It's pure bullshit, I'm obviously biased having spent nearly 16 years of my life as a Las Vegas resident but these sites are unregulated yet the NFL openly is promoting them. Vegas has caught so many betting scandals over the years because they have to be legit. Honestly if the people who regulated Vegas sports betting were working for the FBI or CIA there'd be a lot more intelligence than what we have. Just a few of the high profile things Vegas has caught (all involved college basketball) but the U of San Diego, Arizona State, and Boston College point shaving. There was a reason that the NCAA changed their stance on betting games involving UNLV and Nevada-Reno. When I moved to Vegas you couldn't bet any game in any sport involving them but they changed that policy about 12 years ago because the NCAA knew if anything funny was happening that Vegas would catch it.
And after that the league's reputation for integrity, such as it is. I think that a wagering scandal would have huge consequences for the league. Get the Feds involved and Congress will start blustering about repealing the anti- trust exemption. It'll be all over the news every day and many fans will be wondering if they're watching a fair contest. IMO they're idiots to be directly involved with a "game of chance". Are the owners that greedy?
Insider trading? How on earth can they compare it to that? It's mostly guesswork anyways. Are they claiming the guy knew ahead of time who was going to catch what passes? I don't see it. The only info they could possible use is info about who is going to be inactive, which can be found on any sports site. I don't see how that is an advantage. Anybody can learn who is injured or banged up. How does he know what is winning prior to him filling out his entry? Once the games start, the players are locked, he can't duplicate the entries, plus just because more people start a certain player in their line up doesn't make it the correct choice. It's like how in fantasy leagues they tell you what percentage of people own each player. That's not insider info, it's people guessing on who will do well. Also, you can play matchups and study the possibilities for days upon days, but nobody actually knows what will happen until game day. There is still a large portion of luck involved.
I think the point is, he's not just a guy figuring out who is banged up or injured. And it's not about knowing beforehand who is going to catch a pass or score TD. Not that kind of "insider information". He has access to statistics on millions of games being played on any given gameday--the statistical analysis of who guys are playing and not playing gives him an advantage that the ordinary FF player does not have. It's not a coincidence that a guy from one company went to another company's gaming site and won $350,000. It's likely most of the guys winning consistently are math majors designing algorithms and if you have access to incredible amounts of info and stats about who is being played and not played and you fit that into your program--you've got an advantage as an insider that some dude coming on TGG and asking "Who should I start?" doesn't have. _
From what I've seen in Fanduel and Draft Kings, the most frequently picked players usually do not win. It's the people who get lucky and play the right combo of sleepers with their studs. I don't see how going with what other fans pick, gives any type of advantage at all. It's like betting on a team in Vegas after reading the power rankings / user voting polls or learning what percentage of people own certain fantasy players. And even playing match up favorites is not guaranteed. There is a huge aspect of luck involved. I believe it is coincidence and going with the majority is not usually the right thing to do IMO. I could be wrong, but people get lucky and usually the most odd ball type teams are the big winners. I find that the majority is usually wrong in most thing in life so I can't the big advantage to that. I could see if they were making huge wins every single week, but it seems like the guy just got lucky.
Ok, maybe I wasn't clear. It's not about going with who everyone else is playing or not playing or lucking out into a sleeper. This is like program stock trading on a massive scale where funds have devised trading algorithms based upon what is happening in the market and predictive analyses. Has nothing to do with what any specific player is doing--has to do with patterns repeatedly run on a computer program billions and billions of of times within seconds to determine an optimal lineup likely to win more than it loses. When you have access to statistics on the millions of games being played and the billions of transactions occurring on a weekly basis and you have a program to take advantage of that--getting lucky isn't the way these guys are winning. They are using information that non-insiders do not have access to. Incredible amounts of information. It's not about copying who is starting Aaron Rogers versus Tyrod Taylor. _
Exactly. To win big you gotta find player who is rarely picked. Insiders know who those players are because they have access to stats. You're just guessing; they know who the sleepers are.
A few other things, I was taught not to believe in coincidence and I don't think luck had anything to do with it. Why not just play on his own company's site--it wasn't prohibited. _
Normal players have access to certain stats. Anyone can go look up a players splits on home vs away. Grass vs turf. How a QB bounces back the following week after throwing 1 TD and 2 INTs the previous week. The stats are all there, it's just a matter of going online and finding them and putting the time in to get it. A lot of these guys who constantly win have algorithms on algorithms and find the best player for value per week. They enter numerous lineups weekly and also, the guys who constantly win are the guys who do FanDuel \ Draftkings for a living. Winning a big tournament in baseball one night and bouncing back with a football tournament Sunday. I play just to try and get lucky. I don't have the time to research all that information. I just look at basic stuff.. weather, what DBs are going to be covering the WRs. How teams do against TEs.. etc. Basic informationb
Imagine if guys like this has insider info. http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovat...ow-algorithms-are-minting-big-winners-n193931 _
It's not just about finding the sleeper. It's about finding sleeper that is on few other entries. What good is having Strong from last game if 80% of entries also had him? When you pick your sleeper, you HOPE no one else has him. When they pick their sleeper, they KNOW no one else has him - because they can see everyone's picks. EDIT WHat you describe is re baseball, where advance stats and programming helps a lot. Baseball lands itself well to statistics and thus to analysis. Football does not. For one, the sample size is too small. More importantly, match ups are not predictable. In Bball, pitcher WILL throw to your guy. And your guy's performance against this particular type of pitcher can be predicted based on abundance of data. In football, your receiver might be in the game, but not on the field. Plus QB might choose to throw to other guy. Or D might choose to double team your guy. These variances are purely subjective and made at the moment, thus can't be analyzed statistically. The only way to use stats is to know what other entries are. And that's what that guy was doing. I don't think it's at the level of insider trading, but it's sure as hell is cheating.
After further review... it seems like almost every team has some deal going with one of the big DFS sites. Majorly hypocritical for the NFL to be in bed with this, yet pretend to be against betting on games. We all know the rules on injury reports are directly related to the wagering on NFL games business.
They do? More like they know how many people are picking certain sleepers. They can't possibly know for sure until the games are played. And honestly, even if you are analyzing algorithms and patterns, it is not going to make your lineup magically succeed. People use stuff like that in the stock market all the time, analyzing patterns and it isn't considered insider trading. It is considered using your resources to make a smart decision. Of course that is gamble as well, just like fan duel and draft kings. Insider trading is when you know something about a company that will affect the stock value and give that information to people before the news is released to the public. I'm still having trouble understanding how data about which players are most played or the patterns involved gives any kind of a real advantage. Insider trading would make me think more along the lines of knowing a player is going to not play in a game due to your relationship with a team prior to the public knowing. For example the game when Chris Ivory was scheduled to play but didn't due to a last minute decision. I know that screwed a lot of fantasy teams. Any given Sunday. Just because you know who DIDN'T pick a sleeper, doesn't make them succeed. It may ensure your lineup is different from most, but again it is still a huge guess. Sometimes the commonly picked players have a great game as well. Usually it's a combo of both factors. I feel the NFL is way too fluky to actually find beneficial algorithms. Sometimes sleepers are not picked simply because they suck.
Business model of daily fantasy sports under federal probe: WSJ http://news.yahoo.com/business-mode...s-under-federal-probe-005723588--sector.html#
