DFS Scandals in E.F.F.E.C.T (1 Viewer)

[Soulfly3]

Wouldnt having 1000 entries to a 100,000 entry tourney be a "large advantage" over the guy with 1 entry?

It would be about as big of an advantage as playing 1 million power ball tickets vs someone playing one. Yes an advantage, but is it worth it and are you going to prosper doing it? Not likely.

Aside from "yes an advantage", everything you said here is incorrect.

People are prospering doing it.

People are prospering from insider info?

I have no doubt people are prospering but only those who have inside info. from an actual NFL source. Newsflash, there isn't transparency in ANY facet of investing or gambling and the little guy is at a huge disadvantage in all of them. Why single out DFS?

You might possibly be the most ignorant person in this thread.

understatement.

 

[Short Corner]

I will sleep so much better at night after these DFS companies are regulated by our wonderful govt. to ensure fairness. I know everything the govt. oversees is run legitimately and there is never impropriety or corruption involved in any way, shape or form when they are involved.

 

[Shrugs]

I'm annoyed that they haven't offered anything to customers to try to get us to forgive them after the scandal. Been boycotting until that happens.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Old people afraid of new, awesome things.....so sad.

I know. They're missing out. Same way people were scared of online poker. So dumb.

I was skeptical of DFS because of the people using data I didn't have, and the whales using algorithms and resources we don't have to stack the deck in their favor.

The poker comparison is apt. Online poker was pretty great for a long time. There were some cheating scandals, but on the whole it was a hobby that was fun for many, profitable for a few, and should have stayed legal.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

You're asking me questions that have been answered many times in this thread, and pretty much in every objective article written about this scandal.

1. I'm not spreading misinformation. Period. Don't say it if you can't back it up.

2. The whales don't "know" anything that we don't know, as far as I know. I didn't say that they did. You put those words in my mouth. What they have is the advantage of more money, time, and apparently technology, to craft lineups, and enter hundreds/thousands of entries, and tilting the field in their favor. They are NOT cheating. They are just better at this than we are, and have the added advantage of being better organized and funded. However, knowing the extent to which they are actually winning in relation to everyone else is really discouraging. Do you even know the percentages? It's staggering.

3. By the way, I'm not 100% sure that the whales DON'T know lots of things we don't know. We already know that many of the top players are on a first name basis with people from both sites. Is it really so difficult to believe that some private conversations have been happening that are not in the interest of overall fairness?

4. The whales are one problem. They are not cheating (as far as we know), just playing with more advanced equipment, and with a lot more players on their team than I am. As I said before in this thread: Just because the are cheating doesn't mean I should deposit my money in their accounts. Good for them for gaming the system within the rules. Doesn't mean I have to be a sucker.

5. You completely forgot to mention the employees from FanDuel and DraftKings that were cheating. Must have slipped your mind.

I don't know how you can reconcile #1 with #5. There's been no good evidence of cheating (unless you're talking about the KCannon scripting thing, but I suspect you're not since he's not en employee).

As for the rest, high-volume players generally use technology that's available to everyone, for the most part. I know that a bunch of them use the tools provided by Footballguys, for example.

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

Winning isn't a matter of having secret information or exclusive tools. It's a matter of putting in a lot of time and hard work.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Wouldnt having 1000 entries to a 100,000 entry tourney be a "large advantage" over the guy with 1 entry?

No, it's a huge disadvantage in terms of expected return on investment.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

I'm a little confused by the terminology being thrown around in here. I thought a whale was a donator/fish who has a lot of money and ppl who have money but are good are just pros/sharks?

Yes, that's the standard terminology in a gambling context.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

By the way, those numbers aren't completely made up. It's pretty easy to get around a 30% ROI if you use pretty basic tools and enter just a few contests a week.

In the FanDuel contest exclusively for Footballguys subscribers, for example, the average entrant has a 24% ROI (including the value of tickets to the Week 11 contest with $40,000 added). So just enter that and be average, and voila, you have an expected ROI of 24%. At smaller sites, it is not all that difficult to find overlays that offer the average entrant better than 24% -- I regularly see some where the average entrant has an ROI upwards of 50%.

In contrast, maxdalury, who is probably the very top DFS professional right now, has said that he has about an 8% ROI, on average.

His huge disadvantage is that he can't just cherry-pick the contests with overlays. To get as much money into play as he does every week, he has to play a zillion contests where the average entrant has a -13% ROI. And he's not just using his very best lineup. He's sometimes using his 30th best or worse. (I don't know how many lineups he uses specifically, but I've been known to use my 100th best lineup.)

It's actually harder for the pros than it is for the hobbyists. But they compensate by spending way, way, way more hours per week at it than the casual hobbyist does. That's where their advantage comes from.

 

[ROCKET]

But I thought all these fatcat hedge fund managers with their magic algorithms were fleecing the average Joe's out of millions?

 

[eoMMan]

Thank you, MT. Great postings.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

But I thought all these fatcat hedge fund managers with their magic algorithms were fleecing the average Joe's out of millions?

That's where you went wrong

 

[Short Corner]

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

By the way, those numbers aren't completely made up. It's pretty easy to get around a 30% ROI if you use pretty basic tools and enter just a few contests a week.

In the FanDuel contest exclusively for Footballguys subscribers, for example, the average entrant has a 24% ROI (including the value of tickets to the Week 11 contest with $40,000 added). So just enter that and be average, and voila, you have an expected ROI of 24%. At smaller sites, it is not all that difficult to find overlays that offer the average entrant better than 24% -- I regularly see some where the average entrant has an ROI upwards of 50%.

In contrast, maxdalury, who is probably the very top DFS professional right now, has said that he has about an 8% ROI, on average.

