Federal Trade Commission could look into DFS sites after controversy

The platform was built in-house; and has already whet the appetite of daily fantasy sporting enthusiasts, for more of its fantasy wares.

Amaya Gaming’s U.S. expansion plan is progressing nicely, after its daily fantasy sports platform, StarsDraft, started operating stateside, followed by its PokerStars and Full Tilt brands being cleared to offer their products in the state of New Jersey.

So, not only are there more entries, and likely more players, the players appear to be spending more on those entries, suggesting players are being more active in the more expensive games.

If you’ve watched even a little bit of a sporting event this year, you’ve probably seen a commercial for companies DraftKings and FanDuel. The league has said the contests aren’t gambling because players need skill to play and win.

Of course, this makes it sound like employees of the sites were scheming against the non-employee players, using lineup data to win millions at the expense of those out of the loop.

David Baazov and Amaya calls for tighter regulations of DFS in the USA following incidents involving DraftKings and FanDuel. In one of the most obvious instances of bandwagoning/piling on of all time, a Kentucky man has filed a class action lawsuit against FanDuel and DraftKings, the two leading daily fantasy sports (DFS) sites and the focal points of the recent “insider trading” controversy. In the wake of last week’s media coverage of the scandal, SuperLobby is reporting that the two sites, along with Yahoo! Yahoo was strides a couple of miles behind at $1.3 million but that is far much better than the other daily fantasy platforms that were monitored by SuperLobby.

The United Kingdom-based website, Super Lobby, tracks the daily fantasy industry by comparing total entry fees customers spend on the major DFS websites and comparing that to the amount of prizes the websites guarantee in payouts in contests that are commonly referred to as guaranteed prize pools. The last funding rounds alone for DraftKings and FanDuel were $300 million and $275 million respectively, so they’ve bet big money in the game.

It all began when players noticed a DraftKings employee – and frequent victor in competitor FanDuel’s contests – posted a list online that ranked which National Football League players were picked the most for a DraftKings contest that was still accepting entries. “Like professional sports betting, fantasy sports should be legal, but both are now operating in the shadows”.

DraftKings has been adamant that its employees do not engage in insider trading.

Two of the giants in fantasy sports – FanDuel and DraftKings – have also built up lobbying teams in Florida in preparations for the Legislature’s growing discussions around what should and shouldn’t be regulated as gambling in Florida. “Some reports are mischaracterizing the situation and implying that there was wrongdoing”.

Robert Menendez and Congressman Frank Pallone have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate daily fantasy sports operators who allowed employees with access to nonpublic information to compete on rival sites.