DraftKings looking into collusion claims against 'Bachelor' couple

DraftKings is investigating accusations that a former contestant on popular reality series "The Bachelor" colluded with her husband to circumvent its community guidelines in winning the site's "Millionaire Maker" daily fantasy contest during the  NFL's Wild-Card Weekend.

Former "Bachelor" contestant Jade Roper Tolbert and husband Tanner Tolbert each entered the maximum allowable 150 entries, giving them a possible 300 combinations. According to a report at SI.com, the entries included 298 unique lineups, inviting criticism that it was a coordinated effort to win the $1 million prize. At $25 per team, Roper Tolbert and her husband each spent $3,750 for the entries. 

Roper Tolbert finished fourth on the 19th season of "The Bachelor," and her husband, who she met on the spin-off show "Bachelor in Paradise," said sexism and her status have played a role in the criticism.

"Would the questions, accusations and curiosity about this win be the same if the winner had been male and someone who wasn't already in the public eye?" Tanner Tolbert said, according to ESPN. "We each put in our separate players, in our separate accounts and rooted for own players. No one has ever said a peep about us when we lost for 17 straight weeks."

Roper Tolbert's lineup was the winner out of 105,883 total entries in the competition. Her 180.78 points topped the 178.16 of the runner-up, who earned $100,000. The key player in the winning lineup was Seattle Seahawks rookie receiver DK Metcalf, who had seven catches for 160 yards, including a 53-yard touchdown reception, in their 17-9 victory against the Philadelphia Eagles. That performance gave Metcalf 32 points in the DraftKings scoring system.

The winning lineup also included Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, who accounted for 302 yards and two touchdowns in a 22-19 win against the Buffalo Bills, and Minnesota Vikings running back Dalvin Cook, who had 94 rushing yards and two TDs in the 26-20 overtime win against the New Orleans Saints.

Roper Tolbert's lineups also included primarily quarterbacks who played in Saturday's AFC wild-card games, while her husband's were built mostly around NFC signal-callers.

DraftKings does not pay out prizes until any investigations into possible rules violations are completed.  Company spokesman James Chisholm did not offer a timeline for when that review might be finished.

"As we do with all major contests, we are undertaking a review to ensure that the top finisher complied with our terms of use, community guidelines and applicable state regulations before awarding any prizes," Chisholm said in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday. "This is our standard operating procedure - regardless of who the top finisher may be. Our goal in these situations is to expeditiously complete a thorough review."

Under DraftKings' terms and conditions, the couple could be required to submit a sworn statement that it did not skirt the site's rules. The site's terms also could complicate any attempt by the couple to obtain the money through a legal challenge. Agreeing to the site's terms means players agree to accept arbitration to resolve any legal dispute.

The site's rules prohibit players from "colluding with any other individual(s) or engaging in any type of syndicate play" and allows players to have only one account. DraftKings does not allow players to engage in "team-building complementary lineups which serve to work together AND executing a strategy that may create any unfair advantage over individual play."