and people have poured their lives and careers into the game. Now it's threatened because somebody went rogue. But I'm pretty sure nobody died. The lesson for me was that there are people waaay more invested in the game than I am, mentally, emotionally, financially, etc. I need to keep that in mind in the heat of the next playoff race.

Well yeah, when playing for $200K, people take that ish seriously.

I forget what the top Hold ‘Em payout is for the $300 league in question, but it’s substantial.

The last few years for my bday I’ve treated myself to a 3-pack of NFFC leagues.

There are folks with 100+ teams across a dozen contests. To say there’s a chasm between my reaction to this & those folks would likely be a dramatic understatement. Or maybe not.

That said, so long as it’s policed sufficiently, I think it’ll all work out. But it’ll probably get a little ugly as more info comes out, and as more of their customers learn about this.

I’d be willing to bet that only about 20-30% of the NFFC customer base knows this even happened. Like I said, I had to randomly find out on Twitter when Razzball tweeted about it.

The one thing NFFC has going for it is their reputation is very good. Ambrosious isn’t new at this, and as @Joe Bryant pointed out, he’s known for being a top industry person. I’m sure FBG is very selective about who hosts their contests, and they trust NFFC, along with 1000s of FF players for a reason.

I’m hopeful this all gets worked out with a high degree of professionalism to everyone’s satisfaction.

Good points. The real victims are the people who have spent decades building a reputation, just to see one person ruin it. I hope they bounce back.

I probably shouldn't have said anything, since I never play high stakes. Even if it's discretionary money and it's budgeted to be lost...I found I don't enjoy it. The money takes something away for me. If I made 750K a year (I don't), I think a $300 league would still bother me. I'd always remember when that was a lot of money to me. Just don't have the gambling gene, I guess.

I still think some of the responses were over the top, but I get why it's a black mark on a game with a sterling reputation.

I would say the real victims are the customers who lost $ to the internal cheaters. Really anyone ever in any contest with this guy, or guys. Any contest this guy won prizes in should be recalculated and every other player moved up one spot in the standings. Retroactive refunds or prize increases to anyone else in said contests.

Surely there are victims, who would have made more money had they moved up a spot (that person wasn't there). Potentially thousands would be at stake, depending on where he finished. But to me, that's a small loss compared to the people who spent 30+ years in the industry and are in danger of losing their livelihood that literally took decades to build. Not to mention their reputation, which is already tarnished for good.

You can compensate the people who lost out on money based on where they would have finished. How do you make the company owners whole? How do they get their livelihood back? One guy could bring down one of the most well-respected games in the industry. They might continue, but they'll never fully recover. And realistically, they might only last a couple more years and then fizzle out.

I consider them the most-impacted victims, but I'm not minimizing those who lost some money as well.

This is why successful companies in today’s world have a successful IT department. One would think a loophole such as this would have been addressed instead of ignored.

You may have exact insight and knowledge into this specific situation. I do not but I have some. It's my understanding it was not foolproof. But absolutely not "ignored". Again, you may have full knowledge of the specific position. If you don't, probably best not to speculate. Thanks.

I’ve worked as a senior programmer / analyst and for over 40 years and now a a Data Engineer and I’m very familiar with security protocols. When I said ”addressed instead of ignored “, I am referring to management knowing issues with their system and fixing loopholes. I highly doubt they didn’t know this was a possibility. If they didn’t, then tat is a whole new set of issues.

Yes, I understand what you say you did. I'm saying unless you have specific insight into this specific situation, don't post here speculating on things you don't know. Please stop.

You’re right about one thing, I don’t know the security of their system, only that I know some guy changed a lineup after lock. They said that already. The system should alert on that is all, if it doesn’t.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

The human element should have had a watchful eye with built-in security measures. This one obviously does not. The software isn’t “obviously fine”. The minute a lineup was changed after lock the system should have alarmed the website with a broadcast.
in other words, one person doing this activity should have alerted several people. If it’s legit (system malfunction), or has some valid reason, then it can be determined at that point.

