4 ms·
One of the greatest professional shames of my life was being part of a fantasy sports for profit startup. We received tens of millions of funding from a company
by diskzero 5y ago
One of the greatest professional shames of my life was being part of a fantasy sports for profit startup. We received tens of millions of funding from a company that is one of the major sport book operators in Las Vegas. What I first thought would be a fun way for friends to play with a little more "skin in the game" exposed me to some very bleak and dystopian ways that technology could be used to extract resources from those who could least afford it.
I suppose it is no surprise to anyone semi-aware of how casinos operate that the house will always win. Would it be a surprise to learn that the data being generated by fantasy sports app customers were being used to actively create situations where they would lose, or at least reduce, the amount of their winnings? It shouldn't be.
- mikeodds 5y agoCan you give any examples of how the data was used to increase losses? Quite interested.
- diskzero 5y agoI feel as if I comment with too much detail, I may be contacted by the Attorneys General of various states. In the early days, things were totally unregulated. Odds, statistics and other variables could be adjusted or manipulated. Automated accounts could hedge against, or join with, elite players. All trades, team compositions, trends and statistics were visible internally. Think of all the ways that one could abuse high frequency trading and apply them to sport betting. It could be very ugly.
- lamontcg 5y agoAh so a cryptocurrency exchange then.