FanDuel permanently bans employees from DFS
Two of the biggest daily fantasy sites, DraftKings and FanDuel, responded Wednesday morning to calls asking for greater transparency.
FanDuel announced, in a statement, that it had permanently banned its employees from playing on other fantasy sites, a day after the two sites temporarily imposed that ban. Both companies had always banned employees from playing on their own sites.
FanDuel also announced that it had no information that any of its contests were compromised by insider information, but it hired former federal judge and U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to “review the facts and evaluate our internal controls, standards and practices.” The company is also implementing an internal advisory board that will be led by Michael Garcia, a former U.S. attorney.
For its part, DraftKings CEO Jason Robins, in an interview with Fox Business on Wednesday morning, announced it has hired a third-party law firm to review the findings of its investigation. DraftKings has maintained that employee Ethan Haskell, who won $350,000 on an NFL contest on FanDuel, did not have access to DraftKings internal data ahead of locking in his lineup that would have provided him with an unfair advantage.
“We are completely committed to creating an open and transparent environment,” DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said on Fox, which has an ownership stake in DraftKings. “Having the trust of our customers that the game is fair is everything to us.”
FanDuel spokesperson Justine Sacco told ESPN.com on Tuesday that the company’s internal data showed that DraftKings employees won 0.3 percent of the money the company has awarded in its history. While Sacco wouldn’t disclose the specific number, it is known the company has given out nearly $2 billion, which would put the DraftKings employees’ winnings at around $6 million.
The move by both companies comes after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched an inquiry into DraftKings and FanDuel on Tuesday night by sending letters to Robins and FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles requesting more information.
In the letters, which have been shared with ESPN.com, Schneiderman asked the two if they could provide names and titles of employees who compile player data, set roster values, deal with ownership percentages for pending and historical contests and aggregate the success of players who play on their sites. Schneiderman is seeking this data covering the past year.
Schneiderman’s letter also seeks to understand where the data is stored, what protocols are in place to protect that information and what the company policy is regarding the sharing of that information. Schneiderman asks DraftKings for more specifics about its investigation into Haskell, including how he might have received access to the data and who would have given it to him. Schneiderman is giving FanDuel, which is based in New York, and DraftKings, which is based in Boston, until Oct. 15 to respond to his questions.
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