DraftKings clears employee of wrongdoing after data leak

tKings has denied that one of its employees used player line-up data to improve their chances of winning money from a FanDuel contest.

Ethan Haskell, DraftKings written content manager, released data about a Millionaire Maker National Football League (NFL) contest hosted by the daily fantasy sports (DFS) operator prior to the NFL games involved in the contest taking place.

The data included the percentage of teams that players appear in, which is the kind of data that is regularly posted after games have started and line-ups are completed, but not before.

Haskell posted on a thread about the leak on RotoGrinders, admitting that he was the one that published the data in error, that he was the only one who had access to the information and that he is not allowed to play on the site as a DraftKings employee.

Haskell reportedly won $350,000 playing on fellow DFS operator FanDuel in the same week that the data was leaked.

DraftKings said in a statement: “DraftKings has been conducting a thorough investigation, including examining records of internal communications and access to our database, interviewing our employees, and sharing information regarding the incident with FanDuel.

“The evidence clearly shows that the employee in question did not receive the data on player utilisation until 1.40pm ET on Sunday September 27. Line-ups on FanDuel locked at 1pm that day, at which point this employee (along with every other person playing in a FanDuel contest) could no longer edit his player selections. This clearly demonstrates that this employee could not possibly have used the information in question to make decisions about his FanDuel line-up.”

In a separate statement, DraftKings said it has found no evidence that employees have misused data, and a near identical statement was sent out by FanDuel.