NASCAR on Draft Kings is a Brand New Game

There are times when I want to say that Draft Kings runs the best DFS site out there.  They have Great Software, they get the baseball game right, they have a special Section for beginners, and good customer service.  What stops me from ever giving this endorsement is that they have this one SERIOUS drawback.  As a matter of fact, this one problem on Draft Kings is 10 times more heinous than pretty much all of the other DFS website's quirks combined.

Draft Kings like to change the game around to maliciously screw with their paying customers.

I don't know why they do this: It's more subtle in baseball, they do odd things like decide arbitrarily to add SS eligibility to Tyler Saladino, who has played 1 career game at that position, while taking away eligibilities from guys like Chris Davis, Billy Hamilton, Dee Gordon, etc.  This subtly changes the game.  But I'm here to talk about Draft Kings screwing with Fantasy NASCAR.  What I saw when I went to check values in a preliminary look at this week's race in Pocono

Draft Kings decided to screw with the players of this game by changing the number of drivers from 5 to 6.

Note: these are not my picks; I wanted to see what kind of lineup I could make if I took Harvick & Busch.

Nothing subtle here.  No corresponding move up in dollars alloted for a lineup. Sure, there's significant adjustments in the Driver salaries. But that's just another difference you'll have to come to learn and understand.

It's a entirely different game Sunday than it was last Sunday.  DFS proponents like to liken the DFS game to Golf when talking about it as a game of skill.  This change Draft Kings instituted would be like take then total Yardage of Round of Golf at the Masters, keeping that constant, but dividing it out over 20 holes instead of 18. 

Well, anyway, you used to be able to field 5 drivers around an easily understandable average pivot point of 10K.  The new pivot is $8.333 on 6 drivers.  There are no drivers below that $8000 who Vegas feels has a better than 100 to 1 chance of winning.

Plus, with the extra car in your lineup, you chances of picking a driver who gets into a crash goes up 17%..

Draft Kings has also removed any scoring for Pass Differential, leaving only Place Differential as a place for scoring for drivers who aren't among the few who lead laps or have fastest laps.

Anyway, the focus of the NASCAR game has changed, here are some bullet points:

1. As the top driver almost always scores 100 points, whereas good drivers score in the 40-60 range, there is much more emphasis on picking the winner of the race than there was before.
2. Kevin Harvick is $3367 more expensive than the midpoint salary.  The cheapest Drivers (Timmy Hill & Travis Kvapil) are prices at $5600 only $2733 from the mean.  You draft Harvick, you have to pick two subpar drivers to balance.
3. The value plays for your sixth position are probably going to come from the last row of the starting lineup.  Learn to love the last row.  Cole Whitt has historically returned .294 FFP/per $100 of salary, good for 13th best per $100 just behind Martin Truex and ahead of Matt Kenseth.
4. Scores will probably be lower going forward.  Some will field a fleet of average racers, where a good day will probably be around 250 points (6 drivers at 42 points).  However, a stars and scrubs lineup will be necessary for tournaments because 100 points from one driver is like 2.5 good drivers.
5. You're lower end priced drivers will have there scoring point value almost exclusively determined by where they finish the race.  Lineup position will be a more critical factor for choosing drivers with salaries below $8000.  
6. You may want to field different lineups in tournaments versus head to heads, as in other DFS games.  Up to this point, this was kind of unnecessary.
7. This is only the first of many Draft Kings changes to NASCAR DFS, if past performance is any indication.  Don't get too comfortable going forward.

On the plus side, if you never played before, you can start this weekend because everybody is basically back to square one.

Not all bad news for the Night.

Lost $10 on Yahoo, $6 on Draft Kings, broke even on Fan Duel.

Good news is I won $10 on Victiv with a free ticket they gave me for creating a free account without an money deposited.  Here's the full screen shot of the happy totals, which saved my awful day, turning it into a loss of just 6 bucks, cause it was all profit.

All's well that ends marginally better than you had thought, I guess.  I really like the interface on Victiv, I just need to understand the game better..

The Big Gamble

DFS has been classified as a game of skill.  I question this.  "Question" might be a little mild.  I have serious doubts, but that's the way I see it.  There is little doubt that some people win more than they lose, myself included [I don't make scads of cash, you need to win at a clip significantly better than 50% to keep your head above water].

I've had a renaissance of late, nearly doubling my money in about 10 days.  Admittedly, I hit a 5x win

on a $3 tournament and a 4x win on a $5 tournament, which accounts for about 20% of my recent progress.

I've talked about my rethinking my pitching strategy; a process of simplification, but there's more to it than that. I know DFS is called a game of skill, but I've done better because I've focused it on a gambling endeavor.

In a true bet on baseball, the kind that could keep you out of the Hall Of Fame, you focus on the team you think is going to win and lay your money down there.  You have your reasons, your process, your analysis, whatever, but boil it down; what you are doing is letting your money say "I think Team A will beat Team B."  Simple and elegant.  And apparently, not complex enough to be considered a skill.

Which brings me to my core revelation and recently adopted strategy at DFS baseball: I'm letting my money tell whoever I'm facing that, "I think this pitcher or pitchers will be good today."

That's the key:  DFS baseball is a game of gambling on Pitchers.

The way I had been going about things is picking the best pitching I could imagine and piece-mealing a team of cheap hitters in the hopes that a few of them would add enough to my totals to give me a winning score.  On a team of eight batters in a lineup, six of them would be cost-driven plays.  So I would need half of these picks to be productive to have a truly positive night.  Getting 3 out of 6 right considering the long odds on cheap players is not one that you can have long term success with, or reasonably expect to repeat with any regularity.  Some people are lucky, but no one is that lucky.

I've found it's better to spend your time, energy, and research trying to find a good reason to target one reasonably priced pitcher, so that you can field a batting lineup of good hitters.  And just like the $2700 outfielder who scores 7 on Draft Kings with a double and an RBI is good enough.  A cheap pitcher can add enough to your lineup with 15 points [basically a Quality Start with a win, or 5K's], provided there's no one you're facing with double these numbers from his Starting Pitcher.

I'd rather put my money on a Chris Tillman or a Zack Godfrey and have one thing to root for, assured in the knowledge that the Rays or the Mariners don't hit that well, than really have to hope that Nick Ahmed, Addison Russell, and Nolan Reimold all have decent games on the same night. You can focus your skill on one thing and improve your odds of getting in right. I've repeatedly said that one should be on the lookout for pricing errors by the DFS site.  There is absolutely no reason to expect them to be infallible on the pitching side of the equation.

