ToGoGo

Good stuff.

Yes, but think in basic business terms: Marketing = Expenses Revenue - Expenses = Profit At what point does marketing over-saturation start to become redundant and a waste of money? That's what I'm arguing here. It makes me wonder if making money is the goal or if it's something else. Like exposure therapy on the public to desensitize them on sports gambling when it eventually becomes legalized. It's not like DK and FD are partnered with the MLB, NBA, and NHL or anything.

Yes, they raised a lot. But name me another start-up that received venture capital money and proceeded to saturate every avenue of marketing like DK and FD have been doing. It's just not what Silicon Valley money tends to do. They seem to be putting every dime they make into marketing. What's the end-game? Interesting. Didn't know that info was available, although it seems to be estimates and not exact data like what employees probably have access to. Regardless, the "real" insider info is having access to the lineups that players like maxdalury set. Those guys know what to do with usage data, so it's way easier to just copy their lineups than do the math yourself. If the usage rate scandal is overblown, it goes with the theory that says this is a smear campaign in order to enforce regulation. And about my "lazy conspiracy theory", Ashley Madison was just busted for having over 80% of their female accounts be fake dummy accounts. Dummy accounts are real issue in 2015 in every industry. I just threw it out there as an idea. I find that any industry where 20 or 30something males congregate, it tends to get shady (ex. gambling, DFS, nightclubs, beer pong tournaments, etc.)

If you want to look at specific penalties, here's some play by play databases in CSV format: http://nflsavant.com/about.php https://www.spreadsheet-sports.com/free-tools/2013-nfl-play-play-data-excel/ And if you're willing to spend money (I'd look for torrents first): http://www.armchairanalysis.com/data.php

No clue on specific betting amounts of if that information is publicly available. For your 2nd idea I'd start with pro-football-reference.com game logs. It's going to take some serious data scraping of a lot of page. Here's the Buffalo Bills all-time game logs. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/buf/ Penalties are found under Team Stats: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201509130buf.htm Here's NFL spreads going back to 2006: http://www.footballlocks.com/archived_nfl_odds_lines_point_spreads.shtml I think this one goes back to 1993: http://www.goldsheet.com/histnfl.php

I'll add one more thing. In the Pats game it was probably similar to the Giants game. Spread was around -1 Bills. If it's over, most likely Pats cover the spread, if it's under there's a better chance the Bills cover. Once the score was over 44.5, that's when the Bills went off for 3 straight touchdowns and the penalties stopped. Maybe it's nothing, but something to consider.

I don't know enough about regular betting trends to tell from that data. I think the answers we're looking for are found by putting questionable calls, strange playcalling, and other unusual events side by side with the spread and over/under. Do this over a large sample of data and we should be able to spot pretty quick if there is any funny business. Once Donaghy told officials which games he fixed, they were able to recognize it instantly. Donaghy mentioned that most over/under manipulation was done by refs in the 4th quarter by putting both teams in the bonus (or not depending on over or under). If somebody here is determined and willing to put in the work with the data, and find the NFL equivalent to putting teams in the bonus, that's where I would start.

Paints the Clay TD getting called back in a different light. I think you're getting close, keep going.

Greed. And lack of regulation How long into the start-up of the company before the founders said "Hey, we can keep making 13% per tournament, or we can use the data we have to keep even more of the winnings and nobody will ever know". It was a matter of time.

I don't have all the answers. We're all here because our gut is telling us something stinks. All I'm telling you is that there is precedent. Should we discuss the hundreds of high level soccer matches that are fixed every year in major leagues around the world? Or how nearly every FIFA executive was just raided and arrested a couple months ago. FIFA is bigger than the NFL.

What I suspect is that the usage rates run deeper than what the reports are telling us. Once I read a thread on the Roto board from a guy complaining that every single guaranteed tournament he enters into, no matter how short they are of players, ends up full at the last minute. There were a lot of posters saying "you're a noob, that's because everybody waits til the last second because they think they're smart". Now I wonder if those posters were DK and FD shills. Perhaps DK and FD have an algorithm that takes the lineups of 4000 or so real players and calculates according to usage rates and other calculations another 6000 dummy lineups that will more than likely prevent the real players from winning the top prizes. By doing this, DK and FD can avoid paying out over 50% of the winnings and keep it for themselves.

