Scandal Erupts In Unregulated Online World of Fantasy Sports

HughPickens.com writes: Joe Drape and Jacqueline Williams report at the NYT that a major scandal is erupting in the multibillion-dollar industry of fantasy sports, the online and unregulated business in which an estimated 57 million people participate where players assemble their fantasy teams with real athletes. Two major fantasy sports companies were forced to release statements defending their businesses' integrity after what amounted to allegations of insider trading — that employees were placing bets using information not generally available to the public. "It is absolutely akin to insider trading. It gives that person a distinct edge in a contest," says Daniel Wallach. "It could imperil this nascent industry unless real, immediate and meaningful safeguards are put in place."

In FanDuel's $5 million "NFL Sunday Million" contest this week, DraftKings employee Ethan Haskell placed second and won $350,000 with his lineup that had a mix of big-name players owned by a high number of users. Haskell had access to DraftKings ownership data meaning that he may have seen which NFL players had been selected by DraftKings users, and by how many users. In light of this scandal, DraftKings and FanDuel have, for now, banned their employees from playing on each other's sites. Many in the highly regulated casino industry insist daily fantasy sports leagues are gambling sites and shouldn't be treated any differently than traditional sports betting. This would mean a high amount of regulation. Industry analyst Chris Grove says this may be a watershed moment for a sector that may need the legislation it has resisted in order to prove its legitimacy. "You have information that is valuable and should be tightly restricted," says Grove. "There are people outside of the company that place value on that information. Is there any internal controls? Any audit process? The inability of the industry to produce a clear and compelling answer to these questions to anyone's satisfaction is why it needs to be regulated."

Comments

Ethan?

[tchdab1]

I read that as Eddie Haskell first time through.

Re:Ethan?

[invid]

I read that as Eddie Haskell first time through.

You look lovely today Mrs. Cleaver.

Re:Ethan?

[tripleevenfall]

How this is not considered gambling I will never understand. If you bet on teams to win (thereby playing, through the odds, with or against every other bettor), that's sports betting and therefore gambling. If you bet on individual players and play against every other bettor, it's somehow not gambling?

(It's also the same model as the online poker sites which were banned...)

Either it all should be legal or all illegal. I'm not taking a position on that, but if I worked at one of these companies, I wouldn't be getting too comfortable in my current environs.

Re:Ethan?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is the massive variance in data. With sports teams you can compile enough information to make an educated guess about which teams have an advantage. No matter how much historical data you compile on an individual player, there is no way to predict within a reasonable margin how well they will perform from week to week. There is too much variance when it comes to injuries, fatigue, emotional state, coaching and interpersonal relationships teammates. With poker sites, they were only banned because the companies involved were laundering money.

Re:Ethan?

[pthisis]

It's not illegal gambling because UIGEA (the federal anti-online gambling law) specifically exempts it.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...

(1) Bet or wager.— The term “bet or wager”— ...
(E) does not include— ...
(ix) participation in any fantasy or simulation sports game or educational game or contest in which (if the game or contest involves a team or teams) no fantasy or simulation sports team is based on the current membership of an actual team that is a member of an amateur or professional sports organization (as those terms are defined in section 3701 of title 28) and that meets the following conditions

Re:Ethan?

[oh_my_080980980]

Um no jackass it doesn't exempt it. Those sites *ASSUME* they are exempt because they *CLAIM* it requires skill. It does not. It's luck pure and simple.

Re:Ethan?

[pthisis]

Yes it does--the italicized above is a direct quote from the federal law that banned online gambling (the UIGEA). Fantasy sports are exempted per se, regardless of whether or not skill is involved.

Re:Ethan?

[tripleevenfall]

With sports teams you can compile enough information to make an educated guess about which teams have an advantage. No matter how much historical data you compile on an individual player, there is no way to predict within a reasonable margin how well they will perform from week to week.

How are individual players unpredictable but teams predictable? The team is comprised of 46 players. If you can't even predict the performance of one player, how can we say that you can predict the performance of a combination of 46 of them?

Re:Ethan?

[tripleevenfall]

There's a severe difference between a whole fantasy football season of managing a team with a prize at the end for the best overall performance, and placing simple one-game cash bets on individual players.

Re:Ethan?

[pthisis]

Yes, placing one-game cash bets on individual players would violate (ix)(III)(bb):

(III) No winning outcome is based—
(aa) on the score, point-spread, or any performance or performances of any single real-world team or any combination of such teams; or
(bb) solely on any single performance of an individual athlete in any single real-world sporting or other event.

As far as I know, neither of these sites allows such bets (by design, to skirt the law).

Re:Ethan?

[sysrammer]

Why the "jackass" in reply to what looks like a reasonable posting? Do you have some kind of history with the OP, or am I missing something?

Re:Ethan?

[Obfuscant]

(ix) participation in any fantasy or simulation sports game or educational game or contest in which (if the game or contest involves a team or teams) no fantasy or simulation sports team is based on the current membership of an actual team that is a member of an amateur or professional sports organization (as those terms are defined in section 3701 of title 28) and that meets the following conditions

How is picking your NFL fantasy team members from the rosters of existing NFL teams not basing your team on the membership of an actual team? If Brees is on a team and the only reason you can pick him is because of that, then you've based your team on the membership of existing teams.

What this exclusion would apply to is a fantasy league where you can pick past players, like Johnny Unitas or Brett Hull (for NHL).

Re:Ethan?

[es330td]

The outcome of a fantasy league isn't based on a single performance on an individual athlete. A fantasy team is a collection of several distinct, unrelated individuals. Your text very specifically says "solely."

Re:Ethan?

[es330td]

I think I misunderstood your post. My apologies.

Re:Ethan?

[pthisis]

It's saying that the fantasy team's membership can't be based on the membership of a current team. The idea is to prevent people essentially from betting on the Red Sox to beat the Yankees by having a "fantasy" league where one team's members are the current Red Sox, and another's are the current Yankees, and so on.

It's a dumb law, but it's the law.

Re:Ethan?

[Anonymous Coward]

One word:

Asperger's.

Re:Ethan?

[Obfuscant]

It's saying that the fantasy team's membership can't be based on the membership of a current team.

Yes, I even quoted where it says that.

If you cannot pick Drew Brees as your fantasy quarterback unless he's a member of an existing NFL team, then your team roster is based on the membership of current NFL teams. It doesn't say you are exempt unless you are betting on a team as a whole.

The idea is to prevent people essentially from betting on the Red Sox to beat the Yankees by having a "fantasy" league where one team's members are the current Red Sox, and another's are the current Yankees, and so on.