I believe it's important to face our bad decsions

A by-product of this is significant variations in your day to day scores.  There will be more days when I lose badly.  Tonight, I have one lineup in real danger of not making it to 30 points; thanks to my money being principally carried on the back of an imploded A.J. Burnett.  But it also means that when you hit, your numbers will be higher [I've had more scores over 120 in the past 10 days that ever before, getting three teams beyond the 150 threshold].  What that does is allow the really nice 3x, 4x, 5x or better payoffs in your tournaments, to make up for the more frequent $0 dollar win nights as I'm having tonight.

Some authorities in DFS call this "Tournament Lineup" strategy.  I don't see why it doesn't pertain to every lineup you play.  I'm not saying play a cheap pitcher because he's cheap; I'm saying play a affordable pitcher because you believe he's going to have one of the better outings of the day's slate.  I work on the philosophy most nights of trying to put together the best lineup I can.  It's logically impossible to have 2 "best lineups."

A Look at your Opponent's Cards

As I, and others, have noted, DFS is a lot like Poker.  One of the more important skills you develop from playing a lot of hands of cards is tangible feeling for what cards are held with other players hole cards.  You never know 100% for sure, just like you never really what batters or pitchers another player has in his lineup.  But without this skill, there is no way to wager effectively in Poker, which is just as true in DFS.

You need to be aware of what could be in the other teams lineups.

Sure, it's a complete unknown, but any player you would consider playing has a likelihood of popping up in other lineups (and what it's like facing).

• Big Dollar Stud Pitchers 

I've called this the "Clayton Kershaw" effect, but whenever a pitcher like him takes the mound you know there will be a lot of lineups with these guys in it.  You know it because you tried to field a lineup with a $13,200 Chris Sale on Draft Kings,or a $12,500 Max Scherzer on Fan Duel.  In poker, most people only bet the good hands, and fielding a Kershaw, Sale, or Scherzer means the hand is starting off pretty darn strong.  On "Clayton Kershaw" days, I tend to limit my dollars bet and look more toward triple ups or better because: (1) If I play him, I tend to not love the roster I put together,or (2) If I don't play him, I don't want to take the chance that he goes off along with some unpredictable cheap hitters on that guys team.  It's the way you bet when you have a good feel that someone's holding a high pair: stay in if it's cheap enough, don't call a pricey bet, and look for excellent pot ratios to stay in the game.

• Big Dollar Stud Hitters  

Mike Trout is super dangerous.  Bryce Harper is super dangerous.  Paul Goldschmidt is super dangerous.  There's a secondary tier of these guys, but these are the big three.  Whenever you're in after the opening bet in a game of cards, you just know that someone is holding some face cards, more often than not an Ace. It's not bad strategy to occasionally play a lesser hand in the hopes of a favorable flop, because they are not just possible, but more likely than you think.  But you have to bet knowing the real possibility of their existence.  In DFS terms, this doesn't stop you from betting all the money you want to bet, but it shifts me toward 50/50's, if I don't choose to field them.  

• Anybody who is underpriced 

Occasionally, the sites just miss the mark on the value of a player.  Normally, it occurs when a player inherits a starting job due to injury, or moves up the batting order, or some other shake up on their baseball team.  Just this week, the Troy Tulowitski trade to Toronto dropped his price to under $4000 on Draft Kings.  A numerical algorithm can't predict what a new venue will do for a player.  These guys are all good gambles for the price, and they should make up a large percentage of your roster.  For the price, the possible returns with a good flop can't be dismissed.  If you hold a pair of 9's, a single nine on the flop is a harbinger of a good payout.

• Anybody Dirt Cheap.

Because everybody is trying to roster the highest dollar pitchers and hitters, the guys at or very near the bottom of the cost structure (Draft Kings $2800-$2000, Fan Duel $2500-$2200, Yahoo $7-$10).  In poker, you are never going to put money on these bad hands, but in DFS it's like taking a Deuce to guarantee your self an Ace.  If rostering Carlos Sanchez allows me to get at Clayton Kershaw, sign me up. So these schlubs are scattered throughout lineups played.  If the flop comes, 7-7-2, they are going to take your money.  If a $2200 Melvin Upton Jr homers and steals a base, you just chalk it up to bad luck.  It won't happen too often, but happens enough that it's something you need to be aware of.

• Anybody Playing in Coors Field

When a game is being held in Denver, you take notice.  More runs are scored there than any other stadium.  The stadium makes good players great, but more importantly makes bad players solid, and solid players good.  You can get good nights out of cheap opposing backups Catchers and it makes the Ben Paulsen's of the world look awesome.  It is the true Joker of the DFS game.  If you're not playing these guys, you're making a mistake.  And when you don't they are going to be owned more than you want.  I prefer playing games when the Rockies are on the road because you get truer outcomes.  If I put together a good line with limited players from a game in Colorado, I will reduce my betting because the specter of Coors Field is not to be trifled with.

26 Run Games..

...will screw your evening in DFS if you're not in on it. I had almost no part in the New York Yankees 21-5 trouncing of the Texas Rangers.  Probably first time I didn't play Chris Young vs. a lefty in months.

These games are rare, but they are deadly.  Especially when a team as popular as the Yankees are involved.  I took it on the chin tonight, and gave back easily half my previous nights winnings. Too many people love Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira more than I do, even at their incredibly high prices.  Bigger payouts for running out schmucks like Didi Gregorius or John Ryan Murphy.  These kind of games shift the average score up significantly, and the high scores even more so.  The tournament I was in on Draft Kings had the winner at 226 pts, on Fan Duel it was a silly 92.5 (cut this number in half and you could probably sweep H2H games most nights).

I've spoke of this sort of Landmine before, when the Orioles put up the same sort of silly number back in late April.  I had forgotten about it.  This occurrence is rare, and if you're not in on the action, you have no choice, but to taste the pain and curl into a fetal position.   My advice is to turn off the TV or Computer and go to bed early for a change, content with the knowledge you'll have a little less money come tomorrow morning..

Can this sort of thing be predicted?  The Vegas line set the highest over/unders on three games tonight at 9.5, and to there credit this was one of them.  The other two were the Pirates/Twins (8-7) and the Blue Jays/Phillies (3-2).  One cannot say Vegas was infallible this night.

