Major scandal slaps fantasy sports industry

The fantasy sports world is in turmoil this week after allegations of what amounts to insider trading at both DraftKings and FanDuel, two dominant sites for daily fantasy gaming.

Daily fantasy sports, which have developed in recent years, allow participants to draft teams in games played in just one day.

Johnson’s is the first lawsuit filed against the daily fantasy titans since a DraftKings employee inadvertently leaked confidential information about contests on the site over the weekend.

The decision by ESPN to suspend advertising of DraftKings advertising sees a temporary break to its agreed $250 million ad-spend partnership which was announced in August ahead of the start of the 2015/16 National Football League season.

In addition, Robins also said DraftKings had permanently banned employees from playing on other Daily Fantasy sites.

Neither FanDuel nor DraftKings had a comment on the suit.

The sites can operate under a 2006 federal law that allows paid fantasy sports games, but the attorney general said those laws may need to be revisited. The Fair Trade Sports Association estimates there are 42 million players in the United States and Canada. You do need to have a knowledge of sports and fantasy sports and of how the scoring works in each league or site.

But fantasy football fan Kirpas says, many players called foul, after hearing reports that employees at fantasy sports firms FanDuel and DraftKings allegedly used inside information to rig their bets and win hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the New York-based company said it doesn’t want to rely only on what it knows right now and wants to rebuild trust with its players.

“These guys in the wild west of fantasy sports are cheating and gambling and making money thru inside trading”.

It is certainly big money. All users will also have to confirm that they are not employed by any other third party fantasy site.

On Monday, DraftKings and FanDuel posted statements on their websites saying nothing is more important to them than “the integrity of the games we offer to our customers”. DraftKings said its own investigation of that employee, Ethan Haskell, found that Haskell didn’t have access to advantageous information before he entered his lineup on FanDuel that week. Violating the rules would put valuable licenses to do business – both for high-ranking employees and the companies themselves – at risk.