As someone who is smart enough to avoid wasting money on this, I'll assume that your legal honest ethical fantasy sports betting -- I mean non-betting -- sites prohibit in some way picking a fantasy team composed of members of the same real-life team. Somehow I doubt that is true. Given that team rosters can change during a season, do any of them keep an eye out for fantasy teams that are "everyone except Joe Smith is from the Atlanta Goobers" and then Joe Smith is traded to the Atlanta Goobers?

But, the fact remains, if you cannot pick people except based on their current team membership, then they are not exempt under the part we both quoted.

It's a dumb law, but it's the law.

Well, maybe it's only dumb because it doesn't go far enough and contains enough wiggle-room to allegedly allow what should be illegal.

Re:Ethan?

[Applehu Akbar]

Well, I suppose we will have to hold a mock trial to decide this case.

Re:Ethan?

[war4peace]

You apply a subset of Psychohistory.
Hari Seldon was a genius.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Ethan?

[Anonymous Coward]

because the law was created by bill frist... he was payed $20,000,000 by harrahs to attach the "unlawful internet gambling" laws into a completely unrelated bill with 1 minute left in session... a bill that no one was willing to not allow to pass... so harrahs basically bought a law. bill frist immediately retired and sat on his new cash.

harrahs wanted a sportsbook and was denied licensing in new jersey... but they already had poker sites... so to get back at the people with sports licenses that they were refused, they added exemption to fantasy sports gambling, but because they had poker licenses, they made their competition (online poker) illegal.

same BS wall st pulls all day every day.

Re: Ethan?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a Linux kernel programmer. He can't help it.

Re:Ethan?

[binarstu]

If you can't even predict the performance of one player, how can we say that you can predict the performance of a combination of 46 of them?

Because the characteristics of a group are often more predictable than the characteristics of the individuals within the group. To illustrate with a very simple example: Suppose you gather a random sample of 1,000 people. You could predict the percentage of males or females in the sample with decent accuracy. But any one person? You couldn't ever do much better than flipping a coin.

The same thing is at work with sports teams. If you know that team A has more top-tier players than team B, you would expect team A to perform better than Team B, on average. But predicting the performance of any given player in a particular game? Much, much harder.

Re:Ethan?

[goose-incarnated]

With sports teams you can compile enough information to make an educated guess about which teams have an advantage. No matter how much historical data you compile on an individual player, there is no way to predict within a reasonable margin how well they will perform from week to week.

How are individual players unpredictable but teams predictable? The team is comprised of 46 players. If you can't even predict the performance of one player, how can we say that you can predict the performance of a combination of 46 of them?

Because while you may not be able to predict the motion of a single person you can much more easily predict the motion of a mob. Groups are always easier to predict than individuals.

Re:Ethan?

[Coisiche]

I'll assume that your legal honest ethical fantasy sports betting -- I mean non-betting -- sites prohibit in some way picking a fantasy team composed of members of the same real-life team.

Well I can't comment on those USA ones but the Fantasy Football (soccer) league based on the English premier league limits you to two players per real team in your fantasy team; i.e. you can only have 2 Manchester City players no matter how many you might like.

Also the money involved is very different. There's a financial prize of something like £10,000 ($15,000) for the whole season (9 months) and you might also get a metal medal. The medals are for gold, silver and bronze but they're symbolic in that there won't actually be any gold or silver in them.

Re:Ethan?

[nedlohs]

Because the fantasy sports industry spent enough money on lobbyists to get an an exemption written into the law. Logic and reason don't matter when the law explicitly states that fantasy sports aren't betting or wagering for the purposes of the law (just like it states that an insurance contract isn't and commodities trading isn't).

Re:Ethan?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the sites prevent you from having a lineup composed of only 1 real life team's players. Why would you doubt this? It's pretty f-ing easy to do from a programming standpoint and it's mandated by law. Why the F would you consider THAT to be something they wouldn't be doing?

As far as trades during the season go there's no problem there either. It's DAILY fantasy sports (DFS). Managers choose a new roster each day / each game. So if a player gets traded and they're now on the same team as a bunch of other guys you normally pick... guess what... you have to quit using one of them. The "daily" aspect automatically takes care of trades, etc.

Re:Ethan?

[nedlohs]

As someone who is smart enough to avoid wasting money on this, I'll assume that your legal honest ethical fantasy sports betting -- I mean non-betting -- sites prohibit in some way picking a fantasy team composed of members of the same real-life team. Somehow I doubt that is true. Given that team rosters can change during a season, do any of them keep an eye out for fantasy teams that are "everyone except Joe Smith is from the Atlanta Goobers" and then Joe Smith is traded to the Atlanta Goobers?

They'd be amazingly stupid to have spent all that money on lobbying to get an exemption in the law and then not add a trivial check (are all the players in this team from the same real team if so it is invalid) to the team validation step.

Doubting they do is like doubting that that an internet stock broker checks if a customer is meeting the criteria for a "pattern day trader" and just figures FINRA rules were met last week so who cares about this week. It could be the case, but it's extremely unlikely given the ease of checking and the severe consequences for not doing so.

Re:Ethan?

[ranton]

(ix) participation in any fantasy or simulation sports game or educational game or contest in which (if the game or contest involves a team or teams) no fantasy or simulation sports team is based on the current membership of an actual team that is a member of an amateur or professional sports organization (as those terms are defined in section 3701 of title 28) and that meets the following conditions

How is picking your NFL fantasy team members from the rosters of existing NFL teams not basing your team on the membership of an actual team? If Brees is on a team and the only reason you can pick him is because of that, then you've based your team on the membership of existing teams.

It says you cannot have a fantasy team composed of an amateur or professional sports team. Meaning my fantasy team cannot be "The Chicago Bears". It can be Jay Cutler, Matt Forte, Alshon Jeffrey, etc. In the latter case, my fantasy sports team is based on individuals, not a team. For your argument to hold up, the text would have to say something like: no [fantasy team] is based on individuals whose are currently members of an actual team ...

If you read the conditions that follow the text you quoted above, it becomes clear what the intent of the law is. For instance, it clearly states the outcome of fantasy sports contest cannot be determined by the outcome of a game or the performance of a single individual. So any fantasy league which gives extra points if the quarterback wins his game is violating this exception and would be considered gambling.

Re:Ethan?

[PookFang34]

Is there a rake for a bet?

Re:Ethan?

[Obfuscant]

Hari Seldon was a genius.

