With the daily fantasy industry struggling against the allegation that only elite players have any shot at winning serious, Yahoo has announced some dramatic changes to how the site administers its daily fantasy games.
Via Yahoo:
The changes include limiting entries to a max of 10 entries per user per contest (and in no event can a single user’s entries make up more than 1 percent of total entries in a contest), clearly identifying veteran players with a badge, and prohibiting the use of any type of scripting tool to upload or edit entries.
“We first launched Yahoo Sports Daily Fantasy back in July 2015 because it was an exciting addition to our Fantasy Sports product suite and because our users were clamoring for it,” said Michael La Guardia, Head of Product for Yahoo Sports and Finance. “We are making these changes today as the result of months of user experience and customer requests. Yahoo values an environment that is transparent and trustworthy. We also want to provide the best Fantasy games for true sports fans. Fair Play does both.”
These changes make a lot of sense if the idea is to even the playing field somewhat and at least present the illusion that any random Joe can make some money by playing these games. The limit on entries prevents people from flooding a contest to almost ensure victory, identifying veteran players allows novices to steer clear of competitions they can’t handle and the prohibition of scripting tools means everyone has to use his or her own brain, not a computer’s.
The daily fantasy industry is fighting to keep its head above water as various attorneys general (including in Texas and New York) declare the games illegal, and it seems player-friendly reforms are one way to build daily fantasy some good will.
[Yahoo]
