Employee Fired Over Fantasy Football Cheating Incident
Fantasy Turns To Nightmare Thanks To Blatant Cheating
Six-Figure Fantasy Contest Compromised By Employee
The National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC), a popular online fantasy football competition, fired an employee after they were caught cheating. On Wednesday, January 24th, the website acknowledged that it dismissed the employee who used internal controls to exploit their roster. While this is not the first fantasy football cheating incident, it is notable given the $150,000 prize pool and how the cheater was exposed.
Nixed by the NFFC: How It Went Down
Cheaters never prosper. The former NFFC employee and their accomplice found this out the hard way after users online noticed them finagling with a team’s roster after the games had already started. Rosters cannot be altered after kickoff, similar to how an NFL bet cannot be changed once the game has started.
“It wouldn’t have stood out unless you were intimately familiar with how that contest works,” Pete Overzet, who was part of a group that discovered the cheating, told ESPN.
The contestant allegedly swapped one player in both the playoffs’ wild card and divisional rounds.
One hour into the Chiefs-Dolphins game, the user swapped Dolphins running back Raheem Mostert for Packers running back Aaron Jones. The latter scored significantly more points as he rushed for 118 rushing yards and three touchdowns in the game against Dallas, which had already concluded. He then rushed for 108 yards next week against San Francisco.
The following week, the same player switched out Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice for tight end Travis Kelce just after the latter scored a touchdown against Buffalo.
These moves gave the player’s team a significant advantage, which was already in fourth place following that Sunday’s games.
“I think this is incredibly damaging [to the fantasy industry],” Overzet continued. “We’re in an era where people want to jump to conspiracy theories. Now, not only do you know that It can occur, but it did occur, I think that’s going to spread the seeds of distrust.”
Indeed, this fantasy football cheating incident not only damages the reputation of a site like NFFC but puts fantasy football in a bad spot, especially when there are billions of dollars worth of fantasy football bets on an annual basis.
Per Statista, it was reported that fantasy sports have an estimated market size of over $9.84 billion in 2023. This is up from $9.48 billion in 2022 and $8.44 billion in 2021.
“We’re doing everything we can to make sure that we know everything about what happened, let people know, and to make sure it never happens again,” NFFC founder and fantasy sports industry veteran Greg Ambrosius told ESPN.
“Nothing is more important than the integrity of a pay-to-play contest. We have built up 20-plus years of integrity through transparency and everything we’ve done. And by one action, it’s put all of it in question. It’s put me and everybody associated with our company in question.”
Potential Fantasy Football Fallout
The employee got fired and the contestant was disqualified following this fantasy football cheating incident . But the damage could be permanent and have long-term effects on the industry. For one, the NFFC may have to do more due diligence to ensure this does not happen again. Rules may be amended, and an investigation will continue into how a player, even if aided by an employee, could manipulate the controls to create an unfair advantage.
The identity of the fired employee remains anonymous due to pending legal matters. But stay tuned to future gambling news as this story develops.
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