An employee of a fantasy football website has been dismissed due to their involvement in a cheating scandal during an NFL fantasy playoff challenge tournament with a six-figure payout.
NFL fantasy playoff challenge marred by cheating
The National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) admitted on Wednesday in a statement posted on its website that an employee utilized back end controls to make changes while the games were already being played.
The devious employee made player swaps to a contestant’s lineup in the middle of the game, including substituting in a player who had already successfully made a touchdown.
The contest in question, named “Hold ‘Em,” featured a grand prize of $150,000 and had over 1,500 participants.
The NFFC employee’s fraud was caught by a savvy group of fantasy players who figured out the picks weren’t legit and reported their findings to the company.
Pete Overzet, a 36-year-old seasoned fantasy football player, told ESPN that the group figured out the scammer’s ploy while comparing their picks to the competitor account that the NFFC employee was manipulating.
Overzet told the outlet that the scam was so sophisticated that only someone who is well-versed in similar competitions could have spotted it.
The Post-Season Hold ‘Em contest is a month-long competition that spans from Weeks 18-22, beginning with the Wild Card round and concluding after Super Bowl LVIII is played.
How an employee gamed an NFL fantasy playoff challenge tournament
The NFFC said that the employee made roster changes for the contestant during both the Wild Card and divisional rounds to bump up the total fantasy points by 40.
The cheating began an hour into the January 13 game between the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers.
The employee switched the Dolphin’s running back Raheem Mostert, who underperformed at brutally cold Arrowhead Stadium in a season ending 26-7 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, for Packer’s running back Aaron Jones.
Jones led the Packers to a stunning 48-32 win against the favored Cowboys, with 118 rushing yards and three touchdowns, after only averaging 59 rushing yards a game and only scoring two touchdowns during the regular season.
In the divisional round of the playoffs the following week, the employee replaced star Chiefs wide out Rashee Rice with tight end Travis Kelce, who had already scored at the point the change was made.
Rice only put up 47 receiving yards and didn’t manage to score during the the team’s tight 27-24 win over the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium on January 21, while Kelce put on a show for girlfriend Taylor Swift with 75 yards and two touchdowns to secure the team’s position in the Conference Championships.
As a consequence of their actions, the contestant was disqualified from the tournament, which is set to continue.
Following Sunday’s games, the employee-assisted contestant held the fourth position in the tournament but was disqualified. The NFFC employee was booted from the company for participating in the scam.
NFFC founder Greg Ambrosius said the company has launched an internal investigation to “make sure that we know everything about what happened,” and to be positive going forward that it “never happens again.”
NFL fantasy playoff challenge cheater isn’t the only scandal to rock football
Earlier this year, a college football faced a cheating scandal, when the Michigan Wolverines were caught using former recruiting analyst Connor Stalions to steal signs from their upcoming opponents.
Stalions reportedly utilized a network of low-rent spies with cell phones to decode play calls at games, though the NCAA prohibits sideline scouting.
Stalions and linebackers coach Chris Partridge, who tried to tamper with evidence once the allegations came to light, were both fired from the program.
Head coach Jim Harbaugh was suspended fro three games, despite no evidence that he was involved with the plan.
Harbaugh landed on his feet after an undefeated season with the Wolverines, which led to five-year head coaching deal with the Los Angeles Chargers after putting in nine years at Michigan.
He was previously a quarterback for the team during the 1999-2000 and made 17 starts.