His huge disadvantage is that he can't just cherry-pick the contests with overlays. To get as much money into play as he does every week, he has to play a zillion contests where the average entrant has a -13% ROI. And he's not just using his very best lineup. He's sometimes using his 30th best or worse. (I don't know how many lineups he uses specifically, but I've been known to use my 100th best lineup.)

It's actually harder for the pros than it is for the hobbyists. But they compensate by spending way, way, way more hours per week at it than the casual hobbyist does. That's where their advantage comes from.

Makes you wonder why the poker pros don't stay in the micros where they can easily achieve double digit BB/100 than move up where they are at a relative diisadvantage.

 

[addicted2ff]

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

By the way, those numbers aren't completely made up. It's pretty easy to get around a 30% ROI if you use pretty basic tools and enter just a few contests a week.

In the FanDuel contest exclusively for Footballguys subscribers, for example, the average entrant has a 24% ROI (including the value of tickets to the Week 11 contest with $40,000 added). So just enter that and be average, and voila, you have an expected ROI of 24%. At smaller sites, it is not all that difficult to find overlays that offer the average entrant better than 24% -- I regularly see some where the average entrant has an ROI upwards of 50%.

In contrast, maxdalury, who is probably the very top DFS professional right now, has said that he has about an 8% ROI, on average.

His huge disadvantage is that he can't just cherry-pick the contests with overlays. To get as much money into play as he does every week, he has to play a zillion contests where the average entrant has a -13% ROI. And he's not just using his very best lineup. He's sometimes using his 30th best or worse. (I don't know how many lineups he uses specifically, but I've been known to use my 100th best lineup.)

It's actually harder for the pros than it is for the hobbyists. But they compensate by spending way, way, way more hours per week at it than the casual hobbyist does. That's where their advantage comes from.

Makes you wonder why the poker pros don't stay in the micros where they can easily achieve double digit BB/100 than move up where they are at a relative diisadvantage.

Because the increase in stakes and less rake makes up for the decrease in winrate?

 

[Short Corner]

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

By the way, those numbers aren't completely made up. It's pretty easy to get around a 30% ROI if you use pretty basic tools and enter just a few contests a week.

In the FanDuel contest exclusively for Footballguys subscribers, for example, the average entrant has a 24% ROI (including the value of tickets to the Week 11 contest with $40,000 added). So just enter that and be average, and voila, you have an expected ROI of 24%. At smaller sites, it is not all that difficult to find overlays that offer the average entrant better than 24% -- I regularly see some where the average entrant has an ROI upwards of 50%.

In contrast, maxdalury, who is probably the very top DFS professional right now, has said that he has about an 8% ROI, on average.

His huge disadvantage is that he can't just cherry-pick the contests with overlays. To get as much money into play as he does every week, he has to play a zillion contests where the average entrant has a -13% ROI. And he's not just using his very best lineup. He's sometimes using his 30th best or worse. (I don't know how many lineups he uses specifically, but I've been known to use my 100th best lineup.)

It's actually harder for the pros than it is for the hobbyists. But they compensate by spending way, way, way more hours per week at it than the casual hobbyist does. That's where their advantage comes from.

Makes you wonder why the poker pros don't stay in the micros where they can easily achieve double digit BB/100 than move up where they are at a relative diisadvantage.

Because the increase in stakes and less rake makes up for the decrease in winrate?

It was a rhetorical question

 

[massraider]

You're asking me questions that have been answered many times in this thread, and pretty much in every objective article written about this scandal.

1. I'm not spreading misinformation. Period. Don't say it if you can't back it up.

2. The whales don't "know" anything that we don't know, as far as I know. I didn't say that they did. You put those words in my mouth. What they have is the advantage of more money, time, and apparently technology, to craft lineups, and enter hundreds/thousands of entries, and tilting the field in their favor. They are NOT cheating. They are just better at this than we are, and have the added advantage of being better organized and funded. However, knowing the extent to which they are actually winning in relation to everyone else is really discouraging. Do you even know the percentages? It's staggering.

3. By the way, I'm not 100% sure that the whales DON'T know lots of things we don't know. We already know that many of the top players are on a first name basis with people from both sites. Is it really so difficult to believe that some private conversations have been happening that are not in the interest of overall fairness?

4. The whales are one problem. They are not cheating (as far as we know), just playing with more advanced equipment, and with a lot more players on their team than I am. As I said before in this thread: Just because the are cheating doesn't mean I should deposit my money in their accounts. Good for them for gaming the system within the rules. Doesn't mean I have to be a sucker.

5. You completely forgot to mention the employees from FanDuel and DraftKings that were cheating. Must have slipped your mind.

I don't know how you can reconcile #1 with #5. There's been no good evidence of cheating (unless you're talking about the KCannon scripting thing, but I suspect you're not since he's not en employee).

As for the rest, high-volume players generally use technology that's available to everyone, for the most part. I know that a bunch of them use the tools provided by Footballguys, for example.

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

Winning isn't a matter of having secret information or exclusive tools. It's a matter of putting in a lot of time and hard work.

We know, for a fact, that staff had access to ownership data that no one else did. One of those staff members then won 350K on the other site. Do I know for sure that access to that data helped him with that contest? No, I don't. Perhaps it was just hard work. I'm going to believe that it was cheating. Was it the same kind of cheating as insider trading on the stock market? No. Does anyone with that info have an edge? Yes. Does any kind of edge matter in gambling? Yes.

As for the whales: I've said twice, they aren't cheating. And maybe they aren't tilting it in their favor, but they are tilting it away from me/small player. Regarding what technology they are using, I simply do not believe that anyone can tell us what the high volume players are generally doing to set their lineups.

