OLC Leader - Naturalbornkiller

[Oaktown]

No way around it, this will be a difficult decision for the NFBC considering what's at stake. I fully expect them to conduct their due diligence in investigating this situation and punishing (if warranted). Above all, the integrity of the contest need to be maintained. If the perception is that owners in a single league can collude to take down an overall contest, why would people sign up for that contest in subsequent years? Tough spot for NFBC

Nothing is more important to a high-stakes contest than integrity. Folks have to trust that all of our contests are legit and that everyone is playing by the same rules. Any hint of collusion has to be taken seriously and looked into.

We are looking into this league right now and trying to figure out what happened here.

As you know, we are as transparent as possible in the NFBC, right from the signups to the weekly moves. We list every signup and I believe this league was updated on the signup page. It was March 28th when we were running live drafts, but it's not hard for folks who know each other to sign up for a similar Online Championship League and compete. We automate each league with the first 12 signups and trust all owners to compete to the finish.

Thanks to Joe for bringing this league to our attention. The cuts that were made through the season in this league weren't ones that drew our attention to pull players out of the pool. But looking at them in total they now add up to an unfair advantage and we are seeing who made the cuts and why. I'm in the process of calling the owners and matching up the names with the moves. I need to line up the facts before saying any more.

We did reverse this week's Duvall pickup for the league leader and the Villar pickup for the runner-up. Those were moves we could reverse at this point. We will look at the other moves and make the right call. Again, I am just starting to talk with everyone involved and getting all the facts that we need.

This isn't a tough call for the NFBC at all. NOTHING is more important than the integrity of our leagues and we won't compromise for anyone. I'm not saying anything was done here, but it's not hard to see that this league is different than the other 124 Online Championship leagues competing for the top prizes. Thanks for your help in bringing this to our attention and we'll have an update once the facts are known. Thanks.

Thanks Greg, your work is why this is the best contest in all of the fantasy industry.

The overall FAAB read for this league is beyond absurd for the prices the leader got top level players over and over. We have all played in enough leagues to know this league is just not not even close to right. It's truly a shame and glad you are aware and on it.

Thanks.

[COZ]

With 4 brothers in the same league, the lack of bidding on certain players makes collusion very easy to do and even harder to detect. That said, no competing bids for so many top players is evidence enough to suggest it.

For any overall contests, I'd like to see a specific rule addendum for next season that states family members and in-laws cannot compete against each other in the same league.

If people want to compete against their brothers/wives/etc, let them do it in standalone contests (or elsewhere).

BINGO. 100% agree. No way should family members be allowed to compete in the same league, especially in a National Contest. And, frankly I feel this should have been flagged at the sign-up stage & am deeply troubled that there were no safeguards in place to prevent this from even happening. And I'm not even competing in the OC. Integrity & level playing field is everything to me. Another reason why live drafts are better, at least you can see your competitors.

[Deadheadz]

Greg is is possible to check the IP addresses and see if some of these teams releasing quality players are actually being controlled by one or two computers from North Dakota?

If you could show that one individual accessed multiple accounts and altered rosters in the same league, you have a smoking gun.

That definitely would be a smoking gun. I will check.

There's a lot of people using proxy servers these days so variant IP addresses would not necessarily clear them of wrong doing. But as many criminals are not so smart, it's a good idea to check the IPs just in case they do show evidence that supports collusion.

Sites like PokerStars have a tough time policing collusion because you'll get one guy using proxy servers or IP redirects to play as 8 different players on one virtual poker table with the intent of fleecing the 9th player. If there wasn't an overall prize, these guys would be cheating only those two or three managers who weren't in on the scam. But it's looking like they're cheating hundreds of managers.

[Donacion]

With 4 brothers in the same league, the lack of bidding on certain players makes collusion very easy to do and even harder to detect. That said, no competing bids for so many top players is evidence enough to suggest it.

For any overall contests, I'd like to see a specific rule addendum for next season that states family members and in-laws cannot compete against each other in the same league.

If people want to compete against their brothers/wives/etc, let them do it in standalone contests (or elsewhere).

BINGO. 100% agree. No way should family members be allowed to compete in the same league, especially in a National Contest. And, frankly I feel this should have been flagged at the sign-up stage & am deeply troubled that there were no safeguards in place to prevent this from even happening. And I'm not even competing in the OC. Integrity & level playing field is everything to me. Another reason why live drafts are better, at least you can see your competitors.

Agree100% on live events. I've only been in the NFBC for 2 years every event I signed up for we're live. You get too look every one in the eye and my comfort level with these events is 100%. My 3 events this year have been competitive beyond belief. It's a shame if part of my money went to something not on the up and up. If Carrasco or Votto had somehow shown up on our FAAB the bids would have been over the top. All I ask for is I have the same chance as everyone else to win the overall.