Daneel Olivaw was a genius, Hari Seldon was a pawn, and you didn't finish the series. I was, frankly, really disappointed in that plot trick. That the most powerful robots could design more and more powerful positronic brains, and not be able to design an off-line data storage system so he wouldn't run out of memory, is ridiculous. He could form an entire planet of inanimate objects into a collective consciousness and modify humans to be part of that, but the concept of a USB memory stick to shove old, useless memories onto (or just FORGET them) was beyond his capabilities. But having him as the protagonist is just sad.

The free market will work this out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sports go sports!
Athletics are number one!
Participants are heroes!
Go team, yeah!

Re:The free market will work this out.

[invid]

1000 quatloos on the newcomer.

Kil them with fire.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so fucking sick and tired of seeing commercials for fan duel, draftkings, and whatever the fuck the other one is every 15 god damned minutes on my tv.

Draft Kings

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently became an active member and for those that are wondering, let me tell you: It is essentially a lottery. You cant chose whomever you want, you are limited by a salary cap. Want A. Rodgers and Cobb? Sorry! You can only afford one of the practice squads receivers. So the 'gamble' ends up being which crappy player blows up. Well, we cant determine what superstars will do week to week, you have no helpful information on the scrubs. Next time Ill just play dice.

except.... they just start LOL eSports. Ahh. get me some one on one SC2 matches and Im down.

Re:Draft Kings

[Anonymous Coward]

we cant determine what superstars will do week to week

This right here is why I do not understand how knowing which players are popular gives you an advantage in anything. Unless these contests are somehow linked to player popularity.

Re:Draft Kings

[porges]

This has been not explained well, so here's my try: to win big money, you do NOT try to maximize your expected score, you maximize your chance of taking one of the top spots, because those pay big. Given that everybody has their complete pick of all the players (ignoring salary cap), the strategy is to pick at least some players that do well that nobody else has picked. So if you know who the other players do NOT have, you can find a few of those that you have some hope might suddenly have a big week and give you lots of points. That's half the battle; the other half, that you can't control, is getting those players to actually do well.

Re:Draft Kings

[cdrudge]

So what "insider" information would the employee have?

Re:Draft Kings

[meerling]

It could be. First off, I have no idea how the fantasy football stuff works, and don't want to. On the other hand, if it's anything like actually odds making, popularity counts for a LOT. Sure there are various factors as to who's most likely to win, but the odds are also set by which one people are betting on. Let's say statistically there's a 50% chance that team A will win, and the betting odds were at 2 to 1, if 80% of the people were all betting on team A, the bookie is going to lose his shirt if team A wins. So he increases the odds for team B and decreases it for team A to induce people to bet differently. That way, the bookie has the monetary edge no matter who wins, which is good business for him, and gambling for you.
So if these fantasy football things are similar to sports betting, they are tweaking the numbers based on popularity, they'd have to.

Re:Draft Kings

[codeAlDente]

Distribution of bets on players

Re:Draft Kings

[njnnja]

A lot of people misunderstand how bookies set odds. As you point out, it is about popularity, not expected winners. An ideal book with 80% betting on team A would be something like 1:8 odds for A and 7:2 odds for B. Then if $8,000 is bet on A, and $2,000 is bet on B, then if A wins, the bookie pays out $1,000 to the winners (who bet on A) and collects $2000 from the losers, netting a positive $1,000. If B wins, the bookie pays out $7,000 to the winners (who bet on B) and collects $8,000 from the losers, also netting a positive $1,000.

Even if, in fact, the teams are evenly matched, the bookie cares about balancing his book for a guaranteed profit, not about taking a position on which team will win. However, because of the wisdom of crowds phenomenon, it is generally pretty likely that the implied probabilities determined by a balanced book are pretty good representations of the actual probabilities of the team success.

Re:Draft Kings

[Rockoon]

it is generally pretty likely that the implied probabilities determined by a balanced book are pretty good representations of the actual probabilities of the team success.

unless its a local team.. in which case the betting is so lopsided that balancing the action results in such extreme odds that few bettors wish to place any wagers on either side, because they are fans and wont bet against "their favorite team" no matter what the odds. ..in these cases the local bookie gets in touch with a bookie local to the other team and they pool up the action so that the odds they need to offer arent so extreme.

Re:Draft Kings

[tsotha]

Let's say statistically there's a 50% chance that team A will win, and the betting odds were at 2 to 1, if 80% of the people were all betting on team A, the bookie is going to lose his shirt if team A wins.

njnna is right - the bookie doesn't lose his shirt under any circumstances. When you bet on sports you're not really betting against the bookie; you're betting against the other bettors. The bookie is making money because the winners are getting paid less than they would if the bets were mathematically fair. Let's say you had a friendly bet with a buddy over a game. Between you you've decided one team is twice as likely to win. So you bet two dollars, your buddy bets one dollar, and the winner takes all three dollars. Assuming you've judged the odds of the sports outcome properly, this is a mathematically fair bet - if you made it a million times you wouldn't win or lose money (compared to the amount you've bet, anyway).

Now change the scenario and say a third party is acting as a bookie. The bookie offers you 3:8 odds (instead of 1:2) and he offers your buddy 7:4 odds (instead of 2:1). You still bet two dollars, and your buddy still bets one dollar. This time, though, the winner gets $2.75, and the bookie pockets a quarter. Notice he pockets the quarter no matter which team wins. This bet isn't fair, mathematically speaking. If you and your buddy make it a million times you'll both be broke and the bookie will have all your money. This is why you can find bookies everywhere you go, regardless of legality :)

Outsider

[Luthair]

I'm not sure this would qualify as insider trading since they aren't betting on their own sites. This would be more akin to Apple employees investing in Microsoft based on their internal market research about the Surface.

Re:Outsider

[OverlordQ]

Still insider trading as he had access to data that the public doesn't.

Re:Outsider

[Penguinisto]

Actually, since the information they have is essentially the same, it's more like a slot machine tech working at one casino making slot bets at another. There's still a chance that the guy will lose, but his odds are way better than most, especially if he knows of certain bugs in certain machines and can leverage them.

It's a big reason why folks like the Nevada Gaming Commission demand that technicians not gamble at all (IIRC, it came in the wake of a technician exploiting a bug by way of a palmed magnet back in the 1990s(?) or so.)

Re:Outsider

[rockout]

I think it's closer to insider trading than that. After all, the two sites provide almost exactly the same service, and aggregate data from a huge number of users can probably be assumed to be almost identical from one site to the next. It'd be more like if you worked at HTC, and you found out news that the US gov't was going to adopt Android as the official platform for all phones issued in every single gov't agency, and so you go out and buy a bunch of Samsung stock.