We always had a “maker, checker, verifier” process - it’s considered a good quality control practice for any change.

That said, if the fox was in charge of the henhouse, not a lot they can do.

I’m not absolving the management of all responsibility, merely pointing out how it can happen, even with a good system.

 

[JohnnyU]

The human element should have had a watchful eye with built-in security measures. This one obviously does not. The software isn’t “obviously fine”. The minute a lineup was changed after lock the system should have alarmed the website with a broadcast.
in other words, one person doing this activity should have alerted several people. If it’s legit (system malfunction), or has some valid reason, then it can be determined at that point.

We always had a “maker, checker, verifier” process - it’s considered a good quality control practice for any change.

That said, if the fox was in charge of the henhouse, not a lot they can do.

I’m not absolving the management of all responsibility, merely pointing out how it can happen, even with a good system.

I understood your angle, I just didn’t agree with it. I’m not going to comment any further on what this particular website security should or shouldn’t be, to respect @Joe Bryant wishes. Because he is right, we don’t know their system.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

I understood your angle, I just didn’t agree with it. I’m not going to comment any further on what this particular website security should or shouldn’t be, to respect @Joe Bryant wishes. Because he is right, we don’t know their system.

Right - I’m speaking at a high level about what’s considered best practice controls.

And also, worth noting, I agree with you that better controls were needed and will be needed in the future. That’s not even debatable since this did happen.

But like you I won’t speculate on the “how” or “why”. My hope is that they figure it all out with enough transparency as to restore people’s faith in their brand.

It’s gonna be an uphill battle, IMO.

 

[GregR]

All of this brings back bad memories of a cheating commish who cuts and runs with league fees because he had a gambling problem. I’ve been commish for about 20 years and I don’t use leaguesafe and I’ve earned trust. If you lose your integrity you’re not left with much.

On that YouTube video, one of the dudes expressed shock at what happened, and made the statement that the lineup change after lock is like something you’d see happen in a home league with a cheating commish.

Having never used their site nor knowing anything about the contest, the biggest red flag I see is that someone with elevated rights to their software can make lineup changes after lock at all.
Literally no one should be able to do that, ever.

It would be nigh impossible to make functioning software that would not allow anyone ever to make changes like this.

You can make it so the user interface most people use won't do it.

But the database you run on, someone always is going to have the ability to make the change. You could lock an entire table or partition at the database level so it can't be changed. But that necessitates being able to unlock it or else your software becomes unusable at that point. So whoever has access to those admin accounts on the database would have the power to unlock it and change it and lock it again if they chose, even without using the normal user interface.

Flawless is just not possible. Off the top of my head, about the best I can think of is use multiple copies of logging and alerts where no single person has control over all the logs so they can't go make every record of what was done disappear.

But in the end you have to trust a few employees or your system won't function.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

But in the end you have to trust a few employees or your system won't function.

My point exactly. Well summed.

 

[JohnnyU]

But in the end you have to trust a few employees or your system won't function.

My point exactly. Well summed.

If done outside the user interface you can put monitors on a database to capture user ids and their activity and send alerts. You can also do a lot with database permissions. Obviously you can control the user interface programmatically and secure it as you see fit.

 

[jabarony]

Fortunately for the customers, though not the cheaters, the lineup changes came with a timestamp. If that little nugget weren't publicly available, this could have gone on years longer than it already has.

 

[houston]

If you’ve ever visited their website, or attempted to use their app, you won’t be surprised that they also had small-time checks and balances for their controls. Big time company in 2024 still running their business like fantasy is in its infancy of the 90s.

My experience with their best ball and guillotine leagues is that their league rules and descriptions didn’t match how their drafts operated. Not sure how you can operate thousands of drafts/contests and not have that ironed out.

In reading those statements from the company, I expected them to conclude with “Be on the lookout for a league poll as we will vote for how to handle this”

Always wondered: why is their website NFC when NFFC is the contest most often referred to?

