An employee at a popular sports gambling site is no longer employed after it was determined he had cheated in a fantasy football contest on his company’s site.
The alleged cheater, a former employee of SportsHub Games Network, is accused of changing players on rosters during the National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) while games were in progress. The rules of fantasy football prohibit changing lineups once the action begins.
Specifically, he is accused of swapping out Miami’s Raheem Mostert for Green Bay’s Aaron Jones during the Wild Card round. The move was lucrative given that Mostert only rushed for 33 yards, while Aaron Jones had a stellar performance against Dallas, amassing 118 yards and three touchdowns.
It didn’t end there, however.
The betting line and some of the nearly 400 proposition bets for Super Bowl 50 between the Carolina Panthers and the Denver Broncos are displayed at the Race & Sports SuperBook at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino on February 2, 2016, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
During the Divisional round, the employee is accused of changing Kansas City wide receiver Rashee Rice for Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. The swap occurred after Kelce caught the first of his two touchdowns against the Bills.
Greg Ambrosius, the founder of the National Fantasy Football Championship, detailed the allegations on the NFFC forum page.
“Recently, with help from reporting by a public source, we successfully revealed a post-deadline move in one of our NFFC Post-Season Hold ‘Em contests that was detected and quickly confirmed, resulting in SportsHub being able to take immediate action to resolve the issue without any impact to the results of the contest,” Ambrosius wrote.
Wilson brand footballs with the NFL logo are pictured during the game between the Buffalo Bills and Cleveland Browns at Ford Field on November 20, 2022, in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
“As a result of its internal investigation, an employee was terminated, and a contest participant has been banned from further play on our platforms.”
Ambrosius stressed the seriousness of the cheating scandal and the threat it poses to the “integrity” of the whole operation.
“Nothing is more important than the integrity of a pay-to-play contest,” Ambrosius told ESPN. “We have built up twenty-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.”