PrizePicks Drops Suit Against Ex-Employee Who Left for DraftKings

Fantasy sports outlet PrizePicks has dropped a lawsuit against its former social media director who left the company for the same position at DraftKings and allegedly took trade secrets with him, less than one month after the suit was filed.

The suit, filed in Washington federal court June 11, accused Judah Huffman of leveraging PrizePicks’ marketing documents for a salary increase while he was in talks to join DraftKings, before ultimately accepting a position with DraftKings. PrizePicks alleged that Huffman violated his noncompete. When the suit was filed, a spokesperson for PrizePicks told Front Office Sports “we are taking swift steps to ensure that our trade secrets and innovations are safeguarded.”

On June 30, days after PrizePicks made another filing reiterating its request that the court prohibit Huffman from working at DraftKings or any other competitor for one year, PrizePicks voluntarily dropped its case. The dismissal is with prejudice, which means PrizePicks cannot refile the same claims in the same court.

Huffman tells Front Office Sports “I absolutely dispute the trade secret allegations and have complied with the non-competition agreement and the matter has been resolved.”

A spokesperson for PrizePicks tells FOS “Huffman has complied with the non-compete agreement, and the matter has been resolved.” 

DraftKings did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Huffman’s LinkedIn account does not list DraftKings as his employer, though it does say he stopped working at PrizePicks in May. Previously, his LinkedIn profile said he worked at DraftKings as its “Director of Social & Community (Sportsbook).”

Huffman started at PrizePicks as its director of social media in May 2023, and a year later he accepted a bonus that included a one-year noncompete clause, according to the complaint. However, 10 months after that, he received an offer letter from DraftKings and told PrizePicks human resources about the offer—which included a raise from $200,000 to $210,000—but claimed he was going to pass on it.

The suit also said that shortly after Huffman received his DraftKings offer, he uploaded his PrizePicks agreement to ChatGPT to analyze whether the noncompete was enforceable, among other reasons. In addition, prior to accepting the DraftKings job, Huffman was accused of putting “highly sensitive” plans for PrizePicks’ strategic brand and team goals in his personal ChatGPT account.

DraftKings improved its offer to Huffman, which he accepted on May 2 and resigned from PrizePicks three days later, the complaint said. But he continued to tell PrizePicks that he had yet to decide on his future. His last day at PrizePicks was May 16, when he turned in his company phone and laptop, according to the now-dropped suit.

DraftKings was recently on the other side of a public noncompete battle. For most of 2024, it waged an expensive and public legal fight against Michael Hermalyn and Fanatics to block the executive from working for Michael Rubin’s company. Fanatics, DraftKings, and Hermalyn eventually settled their litigation against each other, and Hermalyn now runs Fanatics’ VIP bettor program.