Re:Outsider

[yodleboy]

You guys! Can I just get a clear car analogy already??

Re:Outsider

[Junta]

Except market research is an indirect and often flawed amount of knowledge. It's also generally based on data sources generally available to the public.

Here the knowledge is a more direct representation of the needed data. You are betting according to the very straightforward assumption that all popular 'fantasy sports' sites have similar behavior among their members. Essentially, those with access to one site's membership data knows the odds to payoffs of a typical site, while the rest of the participants are somewhat blind to the odds to payoffs. With this knowledge, folks are able to find combinations that are almost certainly going to be profitable in aggregate, which wouldn't be possible if things were actually fair.

Re:Outsider

[clintp]

Fantasy sports leagues are boring as hell. But I design financial systems, and I find cheating fascinating. :)

In a betting system (horses, sports, etc...) you have to base your bets on your own external information (scores, statistics, etc...) and possibly with some help from the betting system itself (300-to-1 odds indicate that this is a long shot).

However these guys had access to the betting information from other players -- in greater detail than the externally stated odds. The articles don't say how much they had access to. Let's say they had all of it. It'd be a reasonably cheat then to find the top few bettors based on past performance, and mimic their wagers. You might not win big, but you probably wouldn't do too badly. Crowd-sourcing the bets, from a very selective crowd.

Luck still plays a part, but this shaves some of the luck off based on information gleaned from data that others had no access to. It's insider.. something.

Re:Outsider

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the public does have access to that data. They just choose not to do the work necessary to gather it.

If I understand correctly, the person in question made the assumption that the players who were picked by the most people were probably the best players, and that an optimal team would contain those players. This turned out to be correct, though it was not necessarily so. He got that information by looking at the private data of users of his site. That's certainly a violation of the users' trust, which makes it ethically (and maybe legally) wrong.

Insider trading is illegal because it involves making money by knowing secret information that would materially affect the performance of a security if known. Ignoring the fact that the information, if known, would materially affect the number of people choosing particular players, and thus the maximum possible gains, it would not affect the fundamental performance of the player—how many points they make, running yards, etc.—so it isn't really in the same category.

Besides, anyone in the general public could get that same information with enough effort by taking a poll of fantasy football players and aggregating the results. If anything, that would likely result in a more statistically accurate result, because you'd be taking a random sampling of players on every site rather than only the players who happen to play on a single site.

Re:Outsider

[msauve]

The sports analogy isn't good enough?

Re:Outsider

[Luthair]

Wrong, insider trading requires inside knowledge from the company that other investors do not have. The information the employee of company A does not have access to information from B (unless they have some sharing agreement I suppose), ergo they do not have inside information.

Re:Outsider

[Luthair]

Which is why I made the point about Apple doing research on its competitors, they collect a variety of information from many sources and aggregate it. As long as that information is not internal unreleased Microsoft data (e.g. finances) it would not trigger insider trading.

Re:Outsider

[meerling]

Can I get a Tolkien analogy?

Re:Outsider

[Anonymous Coward]

Insider trading is illegal because it involves making money by knowing secret information that would materially affect the performance of a security if known.

Well, theoretically, yes that is the way it is supposed to work. In practice, though, it looks more like insider trading is typically interpreted as getting a better return on investment than your betters at the big investment companies; doing a little bit better than they do is no big deal, but if you make a real killing in the market expect the claws to come out. They seem to really hate when uppity little folks (like you or me) do that kind of thing.

Re:Outsider

[quetwo]

The data they are accused of using is the popularity of the various players on their own site. They can reasonably predict that similar "claim" percentages are on the completing site.

The sites don't list that, for example, 75% of the people on the site have Tom Brady on their teams. The insiders would know this, and would adjust their own picks based on that knowledge.

Re:Outsider

[Anonymous Coward]

Still insider trading as he had access to data that the public doesn't.

If you think about your statement, you'll find that it doesn't make any sense. If I start researching different stocks to buy and end up producing some useful model that can predict good buys I can certainly use that model to pick stocks, even though the public doesn't have access to my model. The same would apply to the Apple employee in the above post.

We can easily tell this isn't just a guess on my part, as high-frequency trading (HFT) is not considered insider trading. One of the main goals of HFT is to get the closest servers to the market as possible in order to get a head start on the public by getting the data before everyone else.

Re:Outsider

[Hognoxious]

Leaving aside the fact that the second sentence is grammatically shit, you're talking bollocks.

If the industry is close to an oligopoly, then inside information on one still gives clues about the others.

For example, if I worked for VW and had advance knowledge of the emissions shenanigans I could shorted VW or I could have bought into BMW and/or Mercedes.

Re:Outsider

[rahvin112]

You don't understand what insider trading is. I doubt you've ever even bought stocks. Insider trading has a VERY strict definition within the law, so strict in fact that insider information passed 2 degrees away from the source which resulted in a prosecution was recently thrown out by the supreme court because it didn't meet the material rewards test the law requires.

This isn't insider trading. It's filthy and dirty and throws the whole industry into disrepute but it's not currently illegal. Though if the industry doesn't stamp this out right quick I wouldn't be surprised to see congress "fix" it for them.

Re:Outsider

[s.petry]

You need to ask for this using a car analogy first.

Re:Outsider

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing prevents other people from running a poll and see what people say and then make trades on the actual stock market based on that. That's not insider trading - and it still isn't even if you don't tell people the result of the poll.

Re:Outsider

[rockout]

Yeah, but FanDuel isn't doing research on DraftKings, or vice versa. Employees at both places have access to data (that is basically the same) that isn't available to customers outside those places. Hence, insiders.

Re:Outsider

[goose-incarnated]

You guys! Can I just get a clear car analogy already??

The sports analogy isn't good enough?

Can I get a Tolkien analogy?

You need to ask for this using a car analogy first.

How about a cycle analogy?

Re:Outsider

[delt0r]

Funny fact. It is completely legal to insider trade if your in congress.

Re:Outsider

[beerbear]

Honest question: In what context does one 'design financial systems'? :-)

Re:Outsider

[ranton]

Besides, anyone in the general public could get that same information with enough effort by taking a poll of fantasy football players and aggregating the results.

A poll is not as good as real data. If it was there would be no need for elections; we could just rely on polls. And in this case polls would be far less reliable than looking at real customer data. For instance you could see the winning percentage of certain customers and add extra weight to their picks.

The debate is not whether or not this was insider information. It clearly was. The only debate is what to do about this behavior.

