I always heard of fantasy sports especially fantasy football on yahoo from many years ago. I never cared about it b/c i figured it was nothing more than ppl picking teams and then see who has more points etc until i read recently about draftkings and i see there are ppl that play for real money here and it isn't small amounts. I checked draftkings and took a look at lobby and im pretty amazed at how big the prize pools are in these tournaments. Also i see theres other formats as well such as head to head and 50/50s. Have questions about fantasy sports and mostly draftkings and would like if someone could answer these questions.
1. Do the majority of the top players who make serious money at these mainly play head to head or those tournaments where its 8 or less players? I see hows theres those big tournaments with 5 figures for 1st place every week for nfl and even 1 million dollars as well which is pretty ridiculous. I assume the ppl who do this seriously mainly play nontournaments since those have way too much ppl playing it?
2. I see theres a lineup that you have to make for each sports such as you can't go over the 50k cap with the amount of players you have to choose. Do players who play tournaments whether its a 12 dollar tourney or 27 dollar tourney or 300 dollar tourney or play all of these... do they keep the same lineup or do they make different lineups? My thinking is they wont do that b/c they have to diversify the players and u basically putting all your eggs in basket and that is never a good way to play it right?
3. Didn't sign up for an account yet but when i see ppl signed up for these things especially heads up and 4 or 8 players and these are at the higher stakes mostly, does that mean once you sign up you cannot unregister? Also i read its similar to poker where if you find bad opponents, u register in their head up game? Im sure you will know each players lineup once the tournament starts right? i cant imagine you adding up the points of each player u have in the lineup and not knowing who the other guy has until the end. Or am i wrong in this? How would a tournament work though? So once tourney starts, u click on each person to see what is their lineup?
4. I can't find the article but i read the 3 most popular form of these games are head to head, 50/50 and tournament right? And the other formats are not really played much for significant amount of money? I also read the strategy for each is very difference such as for 50/50, u play it safe and conservative. But for tournament, u cant pick those players b/c everyone else woud pick the same players and thus u wouldn't get a top prize that way? I assume heads up would be like a mix of the two? I did recall someone saying u have to know your opponent and think which player he might select?
5. I see lot of guys sign up many of these head to heads etc. Its a lot like poker in a way and they need to put in volume if u want to make money. Whats a good roi for these? Such as for tournament, head to head and 50/50?
6. Do you have to check your lineup say 10 minutes or so before the game begins in case someone you selected is not going to play? Thus if you have 1 player that you picked and that person isn't playing the game, well that is huge as you probably will not do good in it. I assume u could put a replacement for so and so player in case that player does not play and you have a backup or even 2 or 3 backups etc?
7. Would you say people that are successful betting sports ususally transition well to fantasy sports? Example theres lot of ppl who bet sports who probably can't even name you a player on a team. But those that do, i assume it doesn't usually work out well at all?
surprised no one answered your questions yet.... FYI i just started playing regularly this year and am certainly not a professional making a living but i am a profitable player so far this year..
1- I really do not know the answer to this question although HBO Real Sports did do a 15 min segment with a DFS pro. The best strategy that seems to work is set up 1 cash line up and enter multiple H2H's and 50/50s. You do see a lot of people making Multiple entries in the big tournaments.
2- I set up 1 line up that i use across all formats although sometimes in tournaments i set up a variant of that line up keeping some core players i am really confident in and changing out other with similar salaries.
3- once you sign up you can unregister for tournaments and 50/50s if they have not filled up yet. Also you can not unregister once it passes 15 minutes to gametime. H2H you can not unregister. Yes once the match stars and you can no longer edit your line up you can see all the players your opponent has set up in their line up. Yes once a tournament starts you can see all the % of players owned.
4- I think you are overthinking it. Play the players that you think will do the best and do not worry about what others are taking. It is rare for people to have the exact same line up especially in H2H were it almost never happens. In Tournaments it can happen if their are not a lot of games being played that particular day. You also might have a couple of people copying a website optimal line up. In Tournaments i found playing their are 2 strategies espically for the NHL which i play the most frequently. You can Stack players from a particular team and if that team goes off you have a great chance of finishing in the top 5% of a GPP tournament. but if that team flubs you have no chance at cashing.... Another strategy is just to take the best value plays and try to min cash.
5- I dont know what Pro's ROI is but i will say the Rake is absolute murder on DK and FD at 10-15% for anything lower than 100$ and above that it still only gets as low as 7%.
I do not play H2H or 50/50's on DK or FD for this reason i do play tournaments on DK when i am confident in a stacked line up. you would need a 55% win rate just to break even at best... I am guessing here but i would say you need a 60% Win rate at least to be able to make a living at DFS on DK or FD
6- you can not replace someone once that players game has started. And on some sites once that tournament has started. Twitter is key for checking line ups.
7- Many DFS pro's are actually ex online poker pro's Pre Black Friday. You would be surprised how many people start players that are not even in the line up that particular day.
Personally if you just want to try and bink a tournament play DraftKings or FanDuel. If you want to play H2H or 50/50s i recommend playing on Victiv. Victiv has 5-6% rake for all H2H matches compared to 10% for DK and FD.
1. Is there a way to check the places of each draftkings contest that ended? For example i saw earlier there was a huge guarantee where $20 buyin where 1st place was $1.2 million dollars. That seems really ridiculous.
2. Basically you could enter as many of these as possible in the same tournament? Thus for a $20 buyin tournament where 1st is 1.2 million, you could have 50 entries if you like? If so, on average how many entries do people have?
3. So basically if you want to win one of these big tournaments, basically you can't really have the same lineups as everyone else right? Obviously you will have a few of the top fantasy players like aaron rodgers etc... but don't most of the people who win these always picks players that no one else would pick? Because i'm sure there are tons of players that would pick similar 5-6 players for their team and if so wouldn't there be a ton of ties?
4. Is there a way to find out how the team i pick done for the contest if i don't have an account there? For example i was playing around with draftkings and picked the 9 players. Is there way to find out how many fantasy points each player earned for the games and then compare it to how it would have done say in the 1.2 million 1st prize contest?
5. Isn't playing a pretty safe lineup very profitable for 50/50s? Seems like taking a risk in 50/50s with picking wildcard players doesn't seem to fare well at all right? However for heads up, wouldn't it make sense playing a bit safe is pretty good strategy as well though not as safe as 50/50s? Since you would get paid same amount no matter if you have highest score or close to the middle score?
6. How many fantasy points do you need in order to get a top spot in a tournament? How many fantasy points is good for 50/50? What about heads up? I know for sure you need much more fantasy points in a tournament then compared to heads up and then of course 50/50.
7. I checked how many points is given for certain things like TD passes, TD rushes etc. How many fantasy points should one have goal for... for QB, RB, WR, TE, DEF etc? Obviously if you could find a QB that would throw 3TDs and 300 yards that would be idea. I also was surprised a RB that gets say 10 carries and only 30 yards but gets 3 TD Rushes is very good for fantasy until i read how much fantasy points a TD is worth.
Also I had read that for draftkings and fantasy sports, you will get a 1099 for the year assuming you profited at least $600. So basically if you are lazy, you don't even need to record your winnings for the year since draftkings will basically give you a 1099? That seems pretty sweet thinking about it as you don't have to track your winning and losses if they just give you the 1099.
Also does anyone know if USA players can play on draftkings if they are out of the country most of the year? For example being an American but living in Mexico most of the year? I did read Canada isn't an issue at all since Canadian players can play on draftkings. But what about people that live in Mexico or any other country that isn't USA or Canada?
