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Reality show contestant possibly cheats on DraftKings...UPDATE Draftkings strips Bachelor contestant of 1M prize (1 Viewer)

Rhythmdoctor said:
Well, they missed big on this one and they’re married!!  Convince me that they’re enforcing it and catching it among friends or gambling groups. I highly doubt they are if they can’t even catch collusion from the same household. 
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Yup. The only reason they got caught was because of their minor celebrity status.

 
If you put in 20 entries and I put in 10 of course you have a better chance of winning.  You also carry 2X the risk.

I think she has a right to enter in her 150 and she has the right to do it as she pleases.  If they start opening up fake/duplicate accounts then it’s an issue.

DK has known about this forever.  No reason for them to put a cap on anyone who has the $$ except if people demand it (which is why they have so many single entry now).

 
Nipsey said:
He's not within the rules! He/they broke them.

UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIORS

Group play behavior designed to gain an unfair advantage over others:

Team-building complementary lineups which serve to work together AND executing a strategy that may create any unfair advantage over individual play.

Example A: You and 2 of your friends coordinate the makeup of the lineups you build AND coordinate which contests you enter using them.

Example B: You and a group of friends collaborate in NFL contests to each draft different QBs and WRs, to guarantee you aren't competing as directly with each other.

Entering the maximum number of entries in a contest, type of contest, or event, and having a 3rd party, regardless of their relationship, put in additional entries for you.

Example: A contest has a maximum of 10 entries. You put in 10 entries but want to play more so you give your friend 10 additional lineups to play in the contest.
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I got no dog in this fight, I dont play these types of games, but honestly how do you even enforce this? 

I'm sorry, but if there is money involved and a $1M potential payout, if someone wants to take the time to hyper-anylize a strategy to maximize their chance at winning then so be it. 

they say "individual play' but still give you 150 potential entries?

Are all the entries paid for? So if so, this just gives the person more to lose. Seems like DK system is flawed and someone is trying to backpedal. 

again, I really dont care, but this is the same as telling grannie that she cant play the table full of bingo cards that she rightfully purchased because it would give her an unfair advantage  over the other ladies who only bought 1 card. She's got more stake in the game, she should have an advantage (and yes, I know bingo cards are technically random).

If I had 150 entries paid for AND (unlike lotto) you give me the  opportunity to control some portion of each of those entries, then you can be damn sure i'm looking for an angle. 

 
The Ref said:
I think she has a right to enter in her 150 and she has the right to do it as she pleases.  If they start opening up fake/duplicate accounts then it’s an issue.
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The issue is they coordinated their lineups. There's no overlap. He's starting one set of players at a position, she another. There's obvious collusion here. They cheated and cheated poorly because they made it so obvious.

 
Nipsey said:
The issue is they coordinated their lineups. There's no overlap. He's starting one set of players at a position, she another. There's obvious collusion here. They cheated and cheated poorly because they made it so obvious.
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"OK honey, I'm gonna sit here and put my line up in...now don't you go peeking you silly goose! Now go in that other room across the house and do yours so that I dont see them. Let me know when you are done, ok? Then we can have dinner and not talk about them at all even though we live together and are playing in the same high stakes game. K? Thanks pooksie!" 

I'm kidding....but it seems the DK rules are flawed. You cant expect people NOT to do some sort of strategy when you offer payouts that big. 

 
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glvsav37 said:
"OK honey, I'm gonna sit here and put my line up in...now don't you go peeking you silly goose! Now go in that other room across the house and do yours so that I dont see them. Let me know when you are done, ok? Then we can have dinner and not talk about them at all even though we live together and are playing in the same high stakes game. K? Thanks pooksie!" 
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150 lineups each. No overlap. Obvious positional strategy to get maximum coverage.

 
Nipsey said:
150 lineups each. No overlap. Obvious positional strategy to get maximum coverage.
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Does this only work in the playoffs because of limited amount of teams playing? I can’t imagine the amount of entries you’d need to have sufficient overlap in the regular season. 

 
Nipsey said:
The rules? A lawsuit?
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I guess I honestly didn't know there was a written rule for it.  

I still don't see the huge deal - like somebody said, the dfs community is dominated by data miners, AI programs, etc..   Also, sure you can mass enter these things, but what are the odds you are getting back your $3K if you do so?  How many hundred of thousands of entries do you have to beat to break even?  If I remember right, isn't it so top heavy that something like top 30 of 300K+ entries is needed to get that $3K back?   