This is simply something a player needs to be aware of.  Consider this advice the equivalent of a "Watch for Falling Rocks" sign.  If a rock is going to fall on your car while your traveling at 70 MPH along the Tennessee highway, pretty much your going to take the hit.  The important thing is how fast you recuperate.

Finally, a Fan Duel Tournament Win.

Got off the schneid in a big way on the Fan Duel side of things.
Turned $2 into $30 thanks to Carlos Gonzalez, Paul Goldschmidt, Chris Heston & Friends.

Swept my dailies there to even a trouncing of csuram88 (much less menacing without the capital letters).  Here's my winning lineup.

The coolest thing was the intentional walk in the bottom of the ninth to Robinson Cano jumped me from $30, after Austin Jackson's out dropped me to $20.

Won $13 bucks on Yahoo (A $5 & $2 50/50), and $8 in a $5 tournament on Draft Kings with similar lineups.

Visualize Awfulness

On Victiv, I thought I'd play it cute and use the Dodgers pitching staff versus a Mets team that considers Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson as hitting upgrades.  Use the savings to load the roster, play in a low dollar, high reward tournament.  The Dodgers Staff put up a -15.5; I wouldn't have thought the Mets would have scored 15 runs for the rest of the month. The visual of this is awesome.  They don't have a way to graph negative numbers. I think I came in last.

And then on Yahoo, I missed cashing in a similar tournament by 1 point and 4 places.  I ran Tommy Milone out instead of the unavailable Zach Lee.

You're not really enjoying this game if you can't laugh at yourself.

Quick Player Replace.

Fan Duel, why do yo do this to me?

Tonight, I had a player on every one my cash lineups on all sites I play on.  He's a Cuban hitter on the Dodgers with no fielding position to speak of, by the name of Alex Guerrero.  I can't shake him; the dude can hit; he's always cheap; I can't resist.  But today he was a late scratch.

I didn't have much time, and because of the locking rules on Fan Duel, I went there first. hit their Quick Player Replace but and put the first guy I could find who I knew was playing today, OF eligible and cost less than $2300.  I marked in Juan Lagares of the lowly NY Mets.

I then went to my Draft Kings account, because the only other dirt cheap option I was considering was Ryan Raburn of the Tigers.  I jumped over to Draft Day and swapped out my Alex Guerrero there.  I noticed that Tucker Barnhardt was cheap and thought he is playing in Colorado, if I go back to Fan Duel, swap Barnhardt in at Catcher, I could chose a better hitter than Lagares in the outfield. I swapped Nick Hundley out at Catcher and moved Scott Van Slyke into the Outfield, when I clicked submit, it gave me a message that because of the "processing time" and the individual nature of the replacement process, this transaction may not reflect on all of my lineups.

So I looked at my 4 matchups, and not only did this transaction not take place, but Alexander Guerrero, who is not playing tonight is still on every one of my rosters.  So I email the folks at Fan Duel.  Asking if they can manually make the changes.  They replied that I tried to do this after the games started:

So there's the lesson to be learned: On Fan Duel, Never trust quick player replace.  If you need to use it check and double check it.  And if you need to resubmit, don't do it, because they'll take the resubmit time and tell you to get lost.  On the plus side, they think I can' visits four websites, make complex decisions in the DFS games, make necessary changes, withing the same fraction of a second.

Giving Yahoo DFS it's Due...

The biggest news in the world of DFS is Yahoo entering the marketplace.  I haven't heard enough opinion on it, which I believe is because most podcasts & websites, simply aren't allowed to talk about it.  Draft Kings & Fan Duel have strategic partnerships with virtually everybody.  And smart sponsors don't like you talking much, if at all about the competition.

I gave my initial impression on Yahoo DFS the day it rolled out.  I've got a few games under my belt both in Head to Head and Tournament Style.  It's hard to pass judgment before really getting to know the site.  But from what I seen so far, I like it.  My initial impression was a little negative, not because Yahoo DFS was poorly designed, but because I was expecting an awful lot from them, because their Fantasy products have been so good for so long.

Yahoo's Game Lobby

Honestly, Yahoo DFS is as good as anything out there.  Not better, certainly not worse, but as good. I heard someone on the Tony Cincotta podcast describe them as "Taking the best ideas from both Fan Duel and Draft Kings," which I think sums it up pretty well.  The Yahoo site basically takes the clean, almost oversimplified web presence of Fan Duel, which more people are familiar with; overlays it with a game that is more reminiscent of the better baseball experience one gets on Draft Kings, with a Game Selection Lobby that looks just like Victiv.  This being said, I can now revisit my opinion.

Things I knew I'd  Like

What A Yahoo Lineup card Looks like

• They use the much more playable two pitcher format.
• They allow interday player substitutions before the start of the actual baseball game.
• The interaction between my daily and season long play

Things that grew on me.

• The 8 points for a pitcher win.

At first it seemed like two much for such an unpredictable stat category, but in reality it normalize the over scored strikeout stat versus the good pitcher who gets a Win more often than a loss but doesn't have the K's.

• The $200 salary system.

I thought you wind up paying a larger percentage of your budget on Pitching. Take today's Max Scherzer, he's $62 on Yahoo (31% of budget), $14K on Draft Kings (28%), and $12K on Fan Duel (34%), certainly on par.  And the cheapest player on Yahoo is $7 (.035%), while FanDuel's $2200 (.063%) and Draft Kings $2K (.04%) are actually higher.  It just looks worse simply because it's different.

Things I hope will change for the better.

What a Yahoo head to head match looks like

• Site service fees are still high.

I hoped they're power in the industry could move the service fee to something more reasonable.  I would gladly trade the deposit bonus for better winnings, which brings with it a better chance of noticeable profitability.

• Lack of deposit bonuses.

I've been scared to deposit any money and have only played the very small amount I already had on credit with Yahoo (less than $7).  I fear that when they roll this out, it will be a first time depositor bonus, and I don't want to not be a first time depositor when that time comes. 

• Some innovation in the DFS game

I was hoping for something smart and new, and what they gave me was an amalgam of the best DFS offers so far.  I still think this is coming.  I see the mid-season baseball launch as a "soft" opening to get the bugs out before Football Season.

Objectively, speaking, I think the site is just as playable as Draft Kings, and jumps immediately into my number #2 spot for DFS baseball.  I hope that it enhances competition to birth innovation and drive down costs.  Yahoo, having the player retention part of the game already won, has the capacity to be everything we hoped.

