FanDuel warned staff against winning too often on rival sites
DraftKings and FanDuel may have bitten off more than they can chew when they sued New York to keep their daily fantasy sports games alive in the state. FanDuel's corporate policies from before it self-regulated have been entered into evidence, and some of them only seem to confirm worries about staff abusing their power while playing on rival sites. For a start, the site told workers to "never be among the top five" players on any daily fantasy site, or the top 10 on the tracking site RotoGrinders. They also couldn't have disproportionate numbers of entries in tournaments, and they were supposed to avoid using information on player lineups whenever possible. In other words, don't be too successful -- we don't want you raising suspicions that the games might be rigged.
That's not helped by policies on accessing player information. FanDuel's protections amounted to little more than an honor system: you can see user lineups and win rates, but we hope you won't abuse this data or make customers think that something's up. There wasn't much in the guidelines to suggest that FanDuel actually prevented employees from cheating until it was scared into shaping up. If it really was that laissez-faire, both FanDuel and DraftKings may have a hard time convincing the court that they're trustworthy enough to keep operating in New York.
[Image credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