By the way, full disclosure for the true believers of DFS: My buddy's brother won 1.2 mill this past week, on DraftKings I think. True story. Last name Macchi. Good thing he didn't follow my lead and stop playing.

 

[BassNBrew]

You're asking me questions that have been answered many times in this thread, and pretty much in every objective article written about this scandal.

1. I'm not spreading misinformation. Period. Don't say it if you can't back it up.

2. The whales don't "know" anything that we don't know, as far as I know. I didn't say that they did. You put those words in my mouth. What they have is the advantage of more money, time, and apparently technology, to craft lineups, and enter hundreds/thousands of entries, and tilting the field in their favor. They are NOT cheating. They are just better at this than we are, and have the added advantage of being better organized and funded. However, knowing the extent to which they are actually winning in relation to everyone else is really discouraging. Do you even know the percentages? It's staggering.

3. By the way, I'm not 100% sure that the whales DON'T know lots of things we don't know. We already know that many of the top players are on a first name basis with people from both sites. Is it really so difficult to believe that some private conversations have been happening that are not in the interest of overall fairness?

4. The whales are one problem. They are not cheating (as far as we know), just playing with more advanced equipment, and with a lot more players on their team than I am. As I said before in this thread: Just because the are cheating doesn't mean I should deposit my money in their accounts. Good for them for gaming the system within the rules. Doesn't mean I have to be a sucker.

5. You completely forgot to mention the employees from FanDuel and DraftKings that were cheating. Must have slipped your mind.

I don't know how you can reconcile #1 with #5. There's been no good evidence of cheating (unless you're talking about the KCannon scripting thing, but I suspect you're not since he's not en employee).

As for the rest, high-volume players generally use technology that's available to everyone, for the most part. I know that a bunch of them use the tools provided by Footballguys, for example.

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

Winning isn't a matter of having secret information or exclusive tools. It's a matter of putting in a lot of time and hard work.

We know, for a fact, that staff had access to ownership data that no one else did. One of those staff members then won 350K on the other site. Do I know for sure that access to that data helped him with that contest? No, I don't. Perhaps it was just hard work. I'm going to believe that it was cheating. Was it the same kind of cheating as insider trading on the stock market? No. Does anyone with that info have an edge? Yes. Does any kind of edge matter in gambling? Yes.

As for the whales: I've said twice, they aren't cheating. And maybe they aren't tilting it in their favor, but they are tilting it away from me/small player. Regarding what technology they are using, I simply do not believe that anyone can tell us what the high volume players are generally doing to set their lineups.

By the way, full disclosure for the true believers of DFS: My buddy's brother won 1.2 mill this past week, on DraftKings I think. True story. Last name Macchi. Good thing he didn't follow my lead and stop playing.

Congrats. Hopefully he'll be on the next commercial.

 

[Short Corner]

You're asking me questions that have been answered many times in this thread, and pretty much in every objective article written about this scandal.

1. I'm not spreading misinformation. Period. Don't say it if you can't back it up.

2. The whales don't "know" anything that we don't know, as far as I know. I didn't say that they did. You put those words in my mouth. What they have is the advantage of more money, time, and apparently technology, to craft lineups, and enter hundreds/thousands of entries, and tilting the field in their favor. They are NOT cheating. They are just better at this than we are, and have the added advantage of being better organized and funded. However, knowing the extent to which they are actually winning in relation to everyone else is really discouraging. Do you even know the percentages? It's staggering.

3. By the way, I'm not 100% sure that the whales DON'T know lots of things we don't know. We already know that many of the top players are on a first name basis with people from both sites. Is it really so difficult to believe that some private conversations have been happening that are not in the interest of overall fairness?

4. The whales are one problem. They are not cheating (as far as we know), just playing with more advanced equipment, and with a lot more players on their team than I am. As I said before in this thread: Just because the are cheating doesn't mean I should deposit my money in their accounts. Good for them for gaming the system within the rules. Doesn't mean I have to be a sucker.

5. You completely forgot to mention the employees from FanDuel and DraftKings that were cheating. Must have slipped your mind.

I don't know how you can reconcile #1 with #5. There's been no good evidence of cheating (unless you're talking about the KCannon scripting thing, but I suspect you're not since he's not en employee).

As for the rest, high-volume players generally use technology that's available to everyone, for the most part. I know that a bunch of them use the tools provided by Footballguys, for example.

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

Winning isn't a matter of having secret information or exclusive tools. It's a matter of putting in a lot of time and hard work.

We know, for a fact, that staff had access to ownership data that no one else did. One of those staff members then won 350K on the other site. Do I know for sure that access to that data helped him with that contest? No, I don't. Perhaps it was just hard work. I'm going to believe that it was cheating. Was it the same kind of cheating as insider trading on the stock market? No. Does anyone with that info have an edge? Yes. Does any kind of edge matter in gambling? Yes.

As for the whales: I've said twice, they aren't cheating. And maybe they aren't tilting it in their favor, but they are tilting it away from me/small player. Regarding what technology they are using, I simply do not believe that anyone can tell us what the high volume players are generally doing to set their lineups.

By the way, full disclosure for the true believers of DFS: My buddy's brother won 1.2 mill this past week, on DraftKings I think. True story. Last name Macchi. Good thing he didn't follow my lead and stop playing.

IIRC, a DK employee made some big scores at FD and vice versa. If this doesn't call for more scrutiny of the information that is and isn't made available on a subjective basis IDK what does. The simple solution is to make those ownership numbers live and available to everyone. The fact that this hasn't been done or even seriously discussed by the sites makes the negative press they are receiving deserved.

 

[cheese]

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

By the way, those numbers aren't completely made up. It's pretty easy to get around a 30% ROI if you use pretty basic tools and enter just a few contests a week.