History has all the answers. http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-sports-guru/2011/06/tim-donaghy-details-how-nba-officials-league-allegedly-fix-games-exclusive-interview-part-3/

Like Donaghy in the NBA. Nope, not feasible at all.

Fantastic. I've been trying to figure out "Why the Seahawks" for a while now, since Seattle isn't that big a market. I figured it had something to do with making up for the NBA moving the Sonics. But Paul Allen makes a lot of sense. He's only one of the 10-15 richest men in the world. My theory has been that's it's just about revenue share. Simple economics that the Patriots or Cowboys being good creates better TV ratings, merchandise sales, etc than the Bills or Browns being good. Since the owners share the revenue, they don't care if their team wins as long as they maximize revenue. But maybe your theory is better.

To be honest, I think we are the recipients of favorable calls sometimes. Miami had their day in the sun with Lebron James, and if the inter-league theory is true, the Dolphins don't have to be good right away. I think we're going to be given some games this season too. The NFL doesn't gain much with the Titans beating the Bills. I think we make the playoffs this year because of Rex Ryan. He has charisma and people will watch if we're in primetime or in the playoffs. He can pull more viewers than the Chiefs or Bengals IMO. But I think that's where it stops. We're just not important enough to the NFL to beat the Broncos or Patriots. They make more money with Peyton or Brady in the Super Bowl. On that note, I think we split with the Jets this year. They're a playoff contender and casual fans like to see Rex as a villain. They won't let us knock a NYC team out of the playoffs. I'm beginning to speculate on the NFL playoff picture in the same way a WWE fan would. Not who's better, but who would the league want to win?

I think about that sometimes. Are players/coaches willing to throw the game? I'm open-minded to what you are saying, but do you really think Rex was trying to lose? I believe in refs calling penalties (or not calling penalties) at just the right times to influence games, but I feel like too many people would need to conspire for players and coaches to throw games. Explain a bit more about how you think this would go down.

If you were a fan of the Bachelor for 20 years and believe it was real, then slowly started realizing it was fixed, it would take you a little while until you lost the emotional attachment. That's what's going on here. It took me several months before I lost my love of college basketball after repeated shadiness by the NCAA.

Feels like a Hegelian Dialectic. States wanted a cut and needed an excuse to enforce regulation. I mean, some employee accidentally posts something on a message board and one day later the NYT is all over it? Then ESPN drops sponsorship? Too fast over something too small. Little shady stuff like this goes on everywhere and the NYT doesn't give a hoot.

This is assuming they were valid penalties, and not just minor penalties called on us because of our reputation.

I pointed this out in the locked thread. Any conspiracy whatsoever, no matter how small, is grouped in with UFOs/lizard people/etc. It's been turned into a slur. The bolded above is a great example. They never argue the point, they just ad hominem attack you.

Amen. You're better off going outside and being angry at squirrels.

Adam Silver has been talking about legalizing gambling for a while now. The DK and FD marketing blitz has been so strong you have to wonder where this money is coming from. It's just not something I've ever seen venture capital money do. I think the major sports leagues are giving them discounts to promote themselves during commercials. NHL is going to expand to Vegas soon. Like I said earlier, I think they're just priming us for full-scale legalization. Too much money not to.

Gotcha. Didn't know that.

Beerball should at least have the balls to explain why he closes those threads, instead of using automatic messages that don't apply. I think we were contributing more positively than 90% of threads on here. The only place we weren't contributing positively was the NFL's (and Buffalo Bill's) bottom line.

Perhaps, but the TOP TOP player like maxdalury use custom algorithms based on usage rates, touches, past history, etc. He knows that on average he finishes in the top 20 percentile so he bets on every single game he can. 8 out of 10 times you'll lose to him in a head to head. I doubt he does any research on new sites, he just plugs numbers into his algorithms.