An online fantasy sports website has released a statement saying their employee did not use inside information to win big on another company’s site – and has now banned employees from playing fantasy sports on all other daily fantasy sports websites.
The statement comes as response, in part, to a case filed by Artem Genochanok against fantasy sport websites DraftKings and FanDuel.
Genochanok claims employees of the companies use their exclusive inside knowledge of statistics and rankings to win money on each other’s websites, effectively keeping the majority of the winnings to themselves, leaving only a small amount of money to be won by average players without the exclusive information.
Genochanock’s suit claims that in the first half of the 2015 Major League Baseball season, “91% of profits were won by just 1.3% of players.”
A problem some have found with Genochanock’s suit, however, is that he is a resident of Louisiana, a state that has banned online fantasy sports. According to the Shreveport Times, Louisiana is one of five states that has banned online fantasy sports.
The Louisiana Record reached out to DraftKings and FanDuel multiple times about this case, but did not receive a response.
DraftKings did, however, send a press release the Louisiana Record claiming that their employee did not use his inside information to win more money. In the statement, DraftKings said an independent investigation conducted by Greenberg Traurig concluded that employee Ethan Haskell did not use non-public information.
“Moreover, it would have been impossible for Mr. Haskell to have used such non-public information because he only gained access to internal DraftKings data a full forty minutes after the lineup was locked,” the release stated.
In the release sent to the Record, the CEO of DraftKings said his company is committed to being transparent in the operation of their fantasy sports.
“Despite the fact that Mr. Haskell did not improperly utilize non-public information, the Company promptly expanded its existing policy prohibiting its employees from participating in games run on its own web site to other daily fantasy sports websites,” CEO Jason Robins said in the press release.
According to Legal Sports Report, the suit filed by Mr. Genochanock is expected to grow, with other plaintiffs joining.
It is unknown whether the fact that Genochanock lives in a state that has banned online fantasy sports will have an effect on the case.