In the FanDuel contest exclusively for Footballguys subscribers, for example, the average entrant has a 24% ROI (including the value of tickets to the Week 11 contest with $40,000 added). So just enter that and be average, and voila, you have an expected ROI of 24%. At smaller sites, it is not all that difficult to find overlays that offer the average entrant better than 24% -- I regularly see some where the average entrant has an ROI upwards of 50%.

In contrast, maxdalury, who is probably the very top DFS professional right now, has said that he has about an 8% ROI, on average.

His huge disadvantage is that he can't just cherry-pick the contests with overlays. To get as much money into play as he does every week, he has to play a zillion contests where the average entrant has a -13% ROI. And he's not just using his very best lineup. He's sometimes using his 30th best or worse. (I don't know how many lineups he uses specifically, but I've been known to use my 100th best lineup.)

It's actually harder for the pros than it is for the hobbyists. But they compensate by spending way, way, way more hours per week at it than the casual hobbyist does. That's where their advantage comes from.

Makes you wonder why the poker pros don't stay in the micros where they can easily achieve double digit BB/100 than move up where they are at a relative diisadvantage.

Ego

 

[massraider]

You're asking me questions that have been answered many times in this thread, and pretty much in every objective article written about this scandal.

1. I'm not spreading misinformation. Period. Don't say it if you can't back it up.

2. The whales don't "know" anything that we don't know, as far as I know. I didn't say that they did. You put those words in my mouth. What they have is the advantage of more money, time, and apparently technology, to craft lineups, and enter hundreds/thousands of entries, and tilting the field in their favor. They are NOT cheating. They are just better at this than we are, and have the added advantage of being better organized and funded. However, knowing the extent to which they are actually winning in relation to everyone else is really discouraging. Do you even know the percentages? It's staggering.

3. By the way, I'm not 100% sure that the whales DON'T know lots of things we don't know. We already know that many of the top players are on a first name basis with people from both sites. Is it really so difficult to believe that some private conversations have been happening that are not in the interest of overall fairness?

4. The whales are one problem. They are not cheating (as far as we know), just playing with more advanced equipment, and with a lot more players on their team than I am. As I said before in this thread: Just because the are cheating doesn't mean I should deposit my money in their accounts. Good for them for gaming the system within the rules. Doesn't mean I have to be a sucker.

5. You completely forgot to mention the employees from FanDuel and DraftKings that were cheating. Must have slipped your mind.

I don't know how you can reconcile #1 with #5. There's been no good evidence of cheating (unless you're talking about the KCannon scripting thing, but I suspect you're not since he's not en employee).

As for the rest, high-volume players generally use technology that's available to everyone, for the most part. I know that a bunch of them use the tools provided by Footballguys, for example.

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

Winning isn't a matter of having secret information or exclusive tools. It's a matter of putting in a lot of time and hard work.

We know, for a fact, that staff had access to ownership data that no one else did. One of those staff members then won 350K on the other site. Do I know for sure that access to that data helped him with that contest? No, I don't. Perhaps it was just hard work. I'm going to believe that it was cheating. Was it the same kind of cheating as insider trading on the stock market? No. Does anyone with that info have an edge? Yes. Does any kind of edge matter in gambling? Yes.

As for the whales: I've said twice, they aren't cheating. And maybe they aren't tilting it in their favor, but they are tilting it away from me/small player. Regarding what technology they are using, I simply do not believe that anyone can tell us what the high volume players are generally doing to set their lineups.

By the way, full disclosure for the true believers of DFS: My buddy's brother won 1.2 mill this past week, on DraftKings I think. True story. Last name Macchi. Good thing he didn't follow my lead and stop playing.

Congrats. Hopefully he'll be on the next commercial.

I think he's filming it now:

"I didn't listen to my bigmouth friend massraider, and now I'm swimming in hookers and blow!"

 

[jvdesigns2002]

Wouldnt having 1000 entries to a 100,000 entry tourney be a "large advantage" over the guy with 1 entry?

No, it's a huge disadvantage in terms of expected return on investment.

Spreading this kind of information does not paint a full story and is rather dangerous, misleading--and frankly self serving. I copied and pasted the below quotes from a recent Bloomberg article. The notion that a whale with sophisticated lineup optimizing software is at a disadvantage because of lower ROI percentages is nothing short of ridiculous. The sites advertise to get masses of new players in their sites--and this larger player pool allows the whales to thrive more easily even with lower ROI percentages. Also--please stop calling online poker for money a "hobby"--as that is too misleading. Playing poker for money online (or in person) is gambling. I personally think that gambling should be legal--so I too think online poker should be legal as well--but to try to paint DFS or online poker as a "hobby" is a gross mislabeling.

Analysis from Rotogrinders conducted for Bloomberg shows that the top 100 ranked players enter 330 winning lineups per day, and the top 10 players combine to win an average of 873 times daily. The remaining field of approximately 20,000 players tracked by Rotogrinders wins just 13 times per day, on average.

The money-losing players tend to get lucky, win a few times, reinvest the prize money, and eventually lose. The losses are split evenly between daily fantasy sports websites such as DraftKings and FanDuel and the sharks like Sud. Only the top 1.3 percent of players finished in the green during the three months measured by the Sport Business Journal. An unrelated survey of more than 1,400 fantasy sports players conducted by Krejcik of Eilers Research this summer found that 70 percent of participants have lost money.

Justin van Zuiden, a 31-year-old who lives in Sterling, Ill., and goes by the online handle “STLCardinals84,” invests about $5,000 in entry fees for about 50 rosters on an average night during the baseball and basketball seasons. When football season starts, he raises his Sunday spend as high as $8,000. He claims to have made “high five figures, low six figures” over each of the past three years, which is more than he earns from his day job working as a certified public accountant.