[Brock]

Whenever money is involved there will always be a few wise guys who will try to game the system. It seems to me that all 12 teams would have to be complicit to pull this off. No back up bids on studs and the the same owner with the winning bids week after week is way more than a coincidence. Thank goodness for the efforts of Gecko and others to investigate this and shine the proper light on it. Maybe we can get the Russians to hack all their computers when their done with Hillary's e-mails.

[TParsons]

Pretty alarming stuff. I won't be entering any contest for 2017 until it is explained, in detail, exactly what steps are being taken in order to avoid this in the future. My biggest cause for concern in both this instance, and in instances where we've seen scoring issues this yr, is that the players are the ones pointing these issues out. Greg, can you tell me if this would have ever been flagged had it not been called out on these boards by the players?

[Donacion]

Anybody else look at the FAAB for this league for tonites bids? Dahl for a $1.

[Oaktown]

Anybody else look at the FAAB for this league for tonites bids? Dahl for a $1.

And Villar for $5. The top team that has been the one who benefitted from all the shady work got Odorizzi for $20. Haha. Villar $5, Dahl $1!

[Gekko]

Villar $5
Dahl $1

and the hits keep on coming

[Ichiban]

Haha. Either they are unaware they are now being looked at closely, or they don't care.

[Bronx Yankees]

Villar $5
Dahl $1

and the hits keep on coming

What a joke! In a real league, Villar never would have been dropped. Also, Dahl for $1 is absolutely ridiculous. I'm doing four FAAB leagues this year - a $250 satellite, two Main Events and a Super. In those four leagues, Dahl just went for $158, $80, $337, and $129, respectively. Missed out on him all four times . I thought I bid fairly aggressively for him considering how much money I had left, and I was never even the runner-up bidder (although I was very close to the runner-up bid once). The runner-up bids were $101, $61, $151 and $111, respectively. For Dahl to only go for $1 means something very screwy is going on here. We'll have to wait until Greg and Tom to finish investigating to find out who, what, where, why and how, but no way can this league count towards the overall prize in a national contest.

Mike

[JohnP]

Crazy things happen in 12 team online leagues. Many teams have given up. Many other teams with little faab $ left. I got Dahl for 13 and Skaggs for 8 in one league and no runner up bid in either case. I'm guessing there are other leagues where Dahl was secured for a buck or two. Can't blame the guy that won him for a buck unless he somehow convinced everyone else not to bid.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Haha. Either they are unaware they are now being looked at closely, or they don't care.

Our rules are very clear and everyone agrees to them when they sign up. This one is pretty clear:

20. Code of Conduct

All participants and co-managers are expected to behave in lawful, respectful and sportsman-like fashion at all live draft events, throughout the NFBC season, and during use of any NFBC website, including, but not limited to comments posted on any NFBC message board. Additionally the NFBC events, games and/or leagues may not be used for any form of gambling. Any conduct or message board post by a participant, co-manager or other person which is deemed by STATS, in its sole discretion, to be unlawful, or to have the effect of intimidating, harassing, offending or otherwise harming any other participant, co-manager, guest, or NFBC/STATS representative, is strictly prohibited. STATS reserves the right, in its sole discretion to ban any person from current and/or future participation in the NFBC and/or from use of the message boards if such person engages in any such prohibited conduct or is otherwise in violation of any of these Rules. In addition, any person engaging in such conduct forfeits any rights to a refund, as well as any potential rights to a prize award. STATS shall not be responsible or held liable to any person for damage to property or personal injury or death arising from the acts or omissions of any third parties. Any participants or co-managers who collude, or attempt to collude, or who attempts to blackmail, bribe or otherwise influence any representative of STATS/NFBC, or who otherwise attempts to sabotage the league, in an effort to alter the results or outcome of any NFBC game will be disqualified and will be prohibited from winning any prize award. If a participant is banned from participation in a current NFBC game, then STATS reserves the right, to take those actions which it sees fit, in its sole discretion with respect to such banned participant’s team. Any criminal behavior may be referred to the appropriate authorities.

We are working with Legal to take appropriate actions with this league. We should have a resolution soon and will update everyone when that happens. Stay tuned.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Pretty alarming stuff. I won't be entering any contest for 2017 until it is explained, in detail, exactly what steps are being taken in order to avoid this in the future. My biggest cause for concern in both this instance, and in instances where we've seen scoring issues this yr, is that the players are the ones pointing these issues out. Greg, can you tell me if this would have ever been flagged had it not been called out on these boards by the players?

Ty, this is exactly why we post every cut, every winning bid, every week. Tom and I can look over all of these cuts every week and we could hire someone else to do it as well and we still could have missed this one. We allow most cuts to go through in our leagues -- especially the 12-team leagues -- and while we could have easily pulled many of these players we did not see that the same league was cutting these players and that eventually the same team was picking them up because there weren't other competitive bids. I mean as you look now, there are 15 players he picked up that nobody else actively bid against him on. These weren't first-rounders who we missed, but they were players who collectively have helped one team massively in this league.