Ranking the DFS Sites by Popularity

In my last post, I basically ranted about my displeasure with Fan Duel and their daily baseball game.  I posed the question, "How do they keep winning awards?" with a clearly inferior baseball product.  Having access to the internet, I decided to google the question.  I stumbled across a listing for the Alexa rankings for each of the DFS sites.  The article tabulated the data for each site in December, right at the peak of Football Season,  With a few handy taps on my keyboard I was able to recreate that list for today, smack dab in the middle of the baseball season.  Yahoo isn't in the mix, partly because it didn't exist back in December, but partly because it doesn't parse out Yahoo DFS from Yahoo proper, but for reference Yahoo is the 5th most visited website today.

US Alexa Ranking	December 2014	July 2015	Change
Fan Duel	274	1716	-1442
Draft Kings	668	1789	-1121
Victiv	14477	46388	-31911
Fantasy Aces	37718	52524	-14806
Draft Day	17779	67845	-50066
Fantasy Feud	67868	98546	-30678
Fantasy Score	60703	197433	-136730

Fan Duel
I love a good statistical table and the trends it can reveal.  Fan Duel's 274 ranking during Football Season is formidable.  And something that should be noted.  I mused that maybe their DFS Football is awesome.  Well, if people flocking to the site is any indication, and it probably is, their Football game is something I deeply look forward to playing come September.  Let this serve as a public apology to the good folks at Fan Duel for any thing I may have done to offend.

Draft Kings
During baseball season, second place Draft Kings basically runs neck-and-neck with the market leader Fan Duel.  I think this means that the typical DFS player knows what I generally have hinted at elsewhere on this site.  Draft Kings lays out a really good product for DFS baseball, arguably the best out there.  The 668 ranking during Football Season shows strong performance and hints at what I perceive to be the Draft Kings strategy:  To be strong across the board at all games.  As they have rolled out sports like Soccer, NASCAR, and Golf into the DFS world, all with very playable systems, I think this assumption is accurate.

Football Numbers vs. Baseball Numbers
The huge dropoffs for DFS baseball versus DFS football, may make me rethink my opinion on the importance of longer year long sports like Baseball and Basketball.  When Fan Duel jumps from 1716 to 274, it does not translate to 6.25x as many hits, but a number far greater.  And the drop off for baseball is pretty staggering across the board.  If this DFS football boost brings 10x the players to your site in the fall, then a 17 game season plays out function like a 170 game season.  In other words Football is probably more important than Baseball within the DFS universe.  Fan Duel's strategy of focusing on the Football Marketplace may not be visionary, but certainly is sound.

There's more to be gleaned here, but these the big ideas.

So who has the best DFS site out there?  I am reminded of a similar question I was asked a decade ago.  As a whiskey drinker, I was asked do you prefer Bourbon or Scotch?  Both of them being separate apexes in the domain of dark spirits, I was perplexed.  I finally answered, "I love them both, and I find myself more drinking Bourbon in the Summer and more Scotch in winter, as it just seems right to do it that way."  I don't know yet, but maybe Draft Kings is my Summer Love, and Fan Duel rules my Winters.  And maybe it will just seem right to do it that way.  And maybe my dabbling into other sites is my occasional romance with Tequila or Rum or Irish Whiskey.  I don't know how Yahoo fits this metaphor, It may very well be the more universally loved Beer & Wine of DFS.

The Clayton Kershaw Effect....

Noticed something going into today's games.   I wasn't looking forward to playing DFS baseball today and I isolated the cause.

Clayton Kershaw

I love the guy.  One helluva a hurler.  But you face the dilemma of paying a boatload of money for him and fielding a mediocre batting roster; or not fielding him, having a decent lineup otherwise, and facing the guy in way to many games.  He was $13,000 on Fan Duel!!! Out of $35,000.  You get on $22,000 to field 8 batters.  You are not getting any good hitters with him on your roster.  Even his $12,400 on Draft Kings isn't easy to swallow and field a roster you can go into the day's games confident in.

And then as I listened to the CBS fantasy baseball podcast in my car, they basically said you have to field Clayton Kershaw today.  And they only play FanDuel.  They tagged him a "slam dunk."  How could a Fan Duel player love expensive Kershaw days?

Then it hit me, it's the big problem with Fan Duel.  With it's one pitcher format and scoring system that gives average pitchers as many points as a hitter who goes 2-5 with a Home Run and 3 RBI (8.25 pts), the advantage of Kershaw is that everybody takes him.  So that Pitcher is taken out of the pitcher making the game, not single position dependent for a change. You can actually look forward to a game where a single less than stellar pick doesn't sink your whole fleet.

It makes the game a fair fight.  A situation where you might have an interesting matchup for the night. Your scrub hitters versus my scrub hitters.  Not something I really want to put money on, but more interesting than normal.  Which kind of explains why I haven't got too excited about my time on Fan Duel.  It's setup leads to far too many uninteresting nights (as dull when I lose or win because of the Pitcher score spacing). How do they lead the marketplace? How do they win awards from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association for best product?  Such is the mysteries of our faith.  Their DFS Football must be awesome, I guess.

Clayton Kershaw did not disappoint versus the hapless NY Mets.  He went 9 inning for the win, with 3 hits allowed, no walks, and 11 strikeouts.  He scored 24 points on Fan Duel, 4 points more than the next best guy there (Franscisco Liriano's 20).  Kershaw racked up 49.45 on Draft Kings 14.05 ahead of the #2 guy (again Liriano).

I didn't really play today.  I did toss out $7 on the late slate, but my heart wasn't in it.  It looks like I'll get $3.60 back, but I probably should have sat the day out. 

Free Daily Fantasy Baseball

You wouldn't have stumbled upon this site unless you were at least a wee bit curious about the Daily
Fantasy game that seem to be sweeping the Fantasy Universe.  You can try it out for free without any cost or obligation on many of the sites that are out there.  Here's a run down of what's what by amount you can win without forking over any of your good hard cash.  In nearly all of these games the odds of winning aren't too high, but "hey, what do you want for nothing?"  They are good ways to get the feel for the game.

DRAFTDAY.Com
Has several interesting DFS type games daily.  The Perfect Lineup game has you choose the best player at each position without salaries and if you get all positions perfectly right, you win $1 Million Dollars. The top 10 finishers earn a $5 entry into another tournament.  They have a 400 Club Game where $100 can be own if you are the only one to hit 400 points with your lineup.  If more than one team does it, they divide the $100 equally among them.  The site also offers a Pick 'Em game and a Freeballin' game where you can win $1 if you come in first place, with Quarters handed out to 2nd through 16th in the latter game.  Free account signup required.

