A major scandal is erupting in the multibillion dollar industry of fantasy sports, the online and unregulated business in which players assemble their fantasy teams with real athletes. On Monday, the two major fantasy companies were forced to release statements defending their businesses’ integrity after what amounted to allegations of insider trading, that employees were placing bets on information not available to the public.
Last week, a DraftKings employee admitted to inadvertently releasing data before the start of the third week of N.F.L. games, a move akin to insider trading in the stock market. The employee – a midlevel content manager — won $350,000 at rival site FanDuel that same week.
The incident has raised questions about who at daily fantasy companies has access to valuable data, how it is protected and whether the industry can — or wants — to police itself.
The entire article is worth the read, and it will be curious to see if other media outlets follow up, especially those connected to a network broadcasting NFL games. When I first approached this topic, Yahmule had a good comment on how entities like the Nevada Gaming Commission root out scandals related to gambling, and how things could come “back to bite [FanDuel and DraftKings] in the ass”. Looks like that biting may come quicker than we anticipated.