What other companies are part of the SportsHub that seems to be the parent of the NFC site? This could be quite the elaborate investigation.

 

[Mister CIA]

Wait, a guy with permissions to make database edits directly was also allowed to participate in the contests hosted on said database? Seems like some boilerplate legal mumbo jumbo would have nipped this problem in the bud.

Edit: I think I may have misunderstood. We're there multiple parties involved? Employee and contestant(s)?

And to not have a process in place for managing direct updates to a database is, well ... I've only got unkind words to describe what I think of this, which I'll keep to myself.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Wait, a guy with permissions to make database edits directly was also allowed to participate in the contests hosted on said database? Seems like some boilerplate legal mumbo jumbo would have nipped this problem in the bud.

Edit: I think I may have misunderstood. We're there multiple parties involved? Employee and contestant(s)?

And to not have a process in place for managing direct updates to a database is, well ... I've only got unkind words to describe what I think of this, which I'll keep to myself.

It was collusion between a (since-fired) employee and a (since-banned) contestant. So far those are the only bad actors revealed.

 

[massraider]

Edit: I think I may have misunderstood. We're there multiple parties involved? Employee and contestant(s)?

https://twitter.com/ShipChasing/status/1750333189606801424

Tweet from the guy who is part of the fantasy podcasters who caught the guy past-posting.

 

[Hot Sauce Guy]

Always wondered: why is their website NFC when NFFC is the contest most often referred to?

Probably because NFFC stands for national fantasy football championship, and they also host fantasy baseball contests.

Having played on their site, I enjoy their drafts and believe they’re a high quality product. I like their FAAB process and I find their site intuitive to use.

Security breeches happen at banks, in medical centers, etc. It can happen anywhere there’s a bad actor with high level access.

I will still support the NFC - I don’t believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[Buckna]

Always wondered: why is their website NFC when NFFC is the contest most often referred to?

Probably because NFFC stands for national fantasy football championship, and they also host fantasy baseball contests.

Having played on their site, I enjoy their drafts and believe they’re a high quality product. I like their FAAB process and I find their site intuitive to use.

Security breeches happen at banks, in medical centers, etc. It can happen anywhere there’s a bad actor with high level access.

I will still support the NFC - I don’t believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Yeah at this point it appears to have been a single bad actor employee in collusion with a friend. Its very different IMO than the DFS scandal a number of years ago where there was a culture at multiple DFS sites where they didn’t see an issue letting their employees play on competitor sites using proprietary info like lineup percentages and stuff which easily provides a huge edge. Or how they didn’t see an issue with not disclosing and letting hedge funds submit unlimited entries in some contests and mathematically ensure they had a high % chance of winning. Swore off DFS after that and so many “oh its no big deal” type of tepid responses from those companies.

 

[GregR]

Wait, a guy with permissions to make database edits directly was also allowed to participate in the contests hosted on said database? Seems like some boilerplate legal mumbo jumbo would have nipped this problem in the bud.

Edit: I think I may have misunderstood. We're there multiple parties involved? Employee and contestant(s)?

And to not have a process in place for managing direct updates to a database is, well ... I've only got unkind words to describe what I think of this, which I'll keep to myself.

To clarify the remaining point about database access...

The talk here about database stuff was responding to comments here that none of their employees should ever be able to make a change after lineup lock. I was explaining, that's virtually impossible to achieve. Because of necessary things like database access, someone is always going to have to have that power.

I've not seen anything to imply the changes were done other than via the front end interface.

 

[BassNBrew]

Edit: I think I may have misunderstood. We're there multiple parties involved? Employee and contestant(s)?

https://twitter.com/ShipChasing/status/1750333189606801424

Tweet from the guy who is part of the fantasy podcasters who caught the guy past-posting.

Interesting. Specifically mentions NFFC initially gave them a bogus response on what happened.