Daily Fantasy Sports: Read This Before Giving Your Money Away
December 9, 2017- Randy Dicker – I’ve heard pimpin’ ain’t easy, but I bet it’s easier than playing daily fantasy sports (DFS). I’ve given some thought into the mistakes I made early on in my DFS experience. I remember making my first deposit of $25.00 and jumping in to the contests that had the highest payouts. I set my lineups and sat back waiting for the money to start rolling in. At the end of the night my $25.00 was gone and I finished 99,200 out of 100,000 and 45,500 out of 50,000. Ahh, just a bump on the road to glory, so I did it again the next night, and the next night, and so on until I was hundreds of dollars in the hole. It was then I realized (yeah, I know I’m an idiot and it takes me longer to come to grips with my failures) I needed to dig into DFS and see what I was doing wrong and figure out a way to tell my wife that my “sure-thing” money making endeavor was an utter failure. Till death do us part, right?
This began my long road to better understanding DFS and what it takes to be successful and achieve longevity in a volatile game. I’ve pinpointed some knowledge that I wish I could have had before depositing money on any DFS platform. Let’s get in the trenches and start your road to glory.
Note: To start, we will be talking strategy on DraftKings and FanDuel. The reason for this is they are the most popular and, in my opinion, the most user friendly and straightforward DFS sites out there.
Get a Twitter Account
Twitter is the first thing this guy mentions about DFS, (WTF, is he high?). Fair question, as I am from the Denver area, but no, I’m not. Twitter is instant news and will become the first weapon in your resource arsenal. The key is following the right people. Each team has reporters that cover their practices, upcoming games, and talk about what is going on with players. This information is vital when setting a DFS line-up. You can find out who is healthy, injured, or has a bad match-up.
What makes it even easier is there are DFS accounts that follow all the teams, beat reporters, and post on their feed. These are free and save you a ton of research time, and can save you from playing someone who is injured or not playing at all.
Playing a player who isn’t playing, 9 times out of 10 is the kiss of death to your line-ups.
Twitter allows you to network with other DFS players, ask questions, and discover resources that will help you become a better player. The DFS community is, for the most part, full of people like you and me that play for fun, but have dreams of taking down a big tournament and winning $50,000-$100,000.
Do not pay for any services offered to you on your Twitter account. New frauds show up daily that claim they can sell you winning DFS lineups. They will find you eventually, follow you, and try to convince you to subscribe to their service. No matter how good it sounds, don’t do it. Most of these people suck at DFS and are trying to make money by scamming others.
I will help you with any questions you have and give you great resources to follow. There are many and I can’t begin to list them all here.
Explore and Educate Yourself
Whether you choose DraftKings or FanDuel, it is important to learn the ins and outs of each site. A common mistake people make is playing DraftKings and FanDuel the same way. Both sites are very different and require different strategies to be successful. Lineup configurations, scoring, game options, and player pricing varies from each site. My suggestion is to pick one when you first start. For me, FanDuel was easier for me to learn on. I find the usability and lineup construction easier to understand. However, you can choose whichever site you want as they both are a great product.
Create an account on whichever platform you choose. You can create an account without depositing any money. Take advantage of the free contests that each site offers. You can play other people in $0 contests and hone your skills before you start playing with your money. Also, both sites offer free contest that have a cash payout quite a few times a week. In fact, on DraftKings, I cashed in on a couple of these contests and haven’t had to deposit any money in over a year. This was after I learned bankroll management and contest selection, which we will cover in future articles.
Win by Losing
Stay with me now. DFS is not easy. It’s a tangled mess of statistics, strategies, emotions, hard decisions, second guessing, and losing more than your fair share of the time, and that’s the reason why I love it. No matter what you read or what anyone tells you, no one wins all the time. At the beginning, you will lose more than you win and that’s ok. All players do, but not all players take the time to understand why they lost. Some nights you will feel so damn excited about the lineup you submitted, only to check later and the lineup is a complete dud. Ask yourself, why was this line-up a dud? Did you roster a player with a bad-matchup on name alone, or was the team you focused on playing a back to back or three games in four days? These are just a few of many valuable lessons you can learn from a losing line-up.
Look at the lineups that cashed in your contests. How were they different from yours? Were they heavy on superstars with value players filled in or were their lineups balanced with only one superstar? I recommend getting a notebook and write your analysis down and go over the previous night the next day. By then your emotions have calmed down, and you can focus on how you’re going to win today by analyzing the lineups you lost with yesterday.
I want you to have fun playing DFS, even when you lose. Sure, it sucks to lose, and it will piss you off, but you need to be ready to jump back up on the horse the next night, learn from your losing lineups, and be in a better position to get back in the win column.
It’s going to be hard, but hopefully you can develop these habits before depositing any money. After you win a few free games and maybe even a little cash with the free money games, you will have a much better chance at becoming a profitable DFS player over time.
Thanks for reading and let me know about your DFS journey.
Next article: An in depth look at the types of DFS contests and strategies to be successful
