Daily fantasy sports operators DraftKings and FanDuel have moved to defend the integrity of their businesses after it was revealed that a member of staff released inside information and placed winning bets on events.
According to the New York Times newspaper, Ethan Haskell, a manager at DraftKings said that he had inadvertently released data on fantasy teams for the NFL American football league and won $350,000 (€312,800) through FanDuel during the same week.
Data released by Haskell showed which NFL players were most used in teams submitted to the website’s ‘Millionaire Maker’ contests.
This type of data is not usually released until the line-ups for all games have been completed and having such information prior to this is seen as offering an advantage.
In response to the leak, both DraftKings and FanDuel acknowledged that many of their staff, as well as employees of other daily fantasy companies, were players before joining the industry in professional roles and continue to compete on other sites.
While a DraftKings spokesperson said Haskell had made a mistake, the companies said in a joint statement that although they have policies in place to ensure staff did not misuse information at their disposal, they are to review internal controls and work with the fantasy sports industry to tackle the issue.
“Nothing is more important to DraftKings and FanDuel than the integrity of the games we offer to our customers,” the statement said.
“Employees with access to this data are vigorously monitored by internal fraud controls teams, and we have no evidence anyone misused it.”
source : www.igamingbusiness.com