“Be careful with your dollars and start small,” van Zuiden wants to tell novices. “No matter how much somebody knows about sports, if you put an established player up against a new player, that established player's probably going to have a 75 percent chance of winning—at least.” There's even something like honor among fantasy heavyweights: Van Zuiden, who has collected more than 10,000 wins with Fan Duel alone, will take only one head-to-head game per night against a player with just a few wins to his name. “That's kind of a common courtesy,” he says.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

We know, for a fact, that staff had access to ownership data that no one else did. One of those staff members then won 350K on the other site. Do I know for sure that access to that data helped him with that contest? No, I don't. Perhaps it was just hard work. I'm going to believe that it was cheating. Was it the same kind of cheating as insider trading on the stock market? No. Does anyone with that info have an edge? Yes. Does any kind of edge matter in gambling? Yes.

One person's "fact" is another person's misinformation, I suppose.

A third-party auditor has confirmed what DraftKings and Haskell have said all along: that Haskell didn't get the DK info until after the FD contest had locked, so there was no possible way for him to use the DK info in his FD contest.

It appears that there was no cheating involved.

As an aside, the information that Haskell had access to after-the-fact would have been essentially worthless even if he'd had it beforehand. He had information about ownership percentage in a DraftKings contest. What would be useful (people disagree on just how useful) for playing in a FanDuel contest is information about ownership percentage at FanDuel. Ownership percentages at DraftKings and FanDuel are correlated -- but not as correlated as ownership percentages in Thursday contests and FanDuel and ownership percentages in Sunday contests at FanDuel ... and ownership in Thursday contests in FanDuel is publicly available.

There are a lot of legitimate things to criticize about DFS. Some players have violated the terms of service at certain sites by using scripts to instantly take H2H games against non-winning players. It's also a legitimate complaint that many sites allow too many entries from the same people into multi-entry contests. (When pros enter a zillion lineups, it makes the game much harder for the casual players to beat, which is kind of lame.) And so on. I could list a lot of things to criticize about a lot of sites and about the industry overall. I'm not just blindly defending DFS.

But to say it's a "fact" that DK and FD employees were cheating counts as spreading misinformation.

 

[CalBear]

The money-losing players tend to get lucky, win a few times, reinvest the prize money, and eventually lose. The losses are split evenly between daily fantasy sports websites such as DraftKings and FanDuel and the sharks like Sud. Only the top 1.3 percent of players finished in the green during the three months measured by the Sport Business Journal. An unrelated survey of more than 1,400 fantasy sports players conducted by Krejcik of Eilers Research this summer found that 70 percent of participants have lost money.

This, of course, is the story with all kinds of gambling. No surprise that it shows up in fantasy sports.

It also addresses the perennial message board topic of "how much of fantasy is luck vs. skill?" The answer is, it only looks like luck if your sample is too small. Dailies finally upped the scale to where you can see how much of a gap there is between the average player and the best players.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Wouldnt having 1000 entries to a 100,000 entry tourney be a "large advantage" over the guy with 1 entry?

No, it's a huge disadvantage in terms of expected return on investment.

Spreading this kind of information does not paint a full story and is rather dangerous, misleading--and frankly self serving. I copied and pasted the below quotes from a recent Bloomberg article. The notion that a whale with sophisticated lineup optimizing software is at a disadvantage because of lower ROI percentages is nothing short of ridiculous.

I didn't say that good players are at a disadvantage to bad players overall. I said that their advantage doesn't come from entering a zillion contests (which is actually a disadvantage in terms of ROI). What I wrote was true, non-dangerous, non-misleading, and non-self-serving.

 

[kOOk]

We know, for a fact, that staff had access to ownership data that no one else did. One of those staff members then won 350K on the other site. Do I know for sure that access to that data helped him with that contest? No, I don't. Perhaps it was just hard work. I'm going to believe that it was cheating. Was it the same kind of cheating as insider trading on the stock market? No. Does anyone with that info have an edge? Yes. Does any kind of edge matter in gambling? Yes.

One person's "fact" is another person's misinformation, I suppose.

A third-party auditor has confirmed what DraftKings and Haskell have said all along: that Haskell didn't get the DK info until after the FD contest had locked, so there was no possible way for him to use the DK info in his FD contest.

Hold on, are you talking about the third-party auditor . . . who was hired by DraftKings?

Because if that's the case then one person's "fact" may indeed be misinformation. I suppose.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

We know, for a fact, that staff had access to ownership data that no one else did. One of those staff members then won 350K on the other site. Do I know for sure that access to that data helped him with that contest? No, I don't. Perhaps it was just hard work. I'm going to believe that it was cheating. Was it the same kind of cheating as insider trading on the stock market? No. Does anyone with that info have an edge? Yes. Does any kind of edge matter in gambling? Yes.

One person's "fact" is another person's misinformation, I suppose.

A third-party auditor has confirmed what DraftKings and Haskell have said all along: that Haskell didn't get the DK info until after the FD contest had locked, so there was no possible way for him to use the DK info in his FD contest.

Hold on, are you talking about the third-party auditor . . . who was hired by DraftKings?

Because if that's the case then one person's "fact" may indeed be misinformation. I suppose.

Yes, a respected law firm hired by DraftKings. (Who else would hire them?) Do you think the firm is lying? If so, that's fine -- go ahead and think they're lying. But don't call such speculation a "fact."

 

[addicted2ff]

This thread is so tilting. No one seems to know what the correct definition of a whale and shark is except for MT and myself.

