When DraftKings amended its terms of use last month to allow computer scripts, a vocal contingent of the daily fantasy sports community was outraged. Their chief gripe: allowing automation for lineup-related tasks unfairly tilted the playing field, putting the advantage squarely in the corner of players with the technical expertise needed to create and execute scripts.
Scripts are a set of commands that can be executed without user interaction. As applied to DFS, they give those who know how to wield them the power to create, enter and edit hundreds of lineups in a matter of seconds, while similar tasks might take hours manually. That would appear to give a marked advantage to script users in large tournaments that allow multiple entries per player.
Though nominally prohibited by most operators, their usage had long been suspected, and DraftKings’ decision to allow them was seen by some as a concession to the big-money sharks whose hundreds of entries per night help fill tournaments and drive revenue. FanDuel’s decision—announced on the same day—to adhere to its policy of allowing scripts on a per-case basis was equally infuriating to some.
But perhaps more troubling than rankling the space’s middle class were the possible ramifications on daily fantasy’s claim as a game of skill. While it could certainly be argued that the programming know-how needed to write scripting language constitutes its own kind of skill, it’s unclear if it might be interpreted as such under legal scrutiny.
“Automation speeds up the process of lineup creation and editing to such an extent that the playing field may not be quite level, and that could be problematic,” said David Klein, an attorney with Klein Moynihan Turco in New York City who specializes in fantasy sports law. “Whether or not it changes the balance of skill and chance to a significant degree is debatable, but the odds would favor those using scripts as opposed to those who aren’t, assuming the skill level of the two players is otherwise equal.”
And right now, that question of skill vs. chance is a concern for those within the daily fantasy industry.
Daily fantasy sports operate within a carve-out of UIGEA that protects fantasy sports from federal gaming laws. However, individual states may—and some do—prohibit fantasy sports played for cash prizes, often based on the perceived amount of skill vs. luck involved.
The daily fantasy industry promotes itself vehemently as a skill game, but that status has yet to be challenged in a federal or state court. That could change, and possibly soon.
Recently, daily fantasy games have come under fire from gaming and casino operators in Nevada, who view the industry as an unregulated competitor for business, and Nevada Gaming Control Board commissioner AG Burnett said last week he was undertaking a legal analysis of daily fantasy sports.
“When you start offering daily fantasy contests, then you start to blur the line between skill and chance,” Burnett told Reuters in an article published Monday. “When chance begins to govern the outcome more than skill, you have a form of gaming, and that’s when the need for regulation kicks in.
While Nevada may still be far from a decision on the matter, recent events may make moot the question of scripts’ effect on the skill/chance equation.
Last week, RotoGrinders, a hub for the online daily fantasy community, democratized scripts by making them available free to its members.
“Our main goal, based on the rules that the sites are now allowing, is to give every player an equal opportunity to operate within those rules,” said RotoGrinders co-founder Riley Bryant in a video announcing the launch of automation tools. “So this product hopefully helps those of you who otherwise couldn’t bulk enter lineups.”
And though it likely wasn’t the intent, the tools may play at least a small role in the prevention of a major legal headache for the industry.
“In theory, if everyone has access to the same technology, it of course makes the odds more equal and levels the playing field so that the skill of the players is more of a determining factor in the outcome,” Klein said.
Even so, some within the industry are dismayed by what they view as a shift in the direction of daily fantasy sports. It’s conceivable that the market for scripts and similar tools will mirror the last year’s skyrocketing demand for projection systems and lineup optimizers. At that point, is it conceivable that the player with the best tools—and not the most skill—will win?
“I could see that argument being made,” Klein said, “but it still falls to the skill of the individual player to set the parameters for the script regarding how they build their lineup and which athletes (the script) is programmed to substitute.”
Also noteworthy: Not all sites are script-friendly. A quick scan of seven second-tier sites found that four have explicit rules against automated scripts (DraftDay, FantasyHub, Victiv and Yahoo), while thee make no mention of the topic specifically in their terms of use (FantasyAces, FantasyFeud and Star Fantasy Leagues).
In an email to Daily Fantasy Talk, Victiv CEO Matthew Primeaux went in-depth on the topic.
Starting with destructive, these scripts are used to automatically target contests with specific types of users or are used to make last-minute lineup changes in a way that’s not offered to all players equally — these aren’t good for the space. They’re not good for the enjoyment of the game, the retention of our players, or the growth of the industry.
On the constructive side, there are many scripts which simply attempt to make tedious, repetitive tasks easier or faster. When we see these, we look at them as signs that some aspect of the user experience could and should be improved. It’s our job to offer all of our users an experience without frustration. If there is value for the user in these tools then they should be offered by us, and be made universally available.
If there is destructive value and users are simply trying to gain an unfair advantage, it’s our job to enforce our terms of service which strictly prohibits this sort of behavior to ensure the protection of our user base and the integrity of our product.
What happens now?
As Bryant noted while introducing RotoGrinders’ newest product, the answer will be largely determined by the site operators.
“This is going to be an ever-changing product, based on the changes to the rules that the sites make,” Bryant said. “And it may even go away if the sites change their terms of service to disallow it.”
For those sites that currently allow scripting, don’t expect a dramatic shift any time soon. More scripting technology in more hands will likely only lead to more lineups, bigger tournaments and larger prize pools, which, in turn, tend to bring more players into the space.
Now might be a good time to point out that while high-volume players tend to dominate day-to-day action in DFS, DraftKings’ last three Millionaire Maker tournaments have each been brought down by guys who floated a single $20 lineup into the field.