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The Bachelor‘s Jade Roper Tolbert Faces Cheating Accusations After Winning $1 Million USD In Fantasy Football

Kaitlin Reilly
Last Updated January 7, 2020, 2:23 PM
Photo: Rich Fury/Getty Images.
People are accusing Bachelor in Paradise season 2 winners Jade Roper Tolbert and Tanner Tolbert of colluding with each other on a fantasy football contest that won Jade $1 million USD. 
Jade reportedly came out on top of DraftKing’s fantasy contest in the NFL’s wild card round, which earned her the major monetary prize. Jade celebrated the win on Twitter, tweeting at a fan who noticed she was a member of Bachelor Nation with: 
“Hahaha that’s me! And Tanner told me I shouldn’t play DK Metcalf!” 
In response to another fan noting her win, she added: 
“Doesn’t even feel real over here! Officially speechless. LIKE WHAAAAAAAAT.”
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Members of Bachelor Nation — like Bachelor in Paradise’s Chris Randone and Carly Waddell, according to People — also initially congratulated the Tolberts on winning the competition. Some fans, however, thought the couple’s individual draft picks were evidence that the couple was working together to get an advantage in the game. 
The max amount of lineups one can enter in DraftKing’s competition is 150, and, according to ESPN, the Tolberts entered 298 unique lineups total out of the 300 possible for the couple. People are suggesting that the Tolberts worked together to submit no overlapping lineups, which would therefore make sure they had the best chance possible of winning.
Working with other players in this way is not allowed, per the official DraftKing rules, and Tanner denied doing so in a phone interview with ESPN. 
"We each put in our separate players, in our separate accounts and rooted for own players," Tanner told ESPN Monday. "No one has ever said a peep about us when we lost for 17 straight weeks. Then, of course, somehow Jade picked the right lineup, got the million and the spotlight got shown on it. And people, especially since she's a woman, assume that I do it all for her. If I had won, I bet no one would've raised a flag."
Tanner claimed that since the ordeal, the couple has received death threats, according to Tanner's interview with ESPN.
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In a statement to Refinery29, Jade and Tanner said:
"We respect that Draft Kings feels they must do their due diligence in regard to Jade winning their $1 million USD dollar prize for the fantasy contest for the NFL’s wild-card round this weekend.  Though we must ponder, 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?  It is incredibly important for us to establish that Jade’s win is nothing more than pure luck and we are confident that Draft Kings will determine the same."
Jade was a contestant on season 19 of The Bachelor, where she vied for Chris Soules’ heart Tanner appeared on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s season of The Bachelorette. They met in 2015 on Bachelor in Paradise and went on to win the series. The couple wed in 2016 and currently have two children. 
Refinery29 reached out to DraftKings for comment.
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