 

[cstu]

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

By the way, those numbers aren't completely made up. It's pretty easy to get around a 30% ROI if you use pretty basic tools and enter just a few contests a week.

In the FanDuel contest exclusively for Footballguys subscribers, for example, the average entrant has a 24% ROI (including the value of tickets to the Week 11 contest with $40,000 added). So just enter that and be average, and voila, you have an expected ROI of 24%. At smaller sites, it is not all that difficult to find overlays that offer the average entrant better than 24% -- I regularly see some where the average entrant has an ROI upwards of 50%.

In contrast, maxdalury, who is probably the very top DFS professional right now, has said that he has about an 8% ROI, on average.

His huge disadvantage is that he can't just cherry-pick the contests with overlays. To get as much money into play as he does every week, he has to play a zillion contests where the average entrant has a -13% ROI. And he's not just using his very best lineup. He's sometimes using his 30th best or worse. (I don't know how many lineups he uses specifically, but I've been known to use my 100th best lineup.)

It's actually harder for the pros than it is for the hobbyists. But they compensate by spending way, way, way more hours per week at it than the casual hobbyist does. That's where their advantage comes from.

Wouldnt having 1000 entries to a 100,000 entry tourney be a "large advantage" over the guy with 1 entry?

No, it's a huge disadvantage in terms of expected return on investment.

Spreading this kind of information does not paint a full story and is rather dangerous, misleading--and frankly self serving. I copied and pasted the below quotes from a recent Bloomberg article. The notion that a whale with sophisticated lineup optimizing software is at a disadvantage because of lower ROI percentages is nothing short of ridiculous.

I didn't say that good players are at a disadvantage to bad players overall. I said that their advantage doesn't come from entering a zillion contests (which is actually a disadvantage in terms of ROI). What I wrote was true, non-dangerous, non-misleading, and non-self-serving.

This is being a little misleading:

It's actually harder for the pros than it is for the hobbyists. But they compensate by spending way, way, way more hours per week at it than the casual hobbyist does. That's where their advantage comes from.

Yes, it's harder for them to keep a 30% ROI but they are still have a major edge on the casual hobbyist (sucker IMO).

My view is not that DFS should be banned but it needs to drop the pretense that it's anything but gambling and should be treated as such. It's no different than dropping money in slot machine for the average Joe.

 

[cstu]

“Be careful with your dollars and start small,” van Zuiden wants to tell novices. “No matter how much somebody knows about sports, if you put an established player up against a new player, that established player's probably going to have a 75 percent chance of winning—at least.” There's even something like honor among fantasy heavyweights: Van Zuiden, who has collected more than 10,000 wins with Fan Duel alone, will take only one head-to-head game per night against a player with just a few wins to his name. “That's kind of a common courtesy,” he says.

Hope nobody buys this

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

“Be careful with your dollars and start small,” van Zuiden wants to tell novices. “No matter how much somebody knows about sports, if you put an established player up against a new player, that established player's probably going to have a 75 percent chance of winning—at least.” There's even something like honor among fantasy heavyweights: Van Zuiden, who has collected more than 10,000 wins with Fan Duel alone, will take only one head-to-head game per night against a player with just a few wins to his name. “That's kind of a common courtesy,” he says.

Hope nobody buys this

That's pretty common, but not universal. Some pros think it's not cool to play low-stakes H2H matches at all. Others will play, but will limit themselves to one match per fishy opponent. Others have no such compunctions. And the pros in different camps argue with each other about it and go so far as to try to enforce their preferred norms by punishing each other for violations. When one pro played a bunch of low-stakes H2H matches, another retaliated against him by scooping up a bunch of the first pro's H2H matches so that they'd both lose to the rake. Exciting DFS drama.

 

[Uncle Grandpa]

I will sleep so much better at night after these DFS companies are regulated by our wonderful govt. to ensure fairness. I know everything the govt. oversees is run legitimately and there is never impropriety or corruption involved in any way, shape or form when they are involved.

If this is your attempt at sarcasm--it's not a good one. You think casinos would play fair if there was no gaming commission? Yes--state and federal agencies are not perfect--but what is also a fact is that people can and do get very greedy if they are allowed to do so. The same state/government agencies that you are soo sarcastic about are providing you with the protection of emergency personel and 911 services--you have an issue with those too?

You need lookno further than the derivatives market.

huwhat?

 

[B-Deep]

MT is really defending his cashcow in the shark pool

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Also, submitting thousands of entries does not tilt the odds in their favor. It tilts the odds against them for a lot of reasons. And it takes way more work. They do it anyway because entering thousands of contests with an 8% ROI is more profitable than entering five contests with a 30% ROI. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that their ROI goes up with additional lineups or contests entered. It's the opposite.

By the way, those numbers aren't completely made up. It's pretty easy to get around a 30% ROI if you use pretty basic tools and enter just a few contests a week.

In the FanDuel contest exclusively for Footballguys subscribers, for example, the average entrant has a 24% ROI (including the value of tickets to the Week 11 contest with $40,000 added). So just enter that and be average, and voila, you have an expected ROI of 24%. At smaller sites, it is not all that difficult to find overlays that offer the average entrant better than 24% -- I regularly see some where the average entrant has an ROI upwards of 50%.

In contrast, maxdalury, who is probably the very top DFS professional right now, has said that he has about an 8% ROI, on average.

His huge disadvantage is that he can't just cherry-pick the contests with overlays. To get as much money into play as he does every week, he has to play a zillion contests where the average entrant has a -13% ROI. And he's not just using his very best lineup. He's sometimes using his 30th best or worse. (I don't know how many lineups he uses specifically, but I've been known to use my 100th best lineup.)