Re:Outsider

[clintp]

Systems in Slashdot context I assumed would be understood as "software/hardware" systems. :) I do Payroll and Tax Filing software architecture. One of the many challenges is to maintain enough checks and balances that it's very hard to lose track of the money, even when an insider does something malicious or stupid.

Re:Outsider

[beerbear]

Ah okay. Thank you!

Re:Outsider

[Anonymous Coward]

Krebs cycle? Rankine cycle? Stirling cycle? Bi cycle?

Please be clearer in your requests.

Your sincerely,

Deep Thought

P.S. 42

Brain Dribble...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather watch Teletubbies.

Just say no to more government

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of legislation, do something unique. Create meaningful ethical standards and follow them without the federal government getting involved.

Re:Just say no to more government

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, let's let the mafia regulate this line of business....

Re:Just say no to more government

[sysrammer]

I know, let's let the mafia regulate this line of business....

Good idea. My understanding is that they have very high ethical standards which are stringently enforced.

Incredible

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

It's genuinely astounding just how little I care about this. My lack of interest probably couldn't be measured even with the most sensitive scientific equipment.

I'll just sit back and let others who have some stake or interest in it do all the shooting and flaming and arguing. Carry on!

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, it's one of those things that are popular because enough people consider them popular. Me? I'd rather shave my bodyhair than have anything to do with these "athletic" hobbies.

Re:Incredible

[Falos]

I'm still not clear on what a Kardashian is. Some kind of expensive salad, I think.

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

Better that way. Once you know it, you can't un-know it...

Re:Incredible

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I thought they were basically grayish lizard humanoids who are the embodiment of pure evil, not to be confused with the ST:TNG and ST:DS9 Cardassians.

Re:Incredible

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I'm still not clear on what a Kardashian is. Some kind of expensive salad, I think.

Trust me, unless you're into gigantic butts, you're not missing anything.

Re:Incredible

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Me? I'd rather shave my bodyhair than have anything to do with these "athletic" hobbies.

Same here...I've never been into sports or athletics (skydiving doesn't really count and that was eons ago) and the idea of getting involved with online "sports" just seems silly to me.

But hey, each to their own.

Re:Incredible

[MobyDisk]

I have no interest in major league sports, but the idea of writing an algorithm that tracks top fantasy football players' decisions and tries to create a team based on that meta-information sounds really cool to me. It would be really neat to see how successful it could be while knowing nothing at all about the game itself.

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

It's genuinely astounding just how little I care about this. My lack of interest probably couldn't be measured even with the most sensitive scientific equipment.

Drat, you beat me to it! I was coming here to say exactly the same thing!

I'll just sit back and let others who have some stake or interest in it do all the shooting and flaming and arguing. Carry on!

Indeed. Come back when this becomes real news after someone has been killed over this.

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

It's genuinely astounding just how little I care about this. My lack of interest probably couldn't be measured even with the most sensitive scientific equipment.

I'll just sit back and let others who have some stake or interest in it do all the shooting and flaming and arguing. Carry on!

Me too. I could care less about online fantasy sports leagues.

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very successful. The two biggest firms each have billion dollar valuations.

Re:Incredible

[thinkwaitfast]

Pretty sure it had something to do with a South Park episode.

Re:Incredible

[delt0r]

You cared enough to not just click the post, but to also post. Care less?

Re:Incredible

[delt0r]

my post was borked. https://youtu.be/8Gv0H-vPoDc?t...

Re:Incredible

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You cared enough to not just click the post, but to also post. Care less?

I cared, but at a level so low that it was worth mentioning. Pushing the boundaries of not caring to an all-time low.

Why, I'd bet that out of the ~4 million slashdot users there are dozens of us who feel the same way.

Re:Incredible

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Link does not seem to work for me.

Re:Incredible

[delt0r]

fucking geolocation BS....

PT Barnum

[s.petry]

While there is debate regarding the authenticity of the quite, PT is attributed with "There is a sucker born every minute." Gambling is for the majority is simply a fools game. I know one professional gambler, and the only game they play is poker and only face to face with cash pots. Think long and hard about all of the reasons why that would be...

Sorry if you were suckered or know someone that did.

Re:PT Barnum

[Penguinisto]

Agreed. The only machine-type game that has any kind of consistent hope is playing odd/even on a roulette wheel with a single "0", which gives you a 48.6% (or so) chance of winning (a "00" on the wheel drops your chances to to 47.4%). Any other game that uses a machine will only get worse from there.

At least with single-deck poker (and no card-counters) you have some sort of chance... but only if you know what you're doing and are more skilled than your opponents.

Re:PT Barnum

[Anonymous Coward]

Homosexual?

12?

Re:PT Barnum

[Anonymous Coward]

Homosexual?

12?

Yeah, just like the age of people playing "fantasy sports"...

Re:PT Barnum

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to play against a casino, the best odds are the blackjack tables. If you want to play against other gamblers, then go with root's friend and milk the saps for all they're worth. If you do go that route, be sure to tip the casino because you are using their alcohol, their tables, their security, and their saps for your own benefit.

Re:PT Barnum

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Blackjack and baccarat are also good games if you find the right rule set or situation. For blackjack you need to count cards and for baccarat you need to be paying attention as it is basically an even game but if you are lucky where only 0 value cards are left you bet tie big at the end of the deck and walk away from the table after you collect your huge pile of winnings. Also in general stay from anything that uses a PRNG as they suck harder than a black hole with daddy issues. Table games have better odds then those and are fun as there is human interaction with players and the dealer and/or casino staff which I like more than playing very simple video games.

Re:PT Barnum

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Why anyone would gamble online is beyond me. You can't really know what's going on at the other end, and trusting that the site is playing straight with you seems adorably naive at best, and utterly imbecilic at worst.

I know a woman who gambled away $40,000 at online poker, and I always marveled at how incredibly gullible and trusting she was. Going to a real casino is bad enough, but online? That's just asking to be fleeced.

Re:PT Barnum

[meerling]

LoL, because your gambling friend is only playing the cards as a secondary, his primary game is playing the other players.

Re:PT Barnum

[Anonymous Coward]

At least with single-deck poker (and no card-counters) you have some sort of chance... but only if you know what you're doing and are more skilled than your opponents.

And this is something I really don't understand: what is so god-awful wrong with counting cards? It's not like card-counters are using "inside information". All the information about the cards in play is set right out there in front of all the other players. The only difference is that the card counters are...wait for it...paying attention to what cards have already been drawn from the deck. What is so wrong about this?

Re:PT Barnum

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is that you aren't playing against the other players, you're playing against the house.

Re:PT Barnum

[Anonymous Coward]

But regulation will fix it... lol.

