The Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun an inquiry into the practices of booming daily fantasy sports websites after players of the games and lawmakers made allegations of predatory tactics and questioned the use of insider information, according to fantasy players who said they had been contacted by investigators. The F.B.I. began contacting several prominent competitors in the contests, the players said, shortly after an employee of DraftKings, one of the two most prominent daily fantasy companies, admitted to inadvertently releasing data before lineups for the start of the third week of N.F.L. games were locked in. The employee, a…

United States Sen. Robert Menendez and Congressman Frank Pallone have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate daily fantasy sports operators who allowed employees with access to nonpublic information to compete on rival sites. “Allowing employees of fantasy sports websites with access to nonpublic information to participate in online fantasy games, even if the games are operated by other fantasy sports companies, could give those employees an advantage akin to insider trading,” Menendez and Pallone stated in an Oct. 6 letter to the FTC. “Therefore, we also ask the FTC to investigate whether this constitutes an ‘unfair or deceptive practice’…

Amaya has stepped into the DFS ‘data leak scandal’ by calling on regulators in the US to take a tougher stance on daily fantasy sports (DFS) in order to better protect consumers and players. DFS has come under fire in the US this week after it was revealed that a DraftKings manager inadvertently released data showing he knew which players were most picked prior as part of American football fantasy teams. He then went on to win US$350,000 (€312,800) betting on NFL games through rival operator FanDuel. DraftKings and FanDuel in a statement defended the integrity of their businesses and…

A major scandal is erupting in the multibillion-dollar industry of fantasy sports, the online and unregulated business in which players assemble their fantasy teams with real athletes. On Monday, the two major fantasy companies were forced to release statements defending their businesses’ integrity after what amounted to allegations of insider trading, that employees were placing bets using information not generally available to the public. The statements were released after an employee at DraftKings, one of the two major companies, admitted last week to inadvertently releasing data before the start of the third week of N.F.L. games. The employee, a midlevel…

News broke recently that DraftKings, the US daily fantasy sports (DFS) operator, has opened up a new office in London in order to take advantage of its new gaming licence. Daily fantasy sports betting has become a booming industry in the US in recent months and now the industry is looking towards the UK. As it stands, the DFS market is generating more than $2.5 billion each year in the US and when the main players begin to migrate over to the UK that figure will increase dramatically. Naturally, as DFS become more of a “thing” in the UK, sports fans will…

Yahoo has unveiled a retooled version of its fantasy sports mobile app that lets users wager real money daily and weekly against their friends and in bigger online tournaments. It seems that the company is looking to supplement its stagnant advertising business with a new foray into legal online gambling. To generate income from the venture, Yahoo will keep about 10% of the entry fees paid by the players, this according to Ken Fuchs, Vice President of publisher products at Yahoo. The company said that said playing its Daily Fantasy Sports game is legal in 45 states, with just Iowa,…