Daily Fantasy Sports

[DaveW]

Anyone else here play?  Figured we could start a thread re: stories, strategies etc.

 

Have had some success the past couple years (had to pay taxes in 2013 and 2014 for my winnings, not a ton but a few thousand profit each year)

 

This week had my biggest single "cash" in the Draftkings millionaire maker contest: $20 buy in, cashed $6,000 and came in 29th place out of 280,000.

 
Actually had an outside shot to win the whole million going into last night as I had two players left with Travis Benjamin and Crockett Gilmore, apparently I had the best shot of anyone still "alive" and was featured on the draft-kings tv show, which was pretty fun!

 

Benjamin had a nice game but Gilmore laid an egg, still, cant be too upset with a 300x profit.

 
My roster was:

Russell Wilson

Adrian Peterson

Dough Martin

Odell Beckam Jr

Brandon Marshall

Dough Baldwin

Crockett Gilmore

Vikings D

 

(Wilson+Baldwin were the clear MVP's of my team, both were low owned <5% and both came up big, Marshall had a huge game as well and was under 7% owned)

 

My other largest wins this year happened in back to back nights in baseball this year in early june, came in 3rd place out of 9000 two nights in a row in a $9 buy in. I will usually play 1-2 baseball contests a week if I have an evening free ($3-$9 buy in). NASCAR once in a while and NHL once in a while.

 

Typically I stick to football and the large GPP (guaranteed prize pool) contests for $3-$20 each. The strategy I have found to be "good" is the following:

 

1. Never overspend on a QB, I feel you always can find good value in the $5,000-$6,500 range.

2. Make sure you take a home team QB

3. Pair up the QB you pick with a WR or TE on the team (this pays off Wilson-Baldwin style)

4. You absolutely can't miss on WR in these contests. Too much variance.

5. Look at guys who have struggled at WR in the last few weeks but have had a lot of targets, it always comes around and likely they will be under owned.

6. Never take more than 2 guys from the same team.

7.Never spend more than $2500 salary on D

8. Take one RB sleeper and one TE or WR sleeper a week.

 

Overall I am up quite a bit on NFL, down a bit (15%) on NHL, about even on MLB, and up about 20% on NASCAR (LOL)

 

Any other experiences? Sites you prefer? Stories? Bad beats? Advice? etc?

 

 

 

[Mike Sixel]

Never done it.......but I have thought about it.

[T.C.]

Congrats! So do you go off of your gut and those tips or do you have a big computer program?

 

I've also given it some thought but with the recent news it seems a little sketchy.

[Vanimal46]

I've been a traditional fantasy football guy for 15 years, and have thought of making the switch to daily fantasy. I know some friends who play FanDuel and haven't had the best luck, which has kept me away from it so far. Along with the recent legal battles both FanDuel and Draft Kings are facing, like T.C. I'm a little sketchy to start.

 

Either way, enjoy the ride while you can! Eventually, like pokerstars, someone's going to put an end to it.

I will say daily would be the way to go for fantasy baseball, basketball, hockey, or NASCAR. I've tried traditional fantasy baseball before and have always lost interest in my team within a month after the draft. 

[DaveW]

 

I've been a traditional fantasy football guy for 15 years, and have thought of making the switch to daily fantasy. I know some friends who play FanDuel and haven't had the best luck, which has kept me away from it so far. Along with the recent legal battles both FanDuel and Draft Kings are facing, like T.C. I'm a little sketchy to start.

 

Either way, enjoy the ride while you can! Eventually, like pokerstars, someone's going to put an end to it.

I will say daily would be the way to go for fantasy baseball, basketball, hockey, or NASCAR. I've tried traditional fantasy baseball before and have always lost interest in my team within a month after the draft. 

In my experience it's not sketchy at all, the companies pay you out within 24 hours with no issues whatsoever.