Re:PT Barnum

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is that you aren't playing against the other players, you're playing against the house.

And I completely, utterly fail to see how this makes any difference at all. Card counters are not using any inside information; all the cards previously played are seen by every one else, including the dealer working for the house. So, where is the unfair advantage in this? Why is paying attention to what cards have already been dealt by the house considered cheating? Care to explain that?

Re:PT Barnum

[Trailer Trash]

Poker isn't gambling - it's a game of skill. Put another way, if poker is gambling then so is capitalism.

Gambling requires a game of pure chance, which means that the player has no way to effect the outcome.

Re:PT Barnum

[wisnoskij]

I don't know, betting on sports results should be pretty easy to game. The odds given are just designed to hedge the bookie's bets, not on the actually best guess on who is going to win. People are stupid, so will bet wrong in general; So you only need to figure out when the odds given do not match the real life odds to such a degree that you have a monetary advantage. You won't win every time, like the bookies do, but you should be able to easy get a positive expected value. The problem with poker is that unless you are coning noobs, you are playing people at the same level as you. While if you get involved in huge population wide gambling, you only need to outplay the lowest common denominator.

Re:PT Barnum

[Cederic]

In blackjack it lets you shift the odds away from the house and towards yourself. Casinos don't like the odds favouring the punters.

I believe most casinos tolerate card counting though, as most people cock it up, negating the benefits and thus generating additional income for the house.

Re:PT Barnum

[s.petry]

Card counting is against the house rules, not normally or necessarily against a player's rules. The house/casino ban card counting because it does tip the odds in the counter's favor. Why do you think that the house uses machine shuffled 5+ decks to deal from? Simple, if you can count the cards you increase your odds. In two decks if you are showing a ten and most of the other tens have been played with very few 2-9. It's also easy to track 16 cards to know how many valued 10 have been played. So the house masses lots of cards to make this extremely difficult. Try to track 64 or so cards with a value of 10, 64 with a value of 2-5, and another 64 valued 6-9 and it's really easy to lose count. It also changes how cards long the sequence of crap can be.

Re:PT Barnum

[s.petry]

You are mostly correct, but that is the nature of poker. Poker professionals pay the house for the tables if they pay at all. Casinos can draw some large crowds from high stakes games, so often give the pros free time, food, and booze to play. The house usually gets a cut of the pots when people cash out. Poker players play against each other, and the game is as much psychological as it is the luck of the cards.

The reason he won't play anything else is because the House always wins the games they run. They don't run poker tables at that level, they just take a cut.

Re:PT Barnum

[elvesrus]

Unless they rake the pot. If they do it becomes my tip.

Re:PT Barnum

[Anonymous Coward]

In blackjack it lets you shift the odds away from the house and towards yourself. Casinos don't like the odds favouring the punters.

I believe most casinos tolerate card counting though, as most people cock it up, negating the benefits and thus generating additional income for the house.

If someone sits there taking money from the casino day in and day out, I think eventually the casino won't like that and will find something to be done about it. Encouraging people who can't count cards to make the attempt, now that's another matter.

Re:PT Barnum

[Anonymous Coward]

Come to my office and Big Louie will explain it to you.

Re:PT Barnum

[Deadstick]

I believe most casinos tolerate card counting though, as most people cock it up, negating the benefits and thus generating additional income for the house.

Yes they do. With the multi-deck games they run today, a card counter has to be extremely accurate to make money...one error per hour will put you in negative territory. You can't hide counting, so they'll know you're doing it -- but if you aren't playing well enough they're happy to accommodate. If you do show talent, then they exercise the right courts have given them to usher you out.

Either the companies will fix this, or

[Attila Dimedici]

Either the companies will fix this, or the market will. If guys from Fanduel are winning big by playing at Draftkings and vice versa, no one who is not in the know will play.

Re:Either the companies will fix this, or

[quantaman]

Either the companies will fix this, or the market will. If guys from Fanduel are winning big by playing at Draftkings and vice versa, no one who is not in the know will play.

Only if they're found out. Who knows how many DraftKing and FanDuel employees have been using this strategy? This kind of scam can be very hard for the users to detect so you end up with a lot of people getting scammed and legitimate businesses with no easy way to distinguish themselves from the crooked businesses.

Plus there's an externalization problem, it's the FanDuel users that were harmed by the actions of the DraftKing employee. Those two are big enough to cooperate in keeping their employees playing fairly but there's nothing to stop an employee from a smaller site pulling a similar scam on FanDuel or DraftKing.

Free market solution

[rodrigoandrade]

Don't fucking play.

Fun October Tongue Twister for Kids

[Anonymous Coward]

Which big witch bought six big witch brooms?
This big witch bought six big witch brooms.

Now some News for Athletes

[SethJohnson]

People might be wondering how this blurb about sports betting was selected for Slashdot publication...

The headline contained the word "fantasy."

Re:Now some News for Athletes

[meerling]

Because fantasy football has traditionally been a geek thing since it doesn't require getting dogpiled or bounced around on the field, nor does it involved sitting on uncomfortable bleachers exposed to the sun for hours, as well as it tends to be a cerebral exercise if you care to indulge. With the rise and ubiquity of computers, it's happening on computers, so even if it includes a million armchair quarterback jock wannabe's, many still consider it the domain of geeks.

Re:Now some News for Athletes

[Anonymous Coward]

Doing well is also entirely an exercise in pattern recognition (which teams allow the second WR to shine vs cover them well which right handed pitcher is facing a team with a line up of 7 lefties and an expected 8mph breeze blowing toward right field, etc).

Re:Now some News for Athletes

[DeputySpade]

Because fantasy football is Dungeons and Dragons for people who used to beat up people who played Dungeons and Dragons (e.g. the /. userbase)

Always someone that knows more than you do

[Crashmarik]

If you go into a casino expecting the house to be fair, or your opponents not to have procured every edge you're a fool.

If it wasn't knowledge of the ownership patterns, it would have been something else, like health information to the old school fixing or shaving.

Re:Always someone that knows more than you do

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

If you go into a casino expecting the house to be fair, or your opponents not to have procured every edge you're a fool.

Yes, yes, and yes.

Casinos aren't in business to let you win any more than insurance companies are in business to pay claims.

Are there anti-gambling laws anymore?

[The-Ixian]

It seems like this is the first year I have actually seen fantasy sport company propaganda and it is EVERYWHERE I look.

Obviously it is a huge industry with millions to throw at advertising. But how is it not gambling again?

