Big sigh of relief for America. The United States Congress has made it their business to save us illiterate, knuckle dragging, DFS morons from DraftKings and FanDuel. I have slept better at night since the politicians have jumped out front of this parade to protect us and our hard earned money.
I can envision a few of Senators taking note of all the DFS TV ads as they enjoyed blowjobs from multiple prostitutes while taking in NFL games the past couple weeks. I can hear the phone calls between buddy-buddy Congressmen, “Richard, have you seen these FanDuelly and Draftalings TV spots?”
“Why yes Theodore, I have. They are giving out millions each week! We gotta have some of that pie, my boy. Let me clear these whores out of the room and get dressed. We need to form a committee.”
“See you in Washington on Tuesday Richard. Got a fundraiser with Philip Morris on Monday. We’ll set these upstart fantasy football websites straight on how they handle their business. We have to protect the American public!”
Do we need more transparency from DFS websites? Yes.
Is Congress the right group to help us with that? If you need me to answer that then you are a naive individual who has no grasp on reality. The United States Congress has as little credibility as any group in the nation.
Look at their approval rates.
Check the archives for financial scandals.
Sex scandals are a monthly affair with these “upstanding” representatives of America.
Why would fantasy sports players need an untrustworthy group of politicians to bring honesty to daily fantasy sports? I fail to see how that would help anyone besides the politicians who will pilfer as much money as possible from DraftKings and FanDuel in the form of fines, fees, and extra paperwork and red tape that increase the financial burden of companies.
The news that broke this week about a DraftKings employee winning big on FanDuel ($350K) was concerning. The user had access to insider information about ownership of NFL players in lineups. That would help him separate himself from the field in a GPP tourney, even on different platform than the one for which he worked.
DraftKings says that the employee, Ethan Haskell, did not have the private information until his lineups were already locked.
DraftKings stated they did a “thorough investigation, including examining records of internal communications and access to our database,” and found that “this employee could not have used the information in question to make decisions about his FanDuel lineup.” The “employee in question did not receive the data on player utilization until 1:40 p.m. ET on Sept. 27,” and FanDuel lineups locked at 1 p.m. ET.
That is up to you to believe or scoff at, but it does open the door to future doubts about employees playing DFS on rival sites with salary cap structures being very similar. It’s hard enough to win a tournament for big money with over a hundred thousand opponents and shark filled waters. Now we have to worry about employees of DraftKings and FanDuel using insider data that makes it more likely we are setting our $10 entry fee on fire each week.
To their credit both DK and FD have permanently banned employees from playing any daily fantasy games for money, on any site. As I have said before though, rules like this can be circumvented. An easy example is an employee having his brother or best bud sign up on a site and the employee just pulls the strings with the insider info.
I don’t know who should be trusted to watch over DFS websites. I do know that Congress is nowhere near the top of that list. They will at best make the user experience less fun on DK and FD. At worst they will ruin this awesome new industry before it even becomes profitable.
For those out there who need Big Brother to watch over your every move, you are a part of the problem in this country. If I am dumb enough to throw away money each week on DFS, then that’s on me, not you. I worked for the cash and I can light it on fire if I choose to do so.
It is no different than the idiots that scratch state produced lottery tickets hoping for a big payoff. Most of these folks can’t afford to play as much as they do, yet the government gladly rakes in that gambling money.
All you do-gooders who want to save us from DraftKings, FanDuel, and other DFS sites, please go save the homeless looking guy who can’t spell “cat”, yet stands in line to buy that $20 lottery ticket.
Fantasy sports “gamblers” do not need saving.