VICTIV.COM
By Far the most generous free games to the average player.  When you sign up, they give you 5 free Bankroll Builder games, where you play a head to head game versus a computer generated opponent. If you win, you get a $5 ticket to play in any 5 dollar game.  As you only have to win one game against one opponent, this is by far the easiest way to start in DFS without any money.  Win this you can enter a high payout tourney,or a $5 50/50 if you just want to grow your bankroll. They also offer a daily Change Up Starter Free roll, where they give away $12.50 daily to the top 50 participants at a Quarter a piece.  Free account signup also required.

DRAFTKINGS.COM
This is my favorite site, but the free games for cash is one place it is lacking.  They run several free tournaments daily where you can win what they call a Step 1 ticket, and that only goes to the top five players.  This is an entry into a 4 Step contest, where the winner in the 4th Step gets $200.   This is more for getting a feel for the way they game is played on the site, rather than getting starter money.  Free account required.

YAHOO.COM
They are new to the DFS World and you probably already have an account there.  They are currently running a Daily Free Roll where they pay out the top 25 of as many as 10000 entrants $100, including $30 to first place.  Healthy payouts long odds.  But a decent place to tip your toe in the water.  The photo at right is the best I've ever done here.  Account Required.

FANDUEL.COM
Offers no published daily games for money, only what they call "Free Practice" for no money.  However, if you create an account, you will get an invitation to 2 or 3 limited space free rolls a month.  The last one I entered paid out $1000 to the first place finisher, who by the way, wasn't me.

This one isn't exactly a true DFS game, but it follows similar principles, and the payout is 
too good be be ignored.  

MLB.COM's BEAT THE STREAK
very simple idea, pick a batter or two a day who you think will get a hit that day.  If you get it wrong, start over.  If you get it right a number of times that exceeds Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak, they will pay you $5.5 Million Dollars   Not true DFS Baseball, but a nice free way to start to understand the process of picking hitters on a daily basis.  No one has ever done this in the 15 year history of the game, but maybe you could be the first. Does require setting up a free account with MLB.com.

The importance of checking daily Lineups..

You really can't assume anyone is playing on a given day.  I made that mistake, along with what I believe to be countless others, yesterday.  With a 4 day break less than a week ago, I just sort of assumed no star player would get "a routine day" off this close to the All-Star Break.

My strategy last night was to take a Cheap Pitcher I thought might have a good night in the very good prospect Joe Ross of the Washington Nationals.  With a price of $5000 on both Draft Kings and Fan Duel, it would give me ample room to field a power packed lineup.  On Draft Kings this allowed me to get both Mike Trout and Jose Bautista into my outfield.  On Fan Duel, where the salary cap is $15K lower, I was only able to get Mike Trout.  I put together lineups on both sites I was very secure with and went out to meet friends that night.

And then, an hour before the Angels-Twins game was about to start, the news came that Mike Trout was scratched with some kind of unforeseen heel problem.  On Fan Duel, I was out of luck because the format used there locks rosters completely at start of the first game.  By the time Trout's injury became public (around 9pm), anyone who ponied up the better than 1/7th of the allotted salary space was going to take a big fat zero from the $5200 spent on the Angels Superstar.  The photo shows my seven point loss to Crazey Gabey of the Rotogrinders Daily Fantasy Fix podcast I spoke of before.  Honestly, there's no sour grapes here, but had I been aware of the lineup conditions and were allowed to change my roster, moving from Trout to Jose Bautista would have still put me behind, but by less that a single point.  I wound up just losing the Service Fees on Fan Duel last night, by winning as many as I lost, a good night considering I was playing a man down, but if I could have made a switch, I would have won every game but this one.

On Draft Kings, you are allowed to make a replacement within the contest from among players in games not yet started.  A policy the Yahoo has wisely adopted in its fledgling game,   I must admit that because I was no where near a computer when the news came out, I rostered Mike Trout pretty much everywhere.  I still ran the table in my games on Draft Kings because Kyle Schwarber and Gerardo Parra came through big for me.  The lineup card at the right shows how I construct a lineup utilizing the "cheap but solid" pitcher strategy.  Joe Ross earning 15.25 points (and 8.33 on Fan Duel) is all you could hope for considering the price.  I got a bunch of real monsters throughout my hitting lineup and put up a terrific number, even with Troy Tulowitski letting me down and Mike Trout's night off.  But oh what could have been had I been paying attention in my tournaments!

I've spoke about my difficulties with Fan Duel, and I think last night clarified the part of the issue that isn't completely my fault.  There's a lot more luck on the Fan Duel side because the one pitcher format makes the outing your pitcher has pretty much determine how your night will fare. You can get away with sloughing your pitcher when he's priced at $5000, but if you simply try to save a little cash out of the position by dropping from $10K to $8K, the savings probably won't have a great impact on your hitting lineup.

The second "systemic" problem is that the locking of the roster greatly increases your chances of beating yourself rather than getting beaten.  A noticeable percentage of your losses are going to come on days the lineup you field simply stinks.  Your pitcher implodes, your batters hit .125 on the night, whatever.  A small percent of these awful night are caused by your personal mismanagement of your team.  Like playing a guy in a game that gets rained out, or starting a player who isn't playing a la Mike Trout.  With Fan Duel's locking roster policy, the percent of contests where you beat yourself probably triples, maybe more.  I know a lot of folks who won't play All Day formats on the site for this reason.  And this is another reason why tournaments are so much more difficult there, as a single mistake can easily keep you out of the money.  The rules on Fan Duel make it much easier to make that single mistake.

Mucking DFS style

I play around sometimes with analogies, and one that most people think of, when it comes to DFS, is
playing poker.  I think this one is too spot on and important to dismiss with a whimsical half joke/half rant like I do with the others.

Both are considered games of skill, but there are different amounts of skill between the two.  One of the most important items to learn when endeavoring to try to play poker at any meaningful level is the knowledge of what hands not to play.  Reflexively, you want to play as many poker hands as possible, because that's where the money is, but educated play says there are times when the first two cards you're dealt in a game of Hold 'Em dictates you simply chuck in your cards.

But how do you know when to muck your cards in DFS? 

In Texas Hold 'Em Poker, one can categorize the first two cards into three groups: One's you should not play, One's you should play, and One's you might play.  In DFS, you set your opening hand called your lineup and when your done, if you can really be objective, the three categories apply just as well.

