Timely starts of San Diego Chargers’ third-down back Danny Woodhead helped Eddie Rybolt win $300,000.
Daily fantasy sports provided the gaming world with a story of redemption this week, courtesy of the Baltimore Sun. As the paper points out, that redemption began long before the DFS competition.
Eddie Rybolt won $300,000 on a $3.00-entry fantasy football contest on the DraftKings DFS site. The contest was the DraftKings Fantasy Football World Championship (FFWC), a continuing contest which occurred weekly during the 2015 NFL regular season. With a little help from Odell Beckham Jr. and “the contrarian pick” of Danny Woodhead, he continued a startling run, beating the best grinders in the daily fantasy sports world.
The DFS competitor says he is an old school player, a “dinosaur”. In an age when most successful fantasy sports owners on sites like FanDuel and DraftKings, Eddie Rybolt uses his intuition. To win big cash at daily fantasy sports, though, the owner usually needs to have a few obscure — thus cheap — yet high-scoring players. Going with your gut only works for those who known the National Football League well.
The win makes Eddie Rybolt arguably the most famous DFS contestant to win a big prize in Maryland daily fantasy sports history. DraftKings released a statement about Eddie Rybolt’s big win, saying, “This is a story about redemption and second chances.”
Eddie Rybolt: Ex-Convict
People might wonder why DraftKings would tout a random fantasy football enthusiast’s last win, but there’s more to the story. Mr. Rybolt’s win might not sound so extraordinary, since contestants win big amounts every weekend on daily fantasy sports sites‘ guaranteed Sunday events. Like the Sunday millions events in online poker, daily fantasy football is the big money event of the week.
What makes Eddie Rybolt’s story notable is his life before he got into daily fantasy sports contests. Rybolt’s father also was a convict, who went to prison when Eddie was 5. Because Eddie’s mother was, in his words, an abusive alcoholic, a judge ordered him removed from home and placed in a receiving home, a kind of foster care facility.
Child Emancipated from Foster Care
Rybolt says, “No one would take me because I was too old, and most likely they were skeptical because of my abusive early childhood.”
Eddie was emancipated by a judge at age 17. He began his adult life by marrying, having children, and starting a landscaping business. When he got a divorce, he began using drugs and lost the business. As he was restarting that business, his ex-wife began to squabble with him over finances. He lost a second business and fell further into drug use.
By 2007, Eddie Rybolt was a homeless heroin addict. It was in that addled and desperate state that he descended into a life of crime, one which required him to serve 3 years in prison for a 2007 armed robbery.
Paroled after Three Years
Now, the 46-year old Eddie Rybolt lives in a rented apartment with his live-in girlfriend and two daughters, age 5 and 2. He was paroled after 3 years for his armed robbery, which occurred while he was using heroin.
His crime happened on Halloween Night 2007, when he walked up to a car parked at a drive-thru ATM machine. The car was driven by a woman who had two young children in her back seat. As the woman was getting cash from the bank machine, Rybolt demanded she hand over what she had. He received $45.
Attempted Robbery Conviction
Eddie pleaded guilty to attempted robbery. He has owned his mistakes and not made excuses for the crimes he committed. The woman did not comment for her story, though her father told The Baltimore Sun that she does not comment on the attempted robbery or Eddie Rybolt’s prison sentence.
Pressure Washing Business
Once he got out of prison, Mr. Rybolt founded a landscaping and pressure washing business. The business gives jobs to those who have criminal histories, who thus often have a hard time finding a new job.
Mr. Rybolt thus was making a contribution before he received his latest windfall. Still, that windfall could help his business, and thus help others turn their lives around.
Rybolt, who said his DraftKings screen name is RockenRaven, said, “I never thought in a million years that I would be here at this place and time in my life. I should be dead.”
Daily Fantasy Sports in Maryland
It is still unsettled whether daily fantasy sports is considered gambling in Maryland, or whether the state’s legislature sees the hobby as legal. A 2012 initiative to create a state referendum on the matter failed to pass in the legislature.
In December 2015, high-ranking Maryland officials, including Attorney General Brian Frosh and State Comptroller Peter Franchot, discussed whether DFS is legal in Maryland. The state legislature fashioned a measure on the issue, but it failed to pass the bill in April 2016.
That does not mean daily fantasy sports will not be legalized and regulated in the near future. Gov. Larry Hogan’s office has signaled a desire to pass a measure, though nothing will be passed until 2017 at the earliest. In the absence of such legislation, daily fantasy sports continues in Maryland unchallenged. In effect, DFS is treated like it’s a non-gambling game.
