Yahoo will stop daily fantasy sports operations in New York starting on Wednesday.
The development comes hot on the heels of when daily fantasy sports firms FanDuel and DraftKings agreed to also suspend holding paid contests in New York on March 21, pushing to legalize the games right after a run-in with the attorney general of the state.
A Yahoo spokesperson confirmed the news, and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman also did the same, saying that the company has informed his office.
"Yahoo believes that its contests are lawful, and we will continue to assess the legal environment for daily fantasy sports while providing a compelling fantasy sports experience for all of our users," Schneiderman says.
In the same vein, Yahoo is making some significant changes on its system, promoting fair play on its daily fantasy sports business.
"Yahoo Fantasy Sports has tens of millions of registered fans and 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," Michael La Guardia, chief of product for Yahoo Sports and Finance, says.
First off, the company is setting a limit to the number of entries to 10 per user on each contest, noting that an individual user is not allowed to have more than 1 percent of the total amount of entries in a contest.
Next, veteran players will have a badge to let other players recognize them. Veteran players are those who have participated in more than 1,000 games or won $1,000 or higher more than three times. Another way to become a veteran is to compete in more than 250 games and triumph over 65 percent or more in those matches. All of these conditions must be met in one year.
Lastly, Yahoo is banning the use of scripting tools, preventing players from uploading or editing entries.
According to Guardia, these changes were made because of numerous user requests.