Probably a bad way to look at it, but I think they had less of a shot even with their 300 entries than so pro, former poker player, who has sophisticated AI programs crunching numbers.  Most of the pods I listen to claim even though they are dropping thousands/slate, they don't usually max entry in stuff like that because of what I said above.  

 
Nipsey said:
150 lineups each. No overlap. Obvious positional strategy to get maximum coverage.
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And all lineups played were using their money. 

Again, the contest is requiring you to pay YOUR money to play—as much as 150 times if you want—and you don't get any of it back if you don't win, but is also telling you that you can't use any type of a strategy to try and help your chances. 

How much was the entry into this content? $20/per? So they wagered a total of $6K. IDK, strategy or not, there was no lock they were winning the top pot. 

seems like a decent amount to risk w/o trying to swing things in your favor. 

And for the record, I have a friend who also won $1M on a similar tournament, and he had minimal entries. I'm sure there was some sort of collusion going on in his game as well, but it didn't work that time and he was the just a schmuck who got lucky 

 

 
Nipsey said:
150 lineups each. No overlap. Obvious positional strategy to get maximum coverage.
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If one had DK Metcalf in 80% of their lineups and the other and 70%, they had plenty of overlap. Perhaps they had no overlap in the quarterback position but to say they had no overlap is simply not true.

And you can see it as obvious as you want, but there is zero way to prove they cheated. 

 
KarmaPolice said:
I guess I honestly didn't know there was a written rule for it.  

I still don't see the huge deal - like somebody said, the dfs community is dominated by data miners, AI programs, etc..   Also, sure you can mass enter these things, but what are the odds you are getting back your $3K if you do so?  How many hundred of thousands of entries do you have to beat to break even?  If I remember right, isn't it so top heavy that something like top 30 of 300K+ entries is needed to get that $3K back?   

Probably a bad way to look at it, but I think they had less of a shot even with their 300 entries than so pro, former poker player, who has sophisticated AI programs crunching numbers.  Most of the pods I listen to claim even though they are dropping thousands/slate, they don't usually max entry in stuff like that because of what I said above.  
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I'm not a gaming attorney but I assume whatever jurisdiction the contests are operated under have laws in place to protect consumers against exactly this type of behavior. I think it is a huge deal. I don't see how whether or not their wagers were mathematically prudent enters into it.

 
Nipsey said:
They can and do enforce it. They've banned accounts and rescinded prizes.
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And yet, Papagates and ChipotleAddict are still max-entering $5 GPPs nightly. 

DK/FD will only do something about situations like this once their model shifts to a sports-betting base and DFS fades into the background. 

 
glvsav37 said:
And all lineups played were using their money. 

Again, the contest is requiring you to pay YOUR money to play—as much as 150 times if you want—and you don't get any of it back if you don't win, but is also telling you that you can't use any type of a strategy to try and help your chances. 

How much was the entry into this content? $20/per? So they wagered a total of $6K. IDK, strategy or not, there was no lock they were winning the top pot. 

seems like a decent amount to risk w/o trying to swing things in your favor. 

And for the record, I have a friend who also won $1M on a similar tournament, and he had minimal entries. I'm sure there was some sort of collusion going on in his game as well, but it didn't work that time and he was the just a schmuck who got lucky 

 
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Strategy<>Collusion

 
Cjw_55106 said:
If one had DK Metcalf in 80% of their lineups and the other and 70%, they had plenty of overlap. Perhaps they had no overlap in the quarterback position but to say they had no overlap is simply not true.

And you can see it as obvious as you want, but there is zero way to prove they cheated. 
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300 unique lineups in a 4 game slate. Look at the player usage breakdown. I think it's a reasonable conclusion to say they cheated.

 
Nipsey said:
That doesn't make it OK though.
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I guess right or wrong I have a different threshold.  If it's not hard for me to have a program spit out 150 unique LUs with a QB and for my wife to do so with another QB, I guess I don't see the huge deal.   The dudes that won big a few years ago because they were using insider ownership % data?  That's cheating.  

 
Nipsey said:
You're saying it was a coincidence?
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I'm saying it was probably planned to have unique LUs, but if basically any pay site has the capability to do that, how can you crack down on that?  Just because it was 2 people under the same roof?  It's not like Joe Public doesn't have access to do the exact thing, more that not many are dropping $3K to try it. 

Now if it comes out that they had some type of insider info or something, that's a different story.  

 
KarmaPolice said:
I guess right or wrong I have a different threshold.  If it's not hard for me to have a program spit out 150 unique LUs with a QB and for my wife to do so with another QB, I guess I don't see the huge deal.   The dudes that won big a few years ago because they were using insider ownership % data?  That's cheating.  
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You can have a program spit out literally every potential line-up. I don't see how that's a defense of collusion.