• One's You Shouldn't Play

Because the DFS game is a product of your mind against the Salary Cap, you really aren't at the same whims as you would be versus a randomly shuffled deck of cards.  One can easily note that the mathematically worst hand to start win in Hold 'em is the 7-2 off suit.  There is no such easy answer to the worst lineup in Daily Games.  In reality, this particular situation should rarely come up.  Primarily because your work and skill in picking a lineup ought to propel you, at least, into the next category.  Additionally, because of the highly random nature of the baseball game taken within a single game sample, a team full of relative useless players could have a great night, but that might be like say you could hold a 7-2 and the flop come 7-7-2.  Regardless, the most important idea to garner from looking at the "One's you shouldn't play" category, is that if you really don't like the team you put together, and you can't seem to fix it by changing the roster, you probably ought to "muck" the night.  You might think something like, "All the pitchers stink tonight, but that means the players I'm matched with are going to be fielding crappy pitchers too."  Stop yourself here.  In those instances, and they do happen, you are turning off the portion of DFS that requires skill and embracing fully the luck part of the game.  In Hold 'em, it would be like saying,"I've got a 4-9, but maybe he's got a 2-8." You could be that lucky, but the smart move is to keep your money out of the pot.

• One's You Might Play

Most nights your lineups are going to fit into this category.  You analysis and lineup acumen ought to bring you this far.  You are rarely going to start your night with a pair of Kings or a A-K.  Most nights you are going to say, "If this happens, this lineup should rock."  As in, "If they beat the over in Colorado, I'm going to rack up points."  Or, "If this pitcher pitches like his last two games and not the three before, my team will be solid."  Each night you are dealing yourself hands which resemble something like a pair of 3s, or on the better nights, a suited J-10.  If thing break your way, you are going to be fine.  In Hold 'em, the flop comes and your mental hypotheticals are answered and the skillful player knows what he must do next.  You get no such luxury in DFS.  What a good player needs to do is examine his hypotheticals closely.  You might feel good about counting on Paul Goldschmidt to carry your offense, but less so with a Kendrys Morales or Adam Lind.  If you seriously question your hypotheticals, you might want to adjust your betting strategy for the night.  I'm not say don't bet in these situations.  Following that mantra would mean you'd be playing about one night every 2-3 weeks.  But what you can do on days your not as confident in your predictions, is minimize the amount of your bets, or number of bets you make.  Better yet, you can shift into games that have better payouts like 3 team winner take alls, or leagues,or tournaments.  If you come to understand that your lineup's risk is better than average, the smart money says your return should be better than average.  Shoot for $2.70 on a dollar versus the common $1.80 from Head to Head's. 

• One's You Should Play

The only time you are going to be 100% certain that a lineup should play is the next morning after you check it's boxscores.  There will be days when you sat out and regret it.  However, there will be more days where you regret playings.  The random nature of baseball within a single game sample makes it impossible to predict what will happen exactly in a given day.  So you can look at your wonderful lineup that you love for hours and it won't tell you a single thing.  Probably 90% of all lineups ever fielded fall into the "might" category.  There is one indicator I've noticed that more often than not let's you know your roster is of the "Should Play" variety:  If you can honestly say to yourself, you got the one guy you really wanted at each and every position with money left over.  If you never had to compromise your team for the sake of the salary cap, you ought to play it and maybe play it a little harder.  Possibly up the number of games or money wagered.  These are the rare days you are dealt a pair of Tensor or a suited K-Q. You must be aware that the flop could come A-8-7, and you likely moved from best hand to second best hand at the table.  You knew there was a high likelihood that players in the game held a single single card that could sink you.  In DFS, you should probably fix your gaze at high number of player 50/50's or Triple Ups.  Because you know there could be Aces floating out there somewhere like a two homer night out of Mike Zunino or what a cheap Shin-Soo Choo did last night.  As the nature of the DFS game is more mercurial than we might like, you can insulate yourself by avoiding the Aces held in Head to Head games.

Kudos to Draft Kings.

I just wanted to publicly thank the folks at Draft Kings for being good people.

I started with Draft Kings on April 7th utilizing one of their deposit bonus offers for matching funds. Once I got into the site as a paying player, I noticed something a bit troubling on my account page.  It stated that my deposit bonus, if unused would expire four months down the road on August 7th.  I did the math, as you might expect, and I knew it would be extraordinarily difficult to play enough games with my deposit to recoup the bonus.  I sent a stupid email to them then ranting about it, as I sometimes do when my passions are roused.

Anyway, I decided to punt the issue down the road a bit.  I figured we have four months to see how it plays out on Draft Kings.  As we approached the two-weeks-til-expiration date, I decided to send them another email, in a more pleasant and reasoned tone. The contents of which are in the top photo on the left.

I stated my case as to how I benefited them as a customer, asking for an extension of time on my deposit bonus, and their very first reply was simply, and I'm paraphrasing here, "No big deal, you're a good customer, we'll go ahead and give you til the end of the year."

Somewhere in the pages of this website is a paragraph about this problem with the deposit bonus.  I'd just like to add to the official record that Draft Kings will consider you for extension should you ask.  The reply was so matter of fact, I'm tempted to believe that anyone could get one of these should they ask.  I understand why they put a time limit on these things, and I'm kind of surprised that other sites don't.  Any money promised to me, and the million other players, even if unused still lists as a liability on their books.  If they are on the hook for $5 to a half a million players, that's $2.5 million that simply subtracts from perceived profitability, even if most of this money will or can never be redeemed.  But I digress...

As I said at the beginning, I wanted to publicly thank Draft Kings for there generosity and understanding.

My First Cash Game on Yahoo DFS

Played in a 50 player 50/50 on Yahoo, my first cash game there and came in second to....

Huy Nguyen is a professional poker player with lifetime earnings over a half a million dollars. There's been talk about Yahoo attracting some of the big dogs from the gambling world and this guy pops up ahead of me in my DFS contest.   Interesting....

Now I know he could be a fake account, but it would be a really obscure celebrity to try create a fake account around.  And because most of us have a past history with Yahoo, you sort of have to go with your real name, unless you used a fake name in your office Fantasy Football League when you starting playing 6 years ago.

NASCAR scoring revisited

A week or so ago I wrote a lengthy piece breaking down the Draft Kings DFS NASCAR scoring.  When selecting a Driver Lineup, I noticed myself doing thing that in a manner of speaking contradicted my previous article.

