Pro player’s success at Draftkings risks another scandal

The risk of another “insider” scandal loomed this week as professional daily fantasy sports player Al Zeidenfeld – a DraftKings sponsored professional – came out tops in the company’s $5 million Millionaire Maker competition, winning a million dollars and triggering speculation on whether his position is acceptable.

Our readers will recall that US enforcement agencies and lawmakers started seriously focusing on the conduct of DFS operators eighteen months ago when a DraftKings employee, Ethan Haskell, was accused of using his position in the company and access to insider information to score a $350,000 win in a DFS contest at rival company FanDuel.

A third-party review commissioned by DraftKings and released October 2015 concluded that Haskell did not engage in any wrongdoing.

Supporters of Zeldenfelder’s win argue that he is not a full employee of the company and does not have access to any corporate information that might enhance his chances of winning, but critics are concerned that his relationship to the company is too close for comfort and runs the risk of triggering another scandal that the industry can ill afford.

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