 
KarmaPolice said:
I'm saying it was probably planned to have unique LUs, but if basically any pay site has the capability to do that, how can you crack down on that?  Just because it was 2 people under the same roof?  It's not like Joe Public doesn't have access to do the exact thing, more that not many are dropping $3K to try it. 

Now if it comes out that they had some type of insider info or something, that's a different story.  
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They did have insider info in that they knew the person who they'd be sharing the money with had different line-ups/different players spreads to maximize their chance at a big prize.

How did the online poker sites crack down on collusion? If people can spot collusion with their own eyes there has to be software that can spot it even if it's a needle in a haystack. 

 
Kinda wish I would've become a sleuth now. Not an internet one, specifically. Just a sleuth. I think it'd be exhilarating filling that out on a tax return.

 
It's obviously not cheating to tell an optimizer to spit out 150 lus.  I guess I dont see the uproar if that happened 2x under one roof.  I assume this happens a bit between friends and groups, I guess they were just dumb enough to do it at the same location? 

 
KarmaPolice said:
It's obviously not cheating to tell an optimizer to spit out 150 lus.  I guess I dont see the uproar if that happened 2x under one roof.  I assume this happens a bit between friends and groups, I guess they were just dumb enough to do it at the same location? 
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Going in circles here. It's all in the thread.

 
I hope that with all this research so many of you are doing in order to argue both sides of this story, you’ve at least spent a few minutes Google Imaging the girl in the story with SafeSearch off. 

 
it just goes to show that no matter how good looking smart rich or nice it is there is some guy somewhere who is sick of its crap take that to the bank bromigos 

 
https://www.si.com/gambling/2020/01/07/draft-kings-dispute-bachelor-contestant-1-million-prize

Why a Legal Battle Could Develop Between DraftKings and a Former Bachelor Contestant

Are Jade Roper Tolbert and DraftKings headed for a legal dispute over a $1 million prize?

The 33-year-old former contestant on both The Bachelor (Season 19) and The Bachelor in Paradise placed first in DraftKings’ “Millionaire Maker” challenge over the weekend. Her winning entry was one of the 150 entries she purchased for reportedly $25 each, for a total of $3,750. DraftKings caps the number of allowable entries per player to 150 in order to ensure that no player “games” the system by obtaining higher than acceptable odds.

Roper Tolbert’s winning entry amassed the most points of the 105,883 total entries purchased by players in the competition. Her 180.78 points edged out the entry of runner up spclk36, who scored 178.16 points. SPclk36 earned $100,000 for its second-place finish, while obiejake netted $40,000 for finishing in third place with a score of 177.12. Others who finished in the top tier gained the right to receive smaller winnings.

Roper Tolbert excelled at picking some of the highest performing players from this past weekend’s four wild-card games. Her winning lineup included Seattle Seahawks receiver DK Metcalf, who caught seven catches, one of which was a touchdown, in his team’s 17-9 victory on Sunday over the Philadelphia Eagles. It also included Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson (247 yards, one touchdown pass) and New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara (21 yards, one rushing touchdown).

Roper Tolbert’s victory has come under fire for possible collusion with her husband, Tanner Tolbert, whom Roper Tolbert met on The Bachelor in Paradise. Tanner, like his wife, purchased the maximum allowable number of entries.

Evidence of possible collusion

On the surface, the couple’s 300 total lineups suggest they coordinated their entries.

One particularly troubling factor: 298 of the 300 lineups were unique, a highly unlikely result if the two had submitted lineups without any prior coordination. Twitter user @huitcinqDFS identified this atypical prevalence of unique lineups to remark, “they cheated, end of story.” In addition, Roper Tolbert’s lineup featured quarterbacks who mostly played on Saturday while her husband’s lineup mostly contained quarterbacks who played on Sunday. This sparked Twitter user @williambierman to contrast the quarterback selections and contend “this is absolutely insanity and is the clearest collusion ever.”

If the two had, in fact, coordinated their combined 300 entries, they would have run afoul of DraftKings’s community guidelines. Those guidelines prohibit so-called “team-building complementary lineups” when two or more people “serve to work together AND execute a strategy that may create any unfair advantage over individual play.” To illustrate a prohibited strategy, DraftKings imagines that three friends coordinate the makeup of their lineups and then synchronize which contests they enter using those lineups.

