Guess How Much Money Those DraftKings and FanDuel Guys Were Making

Users choose players in fantasy teams (actual N.F.L. athletes) and earn points based on how their players perform in real games. The move comes after it was revealed that an employee from DraftKings – one of the top fantasy sites today – may have used information gleaned from his position inside the company to make more informed bets on FanDuel, another leading fantasy site. The attorney general also added that the policies for the company’s “are matters of concern to the public, particularly to the many customers who put money at risk on your site each day”. Both FanDuel and DraftKings went on the defensive last week, trying reassure customers and counter the reports of government investigations and a class-action lawsuit.

Well behind DraftKings and FanDuel was Yahoo’s daily fantasy sports business: $1.3 million in entry fees, 192,000 total entries, and netting $26,625 after paying out prize money.

Officials for the two fantasy sports companies say that a DraftKings employee who won $350,000 in a FanDuel contest did nothing wrong, and did not have access to internal data before completing his entry.

One issue with daily fantasy is its similarity with other forms of sports gambling.

DraftKings and FanDuel have each raised about $300 million from investors and now have valuations in the billions. While Healey has acknowledged there are no federal or state laws prohibiting them, the explosive news last week that an employee of DraftKings scored huge bucks gambling on a rival site has raised questions about the industry’s ability to self-regulate.

Talk about living in a fantasy world.

Televised NFL, MLB playoff games and NBA contests are full of ads from these online fantasy sports sites promoting the fun of forming fantasy sports teams for every week’s games, allowing fast payouts for winners.

But all this didn’t seem to harm revenues a few got from entry fees.

To get an idea of the ownership percentages on other sites, we’ll have to extrapolate the FanDuel results (and also account for pivots from the Thursday plays).

Online gaming has been a recent focus for the FTC, and the agency will probably be interested in expanding into fantasy sports betting because it has similar attributes, said Phyllis Marcus, a lawyer at Hunton & Williams LLP in Washington. Furthermore, remember that these percentages come from small stakes contests; in higher stakes, the gap between the most popular plays and the less popular ones may not be as great. The platform was built in-house; and has already whet the appetite of daily fantasy sporting enthusiasts, for more of its fantasy wares.

Bettor beware! It’s always good advice, but especially so in the unfolding scandal that has tainted the nationwide Internet craze over fantasy sports.

But the allure of daily fantasy sports is that it isn’t gambling.

The return of DraftKings advertising coverage on ESPN, follows the news that NFL Chief Commissioner Roger Goodell did not believe there was a direct conflict between fantasy sports operators and his organisation.