Joe found this out by looking at his roster and others found the results within our posted cuts and FAAB bids. Could we have found this out without their help? Maybe not, or maybe we would have found it by season's end when we wrote up the winning team's roster only to see it was helped by all of these crazy FAAB bids. But we didn't get that far down the road thanks to Joe and others.

Obviously we have to watch the signups more closely and make sure family members aren't in the same league. But I think it's more than that in this case. Let us work through this first to get this contest back on track and things resolved within this league. We have a plan to correct this and we're working with Legal on it.

I think our transparency worked and instead of saying the setup was wrong because me or Tom didn't find it I think you can say that it worked because SOMEONE within the NFBC found it. We're thankful for that.

[Gekko]

We are working with Legal to take appropriate actions with this league. We should have a resolution soon and will update everyone when that happens. Stay tuned.

Greg - When I said on the previous page that it would be a "difficult" decision for the NFBC, I assumed you would not be able to find a "smoking gun", ie, concrete virtual evidence or an admission of guilt. It sounds like the official NFBC investigation may have uncovered additional information.

Ty - I would let the process play out and see what happens in this case. The NFBC is investigating. Either they uncover wrong doing or they don't. Not sure it means anything to you, but Personally I don't have any concern with joining NFBC contests with overall prize pools.

[Bronx Yankees]

Crazy things happen in 12 team online leagues. Many teams have given up. Many other teams with little faab $ left. I got Dahl for 13 and Skaggs for 8 in one league and no runner up bid in either case. I'm guessing there are other leagues where Dahl was secured for a buck or two. Can't blame the guy that won him for a buck unless he somehow convinced everyone else not to bid.

John - I took a look at the winning bids in the Online Championship. There is some data to support your point, although there is also is data that supports mine that something is fishy. Assuming I punched the numbers into my calculator accurately, I came up with:

132 leagues in which Dahl was secured in FAAB

Average winning bid - $135 (rounded up to nearest dollar)

Leagues where winning bid was $100 or more: 78 out of 132

Leagues where winning bid was less than $50: 25 out of 132

Leagues where winning bid was $1: 4 out of 132

Leagues where winning bid was $200 or more: 35 out of 132

Maybe I need to find me some of these non-competitive 12-teamers next year. While I suppose it is remotely plausible that 11 teams had no interest whatsoever in Dahl and one team couldn't be bothered to bid more than $1, given the other very-strange doings in this particular league, I remain very skeptical that this is on the up and up.

Mike

[Bronx Yankees]

Crazy things happen in 12 team online leagues. Many teams have given up. Many other teams with little faab $ left. I got Dahl for 13 and Skaggs for 8 in one league and no runner up bid in either case. I'm guessing there are other leagues where Dahl was secured for a buck or two. Can't blame the guy that won him for a buck unless he somehow convinced everyone else not to bid.

John - I took a look at the winning bids in the Online Championship. There is some data to support your point, although there is also is data that supports mine that something is fishy. Assuming I punched the numbers into my calculator accurately, I came up with:

132 leagues in which Dahl was secured in FAAB

Average winning bid - $135 (rounded up to nearest dollar)

Leagues where winning bid was $100 or more: 78 out of 132

Leagues where winning bid was less than $50: 25 out of 132

Leagues where winning bid was $1: 4 out of 132

Leagues where winning bid was $200 or more: 35 out of 132

Maybe I need to find me some of these non-competitive 12-teamers next year. While I suppose it is remotely plausible that 11 teams had no interest whatsoever in Dahl and one team couldn't be bothered to bid more than $1, given the other very-strange doings in this particular league, I remain very skeptical that this is on the up and up.

Mike

Someone sent me a private message about my figures above, but that person has disabled receiving private messages so I am not able to respond privately. Basically, a number of my categories have overlap. For instance, the 35 teams with bids over $200 all are included in my 78 teams that bid over $100. The four leagues where the winning bid was $1 all are included in the 25 leagues where the winning bid was less than $50. I counted 132 leagues. There were winning bids between $50 and $100 but I did not count those separately.

Mike

[Yah Mule]

Other leagues with multiple anomalies should be scrutinized as well.

[BK METS]

Villar $5
Dahl $1

and the hits keep on coming

Just to be clear, Neither Villar or Dahl were picked up by the apparent suspect, Naturalbornkiller. They were picked up by Cool Guys, who is currently in 3rd place in the 3915 OC league. Naturalbornkiller only picked up 1 free agent this week, Odorizzi for $20.

Obviously the entirety of the other pickups is alarming, but just wanted to make sure that everyone realized that Villar and Dahl were not picked up by the suspected team.

[Ichiban]

Greg- Really appreciate the way you are going about this. I know this is hard, you need to speak to legal, and there is a lot you can't reveal. But as usual you are handling things the right way and also thinking about how this effects things going forward to. This is a big reason I have so much faith in NFBC and like your games so much.