It's actually harder for the pros than it is for the hobbyists. But they compensate by spending way, way, way more hours per week at it than the casual hobbyist does. That's where their advantage comes from.

Wouldnt having 1000 entries to a 100,000 entry tourney be a "large advantage" over the guy with 1 entry?

No, it's a huge disadvantage in terms of expected return on investment.

Spreading this kind of information does not paint a full story and is rather dangerous, misleading--and frankly self serving. I copied and pasted the below quotes from a recent Bloomberg article. The notion that a whale with sophisticated lineup optimizing software is at a disadvantage because of lower ROI percentages is nothing short of ridiculous.

I didn't say that good players are at a disadvantage to bad players overall. I said that their advantage doesn't come from entering a zillion contests (which is actually a disadvantage in terms of ROI). What I wrote was true, non-dangerous, non-misleading, and non-self-serving.

This is being a little misleading:

It's actually harder for the pros than it is for the hobbyists. But they compensate by spending way, way, way more hours per week at it than the casual hobbyist does. That's where their advantage comes from.

Yes, it's harder for them to keep a 30% ROI but they are still have a major edge on the casual hobbyist (sucker IMO).

My view is not that DFS should be banned but it needs to drop the pretense that it's anything but gambling and should be treated as such. It's no different than dropping money in slot machine for the average Joe.

Of course they have an edge. But the more volume they play, the harder that edge is to maintain. (Not easier.)

And of course DFS is gambling for most people. The big obstacle to admitting that, IMO, is the NFL itself. The NFL refuses to be associated with gambling, but the DFS industry needs the NFL to be associated with DFS, so they have to pretend it's not gambling.

 

[kOOk]

We know, for a fact, that staff had access to ownership data that no one else did. One of those staff members then won 350K on the other site. Do I know for sure that access to that data helped him with that contest? No, I don't. Perhaps it was just hard work. I'm going to believe that it was cheating. Was it the same kind of cheating as insider trading on the stock market? No. Does anyone with that info have an edge? Yes. Does any kind of edge matter in gambling? Yes.

One person's "fact" is another person's misinformation, I suppose.

A third-party auditor has confirmed what DraftKings and Haskell have said all along: that Haskell didn't get the DK info until after the FD contest had locked, so there was no possible way for him to use the DK info in his FD contest.

Hold on, are you talking about the third-party auditor . . . who was hired by DraftKings?

Because if that's the case then one person's "fact" may indeed be misinformation. I suppose.

Yes, a respected law firm hired by DraftKings. (Who else would hire them?) Do you think the firm was lying? If so, that's fine -- go ahead and think they're lying. But don't call such speculation a "fact."

I wasn't the one calling it a fact, I was trying to make a point in a roundabout way, but forget the semantics.

So with a kingpin in a burgeoning billion dollar industry, we should know better than to question the findings of a firm hired by . . . the King himself. Because they are "respected", the buck stops there. Got it.

What are the other entities involved here? MLB has a little skin. Who knows how many others and how much. What about the networks and the absurd amount of dough they are raking in? How should they "report" this? If I'm DraftKings I definitely hire a firm that will crash the party.

Look, I can't say they're lying -- nice leap btw -- but I do think there's a chance they didn't uncover everything. Or, more likely, what they were looking for was gone, who knows. What I do know is that it would work out very nicely for some extremely deep pockets if they could keep this train on the tracks. It wouldn't be the first time.

 

[Uncle Grandpa]

Of course they have an edge. But the more volume they play, the harder that edge is to maintain. (Not easier.)

This is more than offset by the reduced risk through portfolio diversification.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Of course they have an edge. But the more volume they play, the harder that edge is to maintain. (Not easier.)

This is more than offset by the reduced risk through portfolio diversification.

Diversification can be useful and wise, but it's still harder.

 

[SeniorVBDStudent]

Casinos dont make money by being rigged.

In fact im sure they deal harshly with anyone trying to rig from the inside.

Do you think the casinos care if player b has an advantage over player a?

Simple concepts involved here folks.

 

[SeniorVBDStudent]

No amount of research will affect my return on a given slot machine.

The expert poker player can do nothing which prevents me from completing my flush on the river.

If i invest a dollar and two hours and win $100, and another man invests 10,000 and a manmonth to win $12500, who is better off?

Was Mussolini popular at first?

 

[Pipes]

No amount of research will affect my return on a given slot machine.

The expert poker player can do nothing which prevents me from completing my flush on the river.

If i invest a dollar and two hours and win $100, and another man invests 10,000 and a manmonth to win $12500, who is better off?

Was Mussolini popular at first?

If you are arguing that DFS isn't gambling then why not compare it to the sportsbook? DFS is more like gambling on games as opposed to slot machines and poker.

 

[Short Corner]

I will sleep so much better at night after these DFS companies are regulated by our wonderful govt. to ensure fairness. I know everything the govt. oversees is run legitimately and there is never impropriety or corruption involved in any way, shape or form when they are involved.

If this is your attempt at sarcasm--it's not a good one. You think casinos would play fair if there was no gaming commission? Yes--state and federal agencies are not perfect--but what is also a fact is that people can and do get very greedy if they are allowed to do so. The same state/government agencies that you are soo sarcastic about are providing you with the protection of emergency personel and 911 services--you have an issue with those too?

You need lookno further than the derivatives market.

huwhat?

Born after 2008?

 

[Short Corner]

Wouldnt having 1000 entries to a 100,000 entry tourney be a "large advantage" over the guy with 1 entry?

No, it's a huge disadvantage in terms of expected return on investment.

Spreading this kind of information does not paint a full story and is rather dangerous, misleading--and frankly self serving. I copied and pasted the below quotes from a recent Bloomberg article. The notion that a whale with sophisticated lineup optimizing software is at a disadvantage because of lower ROI percentages is nothing short of ridiculous.