5 Hour Energy 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway Results

Maybe contradicted is too strong a word, but I must admit that, at minimum, it could cause a confusion.  The core of the problem is that I listed the Scoring Categories in order of impact on your
overall score.  There are Five things that Draft Kings gives credit for in their DFS system, and their order of impact on your final score goes in this order:

1. Finishing Position
2. Pass Differential
3. Place Differential
4. Laps Lead
5. Fastest Laps

In my original work, I clumped Pass & Place differential together, partly because there is a similarity between the two.  This was a bit of a mistake.  Pass differential can exceed, either negatively or positively, a number more than the number of cars in the field.  Take for instance last week's race 5hour Energy 301 in New Hampshire.  Kyle Busch won the race, but finished well behind Brad Keselowski in DFS points trailing 107.5-82.25.  This was almost completely due to Kyle's -44 Pass differential. I'm not sure how you can win a race while being passed by 44 more cars than you pass, but he figured it out [I know it has something to due with the fact that cars passed or cars passed by don't count if you're officially in a pitstop].

But that's not the main bone of contention, just a very curious item worth noting.

The problem that may appear to be a contradiction is that I look at the two lowest scoring items when endeavoring to pick a lineup.

• Laps Lead

Laps Lead scores at a meager .25 pts per lap, and really has little effect on most of the racers each day.  Only a handful of driver lead any laps, most of them only for a couple, and it takes 4 complete laps just to get one point.  In this weekend's race, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Bush led for 101 and 95 laps respectively, which was good for 25.25 and 23.75 points each.  A nice total but only these two and Kevin Harvick (59 laps lead) scored more than 5 points from this category.

However, in selecting a lineup, I purposefully looked for driver who had real possibilities of leading laps.  I looked mostly at recent history, driver history at that particular racecourse, speed of the car, and lineup position.  It wasn't that I was shooting to get the 25 points because I thought Keselowski would lead 100 laps, but rather because Leading Laps is probably the best predictor of the biggest point scorer: Finishing position.  In order to win a race, you have to lead at least one lap, the final one, but more often than not much more than this.  If you look at last week's race results, only six drivers led 10 laps or more.  And they finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 13th.  There is a strong correlation between leading laps and finishing the race high in the standings.  Stronger than probably any other factor.

• Fastest Laps

I also considered how fast the car is.  You can pretty effectively shorthand this stat by simply looking at lineup position, as the closer you are to the pole the faster your car is in qualifying.  An early lineup position might hurt your driver if they can't maintain their position due to pass & place differential, but having a faster car puts you in line to pick up points here rather than lose them.  Plus it gives the driver a greater chance to make up ground should they fall behind due the natural action of coming into the pits.  There's no great secret revealed here that you want a fast car. 

So, the thing to note is that even though Fastest Laps and Laps Lead on average give out the fewest points, the by products of doing well in these statistics yields everything you want out of your DFS Driver: the chance to win, the opportunity to finish near the top of the standings, and the ability to pass other cars on the raceway.

DFS Pitching (a simpler strategy)

I've had better luck of late picking pitchers.  Drawing from my success with NASCAR picking, I've tried to come up with a simpler process.  I did post earlier a more detailed process for selecting pitchers, but I think I was committing a cardinal error of overthinking the matter.  There are a ton of considerations to account for when your selecting a pitcher, and you can spend hours on it.  And because there is such possible fluctuation in possible pitcher outcomes, I don't know if it's worth it.

So I've developed a three step process for picking pitchers.  Now, this only works for two pitcher sites like Draft Kings and Yahoo, on Fan Duel where 1 pitcher is selected, you need to carefully narrow down to the best pitcher on the menu because you won't win in larger pools or tournament, unless you choose one of the top 3 pitchers of the day, and more often that not you need the number one. With two pitchers, there are more possibilities of outcomes for both teams and vastly more variance in lineups fielded among DFS players.  You can from time to time strategically look for value in at least one of your pitchers.  So you have more funds to field a more power packed batting roster.  Not so for Fan Duel, there it's pick the best pitcher and hope for the best from the batters you can afford afterward.

The Three Step Process.

• Identify Teams whose Batters just aren't very good

Probably the most important set of statistics a DFS baseball player needs to know is what teams can't hit.  You start with the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets, adding in a Freddie Freeman-less Atlanta Braves and a Giancarlo Stanton-less Miami Marlins.  And here's your baseline.  You also need to know that some teams have real difficulties versus lefties like the Colorado Rockies or the Chicago White Sox or don't hit Righties well like the San Diego Padres or Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  This reminds me of how in Fantasy Football a bad Defense can make a mediocre Running Back look like Barry Sanders.  These weak hitting teams can make a bad pitcher look good, but more importantly, they can make a good pitcher look like Greg Maddux. So...

• Look for Quality Pitchers facing these teams.

You should have a good idea of who the good pitchers are if you're playing this game.  We all know who they are.  This mental list should be significantly larger than just the Clayton Kershaw's and Max Scherzer's of the world.  There should be about 30-50 names in this pile.  It should range down to include the Carlos Martinez's, AJ Burnett's, and Edinson Volquez's.  Where you have one of the pitchers you think is good matching up against one of the teams you think can't hit, that's where you pick your starting pitchers from.  The nice thing about this is it gives you opportunity to get a slightly cheaper pitcher in, if you can't figure out a way to field Paul Goldschmidt or Bryce Harper. 

• Use other stats sparingly as tiebreakers.

You can fall down a rabbit hole with other stats you can look at as tiebreakers, and whatever works for you is okay by me.  But as this strategy developed around a simplicity paradigm, I look at really basic things:  First and foremost, I'll choose a pitcher at home over a pitcher on the road.  Then, I'll look at my personal perceived Win probability and capacity to strikeout the other team.  And I rarely go past this.  It's simple, and so far it's working better for me than hours slaving over stats.  I didn't come to this realization completely on my own, but it comes from my analysis of my past games versus CSURam88, especially for pitcher number two.

So that's my simple three step process.  Once you realize that there is absolutely no way to completely immunize yourself against your pitcher blowing up, you know that many times a $11,000 pitcher lets you down.  The best way to prevent this is to focus on facing teams whose batters have the least likelihood of beating your pitcher up.  Today, for instance, I ran with Marco Estrada facing the lowly Rays.  Two days ago, I took a $9200 Lance Lynn versus the weak hitting New York Mets.

My recent experience has taught me that there is room for a value strategy in two pitcher leagues. And there is something beautiful about a simple answer to a complex question.

