If you’re giving up on your fantasy football teams midway through the season, it may be time to check out Daily Fantasy Football.
That’s site’s like DraftKings and FanDuel. You’ve definitely seen the names but maybe wondering what it’s all about.
We know Coal Region Canary readers are die-hard sports fans and don’t mind winning a little beer money watching the games. So, we connected with @FlashlightDFS to offer up some unique daily fantasy football advice for you.
In addition to helpful guides, FlashlightDFS is also going to provide some lineup advice week to week through the NFL season as well as some winning strategy tips to help you have more fun playing Daily Fantasy Football.
For more from FlashlightDFS, be sure to follow the account on Twitter.
Daily Fantasy Football Advice
As proud residents of Pennsylvania we’re lucky to have both daily fantasy sports as well as online sports gambling legalized in our fair commonwealth. While there are several sites that provide DFS services, the lion’s share of DFS action is on FanDuel and DraftKings so those are the two sites I’ll focus on.
My primary role here will be to cover Fantasy Sports for the Canary. I’ve been playing and winning at seasonal fantasy football for over 15 years and have been winning at DFS for over 5 years. I’m not a high stakes player. I don’t put thousands of dollars in to play each weekend. My personal goal each year for DFS is to earn enough money to cover some awesome Christmas presents.
What is Daily Fantasy Football?
Both FanDuel (FD) and DraftKings (DK) operate on similar principles. It’s one week fantasy football games where you fill your team within the constraints of a predetermined salary cap. Players are assigned a salary each week by a pricing algorithm that takes a bevy of factors into account. Contests are one week only. After the conclusion of the games you either win or lose, get paid out and then move on to play the next week. Contest entry fees range from free to well over $1,000 depending on your appetite for risk and disposable income.
I start off with a budget for the season, work my process each week consistently and have found success doing that. But it’s important to keep in mind that I see DFS as entertainment, the cherry on top of my NFL Sunday if you will. Just like with the stock market or any other investment, you have to accept the risk of loss, so don’t put any money in play that you can’t walk away from.
Daily Fantasy Football Lingo? What Do I Need to Know?
As we move through the season I’ll use some lingo that will help with brevity so I can keep things as concise as possible. Here’s a short glossary of the most commonly used terms so you can get familiar with them:
DFS: Daily Fantasy Sports
FD: FanDuel
DK: DraftKings
Double Up – Contest where generally the top 43-44% of players double their entry fee ($25 winning entry pays $50). The remaining 6-7% is kept by the site (known as the rake). More common on DraftKings.
50/50 – Contest where the top 50% win the same amount, usually about 180% of the entry fee ($25 winning entry pays $45). The balance is the rake. More common on FanDuel.
Cash Games – Generally refers to both Double Up and 50/50 contests. Similar gameplay principals can be applied.
Rake – The fee the site charges to administer the contests. Varies by contest site, size, contest type and entry fee.
Tournaments – Contests where the winnings are concentrated to only the top 20-25% of players with a large majority concentrated in the top 10-20 spots. These contests can have payouts to the winner ranging from a few hundred dollars up to the millions. Commonly also referred to as GPP’s.
GPP – Guaranteed Prize Pool. These are contests (usually tournaments) where the site guarantees the size of the prize payout pool regardless of if the contest fills or not.
Getting Started in Daily Fantasy Football
How do you get started? Just create an account on FD or DK. Both have great apps so you can play on the go. There are links below to both sites. They are offering new sign up deals where you (and I) get a little free cash once you make a deposit and play. Scoring & lineup construction is similar between both sites but there are some differences between the two which I’ll cover in a future post.
Full disclosure: I play more on FD than DK but that’s just me.
Image: Depositphotos.com
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