I didn't say that good players are at a disadvantage to bad players overall. I said that their advantage doesn't come from entering a zillion contests (which is actually a disadvantage in terms of ROI). What I wrote was true, non-dangerous, non-misleading, and non-self-serving.

It was disingenuous at best. I'd lean more to you becoming a complete schill for the industry that is dropping advertising dollars everywhere including this site. The Sky is Falling email sent out by DD is embarassing for everyone involved here.

 

[cstu]

I wasn't the one calling it a fact, I was trying to make a point in a roundabout way, but forget the semantics.

So with a kingpin in a burgeoning billion dollar industry, we should know better than to question the findings of a firm hired by . . . the King himself. Because they are "respected", the buck stops there. Got it.

What are the other entities involved here? MLB has a little skin. Who knows how many others and how much. What about the networks and the absurd amount of dough they are raking in? How should they "report" this? If I'm DraftKings I definitely hire a firm that will crash the party.

Look, I can't say they're lying -- nice leap btw -- but I do think there's a chance they didn't uncover everything. Or, more likely, what they were looking for was gone, who knows. What I do know is that it would work out very nicely for some extremely deep pockets if they could keep this train on the tracks. It wouldn't be the first time.

Once upon a time, Arthur Anderson was one of the most respected accounted firms. Then they turned a blind eye to Enron.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

The way MT is defending The scandal here makes me wonder if FBG or others with a large financial stake in those companies don't have insider access to data the average user doesn't have. Because MT is certainly being disingenuous with his claims about the big fish in DFS.

 

[Uncle Grandpa]

I will sleep so much better at night after these DFS companies are regulated by our wonderful govt. to ensure fairness. I know everything the govt. oversees is run legitimately and there is never impropriety or corruption involved in any way, shape or form when they are involved.

If this is your attempt at sarcasm--it's not a good one. You think casinos would play fair if there was no gaming commission? Yes--state and federal agencies are not perfect--but what is also a fact is that people can and do get very greedy if they are allowed to do so. The same state/government agencies that you are soo sarcastic about are providing you with the protection of emergency personel and 911 services--you have an issue with those too?

You need lookno further than the derivatives market.

huwhat?

Born after 2008?

No. I am a professional commodities trader who perhaps just mistook what you were saying. After re-reading it, should I conclude that you were suggesting that the lack of government regulation led to the crisis in the MBS market. If that's the case, then I agree.

 

[Short Corner]

The way MT is defending The scandal here makes me wonder if FBG or others with a large financial stake in those companies don't have insider access to data the average user doesn't have. Because MT is certainly being disingenuous with his claims about the big fish in DFS.

What's worse is he is one of the smartest guys on this board and he is using that smart guy image to mislead people who don't know any better. Brings the credibilty of everything FBGs does in regard to DFS into question IMHO.

 

[cstu]

No amount of research will affect my return on a given slot machine.

The expert poker player can do nothing which prevents me from completing my flush on the river.

If i invest a dollar and two hours and win $100, and another man invests 10,000 and a manmonth to win $12500, who is better off?

Was Mussolini popular at first?

Unless you are a NFL player then you have no impact on the outcome either.

 

[eoMMan]

The way MT is defending The scandal here makes me wonder if FBG or others with a large financial stake in those companies don't have insider access to data the average user doesn't have. Because MT is certainly being disingenuous with his claims about the big fish in DFS.

What's worse is he is one of the smartest guys on this board and he is using that smart guy image to mislead people who don't know any better. Brings the credibilty of everything FBGs does in regard to DFS into question IMHO.

You guys are ridiculous.

 

[Doug B]

The Sky is Falling email sent out by DD is embarassing for everyone involved here.

This is something that I'm coming to resent -- DFS is not the basic, default kind of "fantasy football". Why are DFS and decades-old season-long leagues becoming synonymous?

Season-long leagues long predate the Internet and aren't going anywhere. Would be nice if DFS would just play in its own sandbox and be its own thing -- not 'Hey, we're a BETTER brand of 'fantasy football -- play us!'".

 

[Short Corner]

The Sky is Falling email sent out by DD is embarassing for everyone involved here.

This is something that I'm coming to resent -- DFS is not the basic, default kind of "fantasy football". Why are DFS and decades-old season-long leagues becoming synonymous?

Season-long leagues long predate the Internet and aren't going anywhere. Would be nice if DFS would just play in its own sandbox and be its own thing -- not 'Hey, we're a BETTER brand of 'fantasy football -- play us!'".

I replied to said email asking for specific examples that brought season long under attack with DFS and not just DFS. I have yet to receive a reply.

I won't be holding my breath.

 

[cstu]

The Sky is Falling email sent out by DD is embarassing for everyone involved here.

This is something that I'm coming to resent -- DFS is not the basic, default kind of "fantasy football".

Why are DFS and decades-old season-long leagues becoming synonymous?

Season-long leagues long predate the Internet and aren't going anywhere. Would be nice if DFS would just play in its own sandbox and be its own thing -- not 'Hey, we're a BETTER brand of 'fantasy football -- play us!'".

 

[Cliff Clavin]

The Sky is Falling email sent out by DD is embarassing for everyone involved here.

This is something that I'm coming to resent -- DFS is not the basic, default kind of "fantasy football". Why are DFS and decades-old season-long leagues becoming synonymous?

Season-long leagues long predate the Internet and aren't going anywhere. Would be nice if DFS would just play in its own sandbox and be its own thing -- not 'Hey, we're a BETTER brand of 'fantasy football -- play us!'".

It certainly wouldn't be hard to have separate mailing lists... but that kills the views that make $$$.