A Very Nice Afternoon on Draft Kings...

$10.25 of my money on the line...

Predicting the future of DFS...

I have said that the only certain way to make money at DFS is to start your own Daily Fantasy Sports Baseballholics Anonymous podcast whether or not I thought the future might be for DFS as an investment.  If you don't have a few million lying around to start your own website, maybe you could by a few shares of one of the companies that own one of the sites.
website.  This idea rattled around in my brain without much consequence until I had a email conversation with one of the hosts of the

Draft Kings is it's own independent company, but there's a significant stake held by the Raine Group, a private equity investor.

FanDuel is also it's own independent company, but the biggest outside investor is Comcast (well an arm of Comcast used for venture capital),

Yahoo just launched it's foray into the DFS world and I think everyone in the world knows Yahoo is publicly traded.   They are the biggest player in terms of ownership and money now on the DFS scene.  They really aren't the first big company to enter this field.  Besides, Comcast's interest in FanDuel, last year the Gannett Company, owner of The USA Today, launched FantasyScore.  I've kind of always been rooting for them, because of The USA Today's relationship with the early years of fantasy sports.  In my first year as commissioner of a league back in 1988 (I joined this league in 86), there were many a fevered Monday morning hand cranking out calculations so we would know what we needed to have happen in the Monday Night Football game to win our week.

Sorry for the digression...All of the other sites are privately owned and venture capital funded (Victiv, Fantasy Aces, Draft Day...).

So would I invest in one of these companies because I believe in the future of DFS?

The short answer is No.  But there is a longer answer..

Not that there isn't going to be a bunch of money made in the near future off the growth in DFS, but it will primarily be with the venture capital groups and the owners of the sites themselves.  If Yahoo's experiment with DFS proves successful, the battle over the Fantasy Sports space will force ESPN and CBS into making a move into the area.  Rather than inventing their own game from scratch, I'd be willing to bet that the two big DFS companies get bought up: somewhere down the line ESPN buys Draft Kings & CBS buys FanDuel.  And the Venture Capital Groups do what they are good at: raking in the cash.

But the real reason why I don't think there a future in DFS is because I don't see there ever being enough market to go around.  Fantasy Sports are a billion dollar business but most of the money is made on the periphery with things like Advertising, Media shows, Magazines, etc.  There might be 40 million Fantasy Players in the world, myself proudly among them, but the bulk of them aren't the types to spend lots of money on the game.  Even if you're the type to join a $100 Fantasy Football league, you are really only talking about forking over about $7 bucks a week counting a small fee for a trophy or pay service for your league.  The dreams of true conversion of a sizable chunk of this population I believe to be rose colored.

Not that there isn't going to be a place for DFS, I find it to be an interesting and fruitful adjunct to my Fantasy Sports play, but it will never supplant it.  But here are a few of my key reasons:

• DFS is missing any semblance of "bragging rights"

One of the key components of regular Fantasy is bragging rights.  It's often not so important how much you win, rather that you win.  I know literally dozens of leagues that play fiercely competitive leagues for no money.  Most of my leagues have very modest entry fees.  The fleeting nature of DFS, as highlighted by their own marketing with the "There's a new league every day" puts no shame in losing.  There's no opportunity to berate your coworkers/co-team owners with smack about your relative brilliance.  When a day ends in DFS it's forgotten no later than two days after.  I run a year long H2H fantasy baseball league where we play a 10 man DFS league game every Sunday for a buck.  It works not because anyone really cheers about the $5.40 for first place, but because it keeps the 12 of us talking on the last day of the game week, which is good for trades, league activity, and all-around health of the league.  The same team has won the last three weeks in a row, and he has yet to even attempt to brag about it.  It takes real skill to guide a team through the twists and turns of a 26 week season, and every body knows any one can have an off day on a single outing.  You, me, Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, everyone.  If somehow they could make putting money into a Fantasy Football or Baseball league illegal and enforced it thoroughly, I'd bet that well over half of the 40 million folks playing would continue to play for no money at all.  This is how important bragging rights are.  

• The way the DFS games is setup has virtually ignored the second step in a company's growth process: retaining customers.

They spend boatloads of money in the attempt to get new customers to their DFS sites, but once they get them there, they do nothing.  They are ignored and often eaten by the wolves.  The way the game is structured currently, there is no long term future in the game because player retention is difficult and pretty much ignored.  They have two natural markets they can draw from and what is offered to them is less than ideal for either of them:

1. The "Gambler" Market -Any gambler worth a grain of salt will take a look at other avenues of gaming possibilities  And if a gambler analyzed the DFS game, they would probably muck it as fast as a 2-7 offsuit.  The game is comparatively difficult to understand, has some of the most spectacular random possible occurrences of any thing wagered upon, and has the absolute worst payout structure there is.  It is so much easier just to bet on the winner of a single game, where the payouts for winning are actually double your money. There was a bit of a hubbub about a screencap earlier this year placed under a ESPN DFS "expert" where it said that she wins 80% of the time.  Now, there was no way this was true, but even if it were, it would mean about a 50% return on her money.  If you were winning at this same ratio at the card table, an 80% victory on hands played would mean you could quit your day job.
2. The "Fantasy Sports" Market - The DFS universe is just as inhospitable for these types too.  The complex game with wild fluctuations in outcomes with a perversely difficult to overcome payout structure makes it difficult for the typical guy to stay at this for very long.  I was one of the newbies brought in at the beginning of this baseball season,  and there used to be a lot of names I knew playing there on Draft Kings alongside me.  But they are virtually all gone now; all that left is rows and rows of veteran players.  Most people like myself decided before the year, "What the heck I'll toss in 50 bucks and see where it takes me?"  Because you need to win such a high percent of your games to have positive growth on your bankroll, nearly no one accomplishes this.  You could win 60% of your games and find yourself bleeding 5-10% of your cash weekly.  All it takes is a day where you lose it all because of a -6 point outing  from a Felix Hernandez or Michael Pineda or David Price.  And because a clean sweep victory only gives you 80% in return on a depleted bankroll, your odds of making it back are really not too good.

I don't see a long term future for the game, unless they can figure this part out.  I don't know the answer, but then it's really not my problem.  The fact that none of the companies involved seem to know what to do to retain customers is the troublesome part.  Just like I'm rooting for USA Today's Fantasy Source, I'm rooting for Yahoo.  I've been using their site for my Fantasy play for better than a decade.  And