Do we still have anti-gambling legislation? Not that I really care. If you want to throw away your money, by all means, go ahead. I just thought that places like Atlantic City and Las Vegas existed because they were bastions where gambling was legal.

Re:Are there anti-gambling laws anymore?

[danbert8]

They aren't betting on sports... They are betting at FANTASY sports. That's totally different! Kind of like how bingo isn't gambling because the church does it.

Re:Are there anti-gambling laws anymore?

[tompaulco]

When the online gambling sites first came out, they got shut down really quick. I am not sure why the same is not the case for the these online sports gambling sites.

Re:Are there anti-gambling laws anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't betting on sports... They are betting at FANTASY sports. That's totally different! Kind of like how bingo isn't gambling because the church does it.

Bingo is gambling! Just because the church gets exempt (through certain guidelines - I believe if you look it up; bingo hosted under charity/fund raising) as a public charity. You'll notice bingo not implemented by the church (Cruise ships have bingo, but if you win the grand prize jackpot, you'll have to file that amount on your tax return.)

Betting on real life events based on a set of (fantasy) rules that where it is different than real life's set of rules is still gambling. Just because they haven't cracked down with heavy handed regulations on it, doesn't mean they won't.

If you ask me, anything that involves putting up money for a game's outcome is gambling.

Re:Are there anti-gambling laws anymore?

[pthisis]

When the online gambling sites first came out, they got shut down really quick. I am not sure why the same is not the case for the these online sports gambling sites.

They got shut down when Congress passed anti-online-gambling legislation in the form of UIGEA. It specifically says that fantasy sports of this sort are exempt:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
(1) Bet or wager.— The term “bet or wager”— ...
(E) does not include— ...
(ix) participation in any fantasy or simulation sports game or educational game or contest in which (if the game or contest involves a team or teams) no fantasy or simulation sports team is based on the current membership of an actual team that is a member of an amateur or professional sports organization (as those terms are defined in section 3701 of title 28) and that meets the following conditions:

Re:Are there anti-gambling laws anymore?

[sysrammer]

BINGO!

Re:Are there anti-gambling laws anymore?

[tompaulco]

When the online gambling sites first came out, they got shut down really quick. I am not sure why the same is not the case for the these online sports gambling sites.

They got shut down when Congress passed anti-online-gambling legislation in the form of UIGEA. It specifically says that fantasy sports of this sort are exempt:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... (1) Bet or wager.— The term “bet or wager”— ... (E) does not include— ... (ix) participation in any fantasy or simulation sports game or educational game or contest in which (if the game or contest involves a team or teams) no fantasy or simulation sports team is based on the current membership of an actual team that is a member of an amateur or professional sports organization (as those terms are defined in section 3701 of title 28) and that meets the following conditions:

Wow, that must have taken a lot of dollars to get such an exemption. Some congressman somewhere must have gotten about a 100 foot yacht off of that clause.

these two firms will go under

[circletimessquare]

but this type of gambling will continue

the NFL got a specific carve out for this crap when sheldon adelson and other las vegas oligarch assholes got online gambling in the usa shut down a few years ago as threat to their business (welcome to capitalism! aka, cronyism, but this is what most american morons don't understand about unregulated "capitalism"... also amazing that adelson donates to republicans, you know "free enterprise, get government out of business"... lies the poor morons believe for some reason while they do the bidding of the plutocrats)

too many idiots easily parted with their money for this gamblign shit not to continue

Betting on the weight of Steven King's next dump

[EmperorOfCanada]

I am setting up a website where I am going to allow online betting based on the weight of Steven King's next bowel movement. I need to sneak into his house tonight to put pressure sensors under his throne and a turd cam just under the seat.

So everyone come check out http://scaryturdbetting.com/ and give me all your money.

And this is a surprise, why?

[QuietLagoon]

A community set up for betting, a community that few (if any) outside of it even care about, a community that has little or no regulation.

.
How in the world would anyone expect anything but this type of scandal to occur?

I'm confused

[viperidaenz]

How is this not the same as placing bets on real sports?
Betting is betting.

How is it any different that an online casino? Apart from the online casinos locating themselves in countries with lax gambling laws. These are American companies operating in America.

Re:I'm confused

[pthisis]

Because the law banning online gambling specifically exempts fantasy sports. See (1)(E)(ix) here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...

Re:I'm confused

[sysrammer]

I don't believe that the link answers his questions:

"How is this not the same as placing bets on real sports?"
"How is it any different that an online casino?"

Yes, I read the law in the link. It shows the "what", not the "why".

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

It not gambling in the same way that investing in the stock market isn't gambling since investing is supposed to be based on skill at reading markets and not just sheer luck /s

Re:I'm confused

[rahvin112]

The why is because the NFL and other sports leagues didn't want it banned and got congress to deliberately exempt it. It's not illegal because Congress said it isn't.

Re:I'm confused

[viperidaenz]

Ok, so I've never played fantasy sports so I had no idea how it worked.

Reading that, it's basically like playing the lottery. Instead of picking numbers you pick players. The outcome is based solely on the stats of the players in each team.

Makes sense now. It's a tough one though, since they're not betting. They're paying a fixed entry fee that doesn't determine how much they could win.
It's not strictly a lottery because it's not based on chance, but an algorithm and the selection of other players.

It makes perfect sense that the employees of each competing company are banned from playing. It seems plausible that the aggregated data from one company would correlate with that of the other. That would give them an advantage.

Seems fair

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unethical to leave the fool with his money.

Re:Seems fair

[sysrammer]

It's unethical to leave the fool with his money.

PT, is that you?

Don't gamble

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't cheat an honest man.

Re:Don't gamble

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You can't cheat an honest man.

Oh yes you can.

Re:Don't gamble

[meerling]

Are you kidding? They are some of the easiest to cheat.

Re:Don't gamble

[Zontar The Mindless]

A man who's honest with himself knows he's not going to get something for nothing, and walks away.

Re:Don't gamble

[Anonymous Coward]

A man who's honest with himself knows he's not going to get something for nothing, and walks away.

A honest man is cheated by offering him something for fair price and then taking his money and not giving what he was promised.

In my experience, a lot of people who claim that a honest person can't be cheated are people who regularly cheat people and who use the saying to rationalize what they are doing to themselves.

Re:Don't gamble

[Deadstick]

Wrong as stated. The proper formulation is "You can't hustle an honest man. Hustling is cheating someone by making him think he's cheating you.

And then they came for your dreams

[pubwvj]

"Scandal Erupts In Unregulated Online World of Fantasy Sports"

The title implies that fantasies should be regulated. Wow! What a bizarre totalitarian notion. What next, your dreams?