DraftKings distinguishes lineup coordination from mere discussions and debates between family and friends about lineups. To that end, it is permissible for players to “discuss strategy around building lineups, statistics, and the quality of your picks publicly or privately.” Also, two friends can work closely and build a lineup together.

In other words, it would have been okay if Roper Tolbert and her husband had together purchased 150 entries and coordinated their 150 total entries. It would have also been okay if the couple had discussed the strategies and plusses and minuses of their picks and each went on to independently purchase 150 entries. To that end, Roper Tolbert’s now-controversial tweet that her husband discouraged her from playing Metcalf is not, in and of itself, proof of collusion. The discouragement could have been part of a married couple’s normal banter.

However, it would not have been okay if Roper Tolbert and Tolbert had executed a strategy to double their odds for winning by getting 300 chances instead of 150. That would have constituted textbook collusion: two competing players conspiring to game the system and cheat other players.

The limit of entries to 150 is also not a randomly selected number by DraftKings. As Dustin Gouker of Legal Sports Report details, state laws related to daily fantasy sports tend to use 150 as a sensible cap. Gouker highlights New York’s law which states:

Each Operator must restrict the number of entries submitted by a single authorized player for any contest to 150 entries per player per contest, or by a maximum of three percent of the total number of entries by all players for any contest, whichever is less, or as determined by the Commission. Operators must take reasonable steps to prevent authorized players from submitting more than the allowable number of entries per contest.

A potential legal battle would probably land in arbitration

A spokesperson for DraftKings has issued a statement saying the company will investigate Roper Tolbert’s entry to ensure compliance with company fairness and integrity requirements. The company does not pay out an award until it completes an investigation.

In addition, DraftKings possesses the authority under its terms and conditions to require that a player submit an affidavit—meaning a sworn statement that could give grounds for a perjury criminal charge if the affiant knowingly lies—to attest that he or she is “in compliance” with DraftKings rules.

If DraftKings ultimately refuses to pay Roper Tolbert, she might consider suing DraftKings for breach of contract, consumer fraud, invasion of privacy and other possible claims.

She could, for instance, deny that collusion took place and stress that her odds of winning were higher than most players since she purchased—at her own expense—150 entries. Roper Tolbert could thus portray the criticism as sour grapes from jealous people. Likewise, she could assert that there is no evidence of collusion, only a theory of it from various people on Twitter; historically, collusion requires actual evidence, including a paper trail. It’s unclear how DraftKings would uncover evidence of texts or emails between a married couple unless the company took legal action against them (which is unlikely, as discussed below, and could also run afoul of spousal testimonial privileges)

Roper Tolbert could further insist that a married couple has a privacy right to discuss decisions that have financial implications for the family—including the family checkbook or credit card used to pay DraftKings. From that lens, denial of payment by DraftKings might constitute an invasion of privacy. She might also contend that DraftKings is treating her differently, and more harshly, because of the public backlash over her victory.

Obviously, DraftKings would disagree with all of these points. The company would argue, among other things, that in the context of rule compliance and the “Millionaire Maker” challenge, Roper Tolbert and Tolbert were not husband and wife—they were competing players. If they colluded, the fact that they were married when they colluded is irrelevant.

Also, one major hurdle for Roper Tolbert in any legal action would be DraftKings’ terms and conditions. Those terms require that players accept arbitration to resolve any legal disputes stemming from their contractual agreements and commercial transactions with DraftKings, including potential claims for breach.

Specifically, Tolbert and DraftKings would be compelled to raise their arguments before a single arbitrator appointed by the American Arbitration Association. The arbitration proceeding must also be conducted in accordance with the Federal Arbitration Act, which largely insulates arbitration awards (arbitration rulings) from review by federal judges. The arbitration hearing would be held in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. This is the county for Boston, where DraftKings is headquartered. Roper Tolbert’s Twitter account indicates she lives in Kansas City and Los Angeles, meaning she would need to travel to take on DraftKings.

Under DraftKings’ terms and conditions, the arbitrator would also be limited in the financial award that he or she could assign. Punitive damages—meaning damages to punish, rather than to merely compensate—would be prohibited.

An arbitration hearing is also conducted in private, unlike a trial which is held in public. Furthermore, records generated from arbitrations are confidential, unlike those from a trial which are published.

Like many companies, DraftKings, which intends to go public in 2020 with a $3.3 billion valuation and which has grown in scope as more states legalize sports wagering, likely does not want to litigate matters with players. Litigation involves pretrial discovery, where parties are compelled to share sensitive records and where company executives can be forced to answer questions under oath. Litigation also produces records that can be accessed by media and lead to news stories that impact valuations of companies and their stocks. Such records could also be reviewed by state lawmakers and regulators who are dubious of daily fantasy sports and sports wagering-related activities.

