A fantasy football website announced on its forums page that it had fired an employee who was found cheating in an NFL playoffs tournament that was going to pay the winner a large sum of money.
The site, National Fantasy Football Championship, said that an employee who has since been fired used internal controls to make changes to a participant’s roster, like swapping in a player who had already scored a touchdown, after the football games had kicked off. SportsHub is the parent company for the National Fantasy Football Championship.
The contest, called Hold ‘Em, had 1,521 players who were all trying for a $150,000 prize for the winner. Someone in that group apparently discovered that something wasn’t right with the lineups and blew the whistle.
“We were alerted of this illegal move by a fellow player in the contest because it showed up under Transactions for this team with a time stamp that was after two games started,” NFFC founder Greg Ambrosius said on the site. “I have no idea why this person would do this for this owner, but it’s as plain as day thanks to the transparency that we provide in our time stamps. This was so easy for a fellow competitor to detect that someone made a terrible, terrible mistake. But it’s a mistake that can’t be accepted or allowed one minute further.”
Ambrosius added that the site can “easily track the use of the software for this move and we GUARANTEE no other moves were made on any other team in this contest.”
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National Fantasy Football Championship fires employee who cheated
Ambrosius wrote this about the employee:
“As a result of its internal investigation, an employee was terminated and a contest participant has been banned from further play on our platforms.
“Due to pending legal matters, SportsHub cannot comment on the specific details or the responsible individual. While it may not be possible to stop all problematic activities, detection and swift resolution are key to maintaining the integrity of the games.”
While the employee was fired, the player who had his lineup changed was disqualified from the tournament, which will continue.