 

The "insider info" stuff is sketchy, but that is why you should play the large guaranteed prize pools, where there are so many users that any "advantage" won't be as damaging or large overall. Stay away from head to head matchups etc as that is where it can bite you in the ass (if certain users have data on who you pick etc)

 

I don't think it will go away for good ala Poker Stars, too many leagues, teams, and big companies are either investors (NBC, Time Warner, Comcast, KKR) or have valuable partnerships (Disney, MLB, NFL, NBA etc) It just needs some regulation IMO.

 

As far as your friends who haven't had luck, nothing is fool proof, if it was we all would never lose, however with the slight amount of research and learn/follow some strategy's you give yourself an advantage over a good chunk of users who simply just throw darts at a board more or less, in that case you should be able to at least break even long term and should end up "up" overall. You won't get rich off it, but you won't lose your ass if you play smart (much like Poker strategy long term)

[DaveW]

 

 

Congrats! So do you go off of your gut and those tips or do you have a big computer program?

 

I've also given it some thought but with the recent news it seems a little sketchy.

I do a combination of research and gut, I read a couple different sites and pay for the draftkings package on rotogrinders.com (for baseball only). For baseball the data is invaluable I'd say its 80% research 20% gut for me, for NFL it comes down to more "gut" and its about 50% research and 50% gut (guesses on who will be undervalued and owned)

[Vanimal46]

http://www.atlredline.com/new-york-judge-orders-fanduel-and-draftkings-to-shut-do-1747531690

Daily Fantasy shut down temporarily in New York. Your thoughts?

[DaveW]

 

http://www.atlredline.com/new-york-judge-orders-fanduel-and-draftkings-to-shut-do-1747531690

Daily Fantasy shut down temporarily in New York. Your thoughts?

Stupid and a waste of time for the state government to be doing this crap.

 

Nothing a proxy and using my girlfriends folks house for an address won't fix...

[Vanimal46]

Now that I'm officially eliminated from the championship game in my traditional fantasy football league, I'm planning on giving daily fantasy a try. Would you say DraftKings is the site to use? Heard anything good about Fan Duel?

[DaveW]

 

Now that I'm officially eliminated from the championship game in my traditional fantasy football league, I'm planning on giving daily fantasy a try. Would you say DraftKings is the site to use? Heard anything good about Fan Duel?

They both are pretty similar, you can't play Fan Duel in NY any more so I have been on the draft kings bandwagon.

 

I think both offer similar sign up bonuses, I like the draft kings app, and layout a bit more to be honest. I have a promo code you can use to get the max bonus and some free "entries" to contests and stuff, feel free to pm me for it.

 

Also Draft kings lets you change your lineup later in the day if one of your late games players gets ruled out (i.e. if you would pick a RB who is questionable for the 8pm game and he gets ruled out, you can swap him out with another guy, on fan duel you can't do that)

[Vanimal46]

Great, now the state I live in Texas has declared Daily Fantasy Sports illegal 

It was a good run while it lasted..... Daily Fantasy Sports (2014-2015) RIP

[Mike Sixel]

Whatever happened to freedom and capitalism? 

[DaveW]

 

Great, now the state I live in Texas has declared Daily Fantasy Sports illegal 

It was a good run while it lasted..... Daily Fantasy Sports (2014-2015) RIP

Have they actually banned it yet?

 

YOu can still play in NY, Illinois etc in the meantime.

[Shane Wahl]

Haha.

I am playing $1 NBA contests through Yahoo right now. I am down overall, but have had a few good days. I definitely am going to look at doing much more very soon.

(By the way, the treatment of daily fantasy sports as "not a skill game" is laughable).

[DaveW]

Sweet Spam!

[DaveW]

Anyone gonna play this year? I went and checked into my draft kings account and started playing some MLB this last couple weeks leading up to NFL.

 

Good day yesterday: won $1160 cash in a tournament and an entry to a $1869 buy in main event for 9/5.(thanks Buxton! That 3rd home run took me from about $500 of winnings to $3000) I wish I could just "sell that ticket" though to be honest.

 

Not bad for $35 total spent. And gives me a nice chunk to play with for NFL this year. First few weeks should be good as always as you get a lot of new folks who just pick chalk or homer picks non stop.