By agreeing to play DraftKings, Roper Tolbert further waives all rights to a trial by jury “for any claim.” To the extent she and her attorneys could succeed in getting a court to hear a claim, only a judge would decide it. DraftKings also insulates itself from potential legal exposure through a series of warranties. The warranties make clear the company’s website and software are not viable grounds for legal actions.

DraftKings might pay Roper Tolbert even if company officials believe she and her husband colluded

Regardless of DraftKings’ investigatory findings, the company might be tempted to pay Roper Tolbert. A legal fight with Roper Tolbert would attract headlines and DraftKings could risk being portrayed as a bully. Also, a legal fight would likely require DraftKings to hire attorneys. Meanwhile, such a legal battle with Roper Tolbert could motivate Wall Street investors—who will soon have a chance to buy DraftKings stock—and state regulators to take a closer and more scrutinizing look at the company. Stated differently, by not paying Roper Tolbert, DraftKings could lose more than the $1 million it would need to pay her.

On the other hand, DraftKings has wisely insulated itself from the threat of a trial by mandating that players use arbitration for most types of disputes. And, as discussed above, arbitration is private and confidential. That type of environment would diminish the public—and media—interest in a dispute.

Also, if DraftKings pays Roper Tolbert despite concluding that she colluded, two groups might question the merits of that choice.

First are the runner-up players, including sPclk36 and obiejake, who netted less money because Roper Tolbert won. If they believe that DraftKings is not upholding the terms and conditions to play and that DraftKings’ failure has cost them deserved winnings, they could consider bringing a legal action (but, as detailed above, it would go to arbitration).

Second are lawmakers and regulators who might question whether DraftKings is willing to enforce rules that, in some instances, states require.
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Nipsey said:
https://www.si.com/gambling/2020/01/07/draft-kings-dispute-bachelor-contestant-1-million-prize
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Since they are going public in 2020, DK has a bit of a sticky wicket to deal with.

However, money rules all (especially when it comes to DFS), and I'd guess it will ultimately be in their best interests to pay the 1M and deal with the temporary public blowback vs. an ongoing potential public relations nightmare + added attention and scrutiny when all they want is to go public and get rich.

It wouldn't surprise me if DK also ends up additionally compensating the 2nd and 3rd place finishers... and for that matter the 4th place person as well.  I don't know if the payouts went any deeper than 3rd place, but if they did, then everyone that won any amount has a beef with DK for getting pushed x rungs lower on the totem pole due to however many total payouts Jade and her colluding husband won in the contest.

 
"Game of skill"

This is like if I chucked 100 blindfolded half court shots and bragged about the 1 that I banked in.

DFS is such a clown show

 
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TLEF316 said:
"Game of skill"

This is like if I chucked 100 blindfolded half court shots and bragged about the 1 that I banked in.

DFS is such a clown show
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It’s amazing people are allowed to play this but not online poker. Incredible. 

 
These two got caught because he tweeted that he or she told him/her not to play Metcalf, allowing the Internet sleuths to go on the hunt.  

To think that this was first successfully done by a couple of reality show (Bachelor none the less) nimrods is laughable and naive.  

A contest that allows 150 entries when only 4 games are being played is just asking for something like this to happen.  I'm guilty of playing DFS on one site but I only play single entry contests.  

 
Nipsey said:
Al Zeidenfeld weighed in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-85HIs_wfMk&t=1s
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I really feel like I am missing something here.  Seems like his big beef is "people working together".  His example was these dudes that worked together a few years ago, their cash LUs were the same but :shock:  their gpp LUs were different.   Then he says that people might say what he does on his slack is the same thing, but just says "I disagree", but doesn't give a good reason why.  I guess because they don't use the exact same LU? (but come on, it's probably the same core, but maybe with one pivot like instead of K.Allen somebody plays T.Lockett).  

But again, the pay websites are set up like this - pay for the optimizer for cash purposes and then use the ownership projections for tweaks on this LU for gpps.  I just don't get how his example of those 3-4 guys working together is something that needs to be adjusted for, but me (and probably many others) using a site's optimizer for my cash LUs (and therefore flooding the contest with the same LU) is OK.   I can't tell you how many times I look at a big field cash contest or a gpp and see those RG icons or DFS Army icons grouped together with the same lineup or just one player off of the same LU.  

 
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