Monkey Knife Fight closes down

**SBR Andy** · 03-03-23, 11:10 AM

Crazy - Bally's paid $90 million for MKF only 2 years ago.

Full story here: https://www.sportsbookreview.com/new...-march-2-2023/

**stevenash** · 03-03-23, 11:26 AM

I'm a fantasy sports enthusiast, been involved in all things fantasy sports related since Bill James assisted on creating sabermetrics and Billy Beane created Money Ball, both of which were created over a decade before DraftKings and Fanduel were launched.

Yeah, I'm that kind of geek, what can I tell you, it's who I am and it's what I do.

I actually played at MKF for about four years before the state of Connecticut pulled the plug on all DFS sites save Yahoo, DraftKings, and FanDuel, and FD pulled out of the DFS market, voluntarily, two years ago, leaving me pretty much with DK.

I liked MKF, and I am finicky when it come to DFS too
Simply put it was a parlay contest, while the rake was a tad steep, their cut was still a tad better than most everybody else's.

**johnnyvegas13** · 03-03-23, 11:28 AM

Never heard of them

**BigOrange** · 03-03-23, 11:34 AM

Originally posted by johnnyvegas13

Never heard of them

Because you don't gamble. You just fire up your "air bets".

**stevenash** · 03-03-23, 11:41 AM

Originally posted by johnnyvegas13

Never heard of them

That's just it, they didn't get their message across, I don't have enough time to analyze everything sports and sports business related, I which I did, but believe it or not I do have a real life too, but if I were to sit down for a few hours and analyze as to what went wrong my money would be on poor, or lack of advertising/marketing, that and what with the further advancement of legalized sports wagering here in the States, unless you're a FD or DK, there is demonstrably more money to be made on sporting event wagering than in fantasy sports.

Which is one of the reasons why FD is phasing out of the fantasy business, oh sure FD can compete just fine, they were one of the originals in that market, but they know what side of the bread the butter is on, and the sports wagering business, and the brick and mortar casino hotel business (Mohegan Sun for instance) is now their focus, not DFS any longer.

**d2bets** · 03-03-23, 12:19 PM

Originally posted by stevenash

That's just it, they didn't get their message across, I don't have enough time to analyze everything sports and sports business related, I which I did, but believe it or not I do have a real life too, but if I were to sit down for a few hours and analyze as to what went wrong my money would be on poor, or lack of advertising/marketing, that and what with the further advancement of legalized sports wagering here in the States, unless you're a FD or DK, there is demonstrably more money to be made on sporting event wagering than in fantasy sports.

Which is one of the reasons why FD is phasing out of the fantasy business, oh sure FD can compete just fine, they were one of the originals in that market, but they know what side of the bread the butter is on, and the sports wagering business, and the brick and mortar casino hotel business (Mohegan Sun for instance) is now their focus, not DFS any longer.

Why is that? People just not into it anymore? Seems like an easy way to rake. I don't do fantasy, so I don't really know the ins and outs.

**OldBill** · 03-03-23, 12:29 PM

monkey knife fight lol i thought this was about monkees fighting with knives

**Auto Donk** · 03-03-23, 12:46 PM

Originally posted by OldBill

monkey knife fight lol i thought this was about monkees fighting with knives

this monkey knows, never bring a stupid f'n knife to a gun fight:

**Hugh Madbrough** · 03-03-23, 01:00 PM

Originally posted by stevenash

I'm a fantasy sports enthusiast, been involved in all things fantasy sports related since Bill James assisted on creating sabermetrics and Billy Beane created Money Ball, both of which were created over a decade before DraftKings and Fanduel were launched.Yeah, I'm that kind of geek, what can I tell you, it's who I am and it's what I do.

I actually played at MKF for about four years before the state of Connecticut pulled the plug on all DFS sites save Yahoo, DraftKings, and FanDuel, and FD pulled out of the DFS market, voluntarily, two years ago, leaving me pretty much with DK.

I liked MKF, and I am finicky when it come to DFS too
Simply put it was a parlay contest, while the rake was a tad steep, their cut was still a tad better than most everybody else's.

Back in 14' there was this amazing Baseball DFS site, that Ken Thomson (Sports X Radio host) use to promote. I forgot the name of it but it also went broke. They only charged a small fee for withdrawal, it was like $2 for paypal and you received your payout in less than 24 hours. But charging those small fees, make me believe that's the reason the company went down. I'm not on DK or FD because that split is insane, you're better off taking a -200 straight bet. I wanted to get into MKF since it was heavily promoted on baseball twitter but couldn't since it wasn't legal on the state I was living in. Looks like FD and DK remain the head honchos. Hope nothing happens to PrizePicks or SimBull.

**Optional** · 03-03-23, 06:09 PM

Too much publicity about the top 1% of DFS players taking 90% of the money and staff using inside info to cheat, and then legal betting arriving.

No wonder it has declined so fast.

**Bostongambler** · 03-03-23, 06:23 PM

Legal betting did them in. Norm Cutler was involved even before that. Too bad it wasn’t a longer run. There is just too many avenues around now.

**Ian** · 03-04-23, 11:00 AM

Originally posted by Bostongambler

Legal betting did them in. Norm Cutler was involved even before that. Too bad it wasn’t a longer run. There is just too many avenues around now.

I can't say I'm surprised it didn't catch on. All they had were prop parlays with sucker odds and the occasional highly exploitable promo. Their marketing for the product was nonexistent.

If they were the only game in town the might have done okay, but as you say there are just too many better options around now.

**pokerdevil** · 03-06-23, 04:00 PM

Good. Screw all these ripoff sites like PrizePicks, Underdog, and others that charge -135 to -140 a leg on uncorrelated parlays

**topgame85** · 03-06-23, 08:33 PM

If any of us had a brain we would have thrown up some BS site or network around legalization and been bought out for tens of millions. Although it was just as easy to buy PENN at $4 and sell at $100+ without any work other than sitting around for a few months at 25x return.

**gauchojake** · 03-07-23, 12:05 AM

Apparently I need to withdraw my 1.50 or else...

**VeggieDog** · 03-07-23, 03:20 AM

First rule is....

**Ian** · 03-07-23, 10:02 AM

Originally posted by pokerdevil

Good. Screw all these ripoff sites like PrizePicks, Underdog, and others that charge -135 to -140 a leg on uncorrelated parlays

I'll mildly miss it. The promo bets provided good value and didn't require a large time investment. In terms of "screwing" somebody I think MKF screwed themselves with their business model.

**stevenash** · 03-07-23, 01:20 PM

Originally posted by Ian

I'll mildly miss it. The promo bets provided good value and didn't require a large time investment. In terms of "screwing" somebody I think MKF screwed themselves with their business model.

One hundred percent agree.

The most popular betting event at MKF was the three team/player parlay.

True odds on a three way parlay is 7:1, 8 for 1 if you will.
Most books payout on a winning even money three team parlay is 6:1

If a book pays out 600 dollars on a true odds event that should pay 700 dollars the juice is 14%
Correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since Connecticut pulled the plug on MKF here, but I believe the payout there was also 600 dollars. give or take.

Putting that in perspective, the big DFS sites here in the States will cap a one dollar contest with a guaranteed payout of one hundred dollars at 118 entrants.

If the DFS site you play at takes in 118 dollars of which 100 is paid out, that would make the 'rake' 18%
Wait, what, you say?
"That's steep" you say.

Well yeah it is, but if you complain to the site you play at they'll tell you "you have to consider we guarantee payouts, the resources we use to provide these contests are expensive, maintenance fees are part of that 18%