Seriously... what info?

[meglon]

I see people talking about this magical information that somehow these guys had access to that "the general public" didn't.... but seriously... you make up the best team you can, then on sunday your #1 running back goes out with a torn acl on his first play and some idiots think these guys had that information BEFORE the game happens or something?

Years ago i ran a small fantasy league for me and some friends, and i did pretty good each year. In a sense i did have information others didn't, but only because i had to inundate myself with information to keep everyone's teams and rosters up to date, injuries stats up to date, as well as provide a hot-pick sheet of nfl players not on anyone's teams that were doing pretty good that everyone should have a look at. But at the end of the day, when Randal Cunningham goes out and blows out his knee opening day, i'm pretty much fucked for having Bubby Brister as a backup because... THAT'S WHY THEY PLAY THE GAME.

What this sounds like to me is everyone is forgetting that all they can do is HOPE their teams do well because NO ONE KNOWS ahead of time what will actually happen.

Re:Seriously... what info?

[cdrudge]

This is exactly what I thought too and wondered if I missed something. It'd be like picking your fantasy team solely based on average draft position. Yeah you get to see who's hot, but there little guarantee that it will matter much.

Maybe FanDuel and DraftKings needs to ban contestants from using fantasy game stat prediction sites too???

pick one or the other

[nimbius]

unregulated online sports is a very kind way of saying online gambling. Either its a sport, or its a website you pump money into in the hopes of winning big. Gambling is never a winning proposition, kids. No matter how closely its tied to sports, which are fun to watch, gambling always means over a long enough timespan the house always wins.

let the market sort it out

[nobuddy]

Regulation is anti-business. people are good and won't do things like this. Let the market sort it out. /s

Scandal free entertainment via pro sports?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

That is a good fantasy to have.

Anyone who gambles on line

[mark_reh]

is an idiot and deserves to lose all their money.

Here's a hint: if there's money involved, someone will or already has figured out how to cheat.

Unregulated online sports betting

[Anonymous Coward]

Scandal? Didn't see that coming.

Here you go...

[Chris Mattern]

The only fantasy football you'll ever need.

Re:Here you go...

[Barny]

I know right!

It wasn't until halfway into TFS that I realised this wasn't about the new BloodBowl PC game.

However, it is good they are finally admitting that pro sports and in particular betting on them and hoping to win, is a fantasy.

What we need is regulation to legalize this crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Just ask Goldman-Sachs.

It's Gambling

[oh_my_080980980]

Finally make the ruling and be done with it so I don't have to see those stupid fucking commercials.

"Fantasy Sports"

[Minwee]

I tried to read the article, but I don't see how this relates to Blood Bowl in any way.

are we as geeks allowed to say

[Anonymous Coward]

all those 'fantasy' jocks are sad fucks?

Send them to fantasy prison!!

[NotDrWho]

We need to establish a fantasy grand jury to get to the bottom of this immediately! If anyone is breaking the law, they need to be doing hard time in fantasy prison!

Re:Send them to fantasy prison!!

[sysrammer]

"Fantasy Prison"!

Let's see, one can choose from the various prisoner numbers in all the jails and prisons. One can bet on if they'll get parole, or get into trouble, or...

bbl, I have a business plan to write up.

Wall Street, Vegas, Startups.... all the same

[Anonymous Coward]

And how is this different from Wall Street?

No news here, please move along...

Regulation was a long time coming

[Schezar]

Sports are regulated. Sports betting is regulated.

eSports WILL be regulated. Fantasy sports betting WILL be regulated.

It's a sign of maturity when regulation comes down. This is a milestone, though the existing model will be shaken up. Great lecture from PAX on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Can U Say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Full Tilt Poker. LOL!

Slashnovela

[Anonymous Coward]

A break through in quantum computing is posted and yet, it is junk like this that gets more than twice the comments.

Can Anyone Expain To Me

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone explain to me how betting on fantasy sports teams is actually different than betting on real sports?

Betting on fantasy sports is classified as a game of skill, yet betting on the Cowboys is not?

They are both gambling. Either make online gambling legal for all or put these fuckers out of business.

sports betting is safe online it's not like they c

[Joe_Dragon]

sports betting is safe online it's not like they can have a rigged RGN brake aaron rodgers arm just before he makes the wining pass in a game where they are under dogs and sportsbet.com does not want to pay out.

Data Mining Bonanza

[MarkvW]

With any reasonable data mining, these middlemen will be able to figure out which players are ready to play and which are not. Their customers are not anonymous and their relationship to NFL teams ought to be mappable.

This ought to provide the principals of these gambling businesses quite an edge in betting on real games.

Complete joke

[Anonymous Coward]

1. It's NOT a "fantasy" ... it's a bunch of men sitting on their butts wasting their lives thinking they might get rich because some ad said/implied they could while guzzling beer and watching other people actually DO SOMETHING. It's a delusion. A fantasy would involve beautiful women and tropical beaches... They're as likely to get rich buying magazine subscriptions from famous "fantasy publisher" clearinghouse

2. It's NOT a "sport" ... They people they are betting on are the ones engaged in sports. People get exercise playing sports. People get FAT sitting around betting on sports.

This stuff is only online gambling disguised as a game-of-skill as a way to avoid the regulations that apply to betting on pure games of chance, wich are legally classified as gambling and therefore regulated differently.

People who play "fantasy sports" are as stupid and gullible as people with facebook accounts.... BAHHHHH, BAAAAAHHHHHH, Sheep! Sheep end up on farms in pens, and that's where the morons are headed although they appear too stupid to notice.

What a load of bullshit this is

[MrKaos]

*anyone* who has played a field sport of any kind will tell tell you it's about what the team can do, not what a team of egos can do. All to often you can take a bunch of top athletes and put them in a team and the team dynamic is created by the interactions between them. It's completely different from the environment that makes them the player they are.

The only people who would bet on this crap have never played sport in their life or want to make a killing on knowing the results and gambling on a sure thing. Essentially - what we are seeing.

in other news

[farble1670]

in other news, stupid people among the most heavily impacted by the fantasy sports insider trading scandal.

Football!

[Ol Olsoc]

Is no longer a sport of teams, it's a sport of young, mostly male fantasy league players, most of whom have a gambling addiction.

Listen to ESPN radio ot Television. Most commercials are for Fanduel and Draft Kings. I have a sneaking suspicion that one or th eother may eventually own ESPN - Maybe a double or nothing with Disney.

Gambling has always been a big part of sports. Fantasy leagues are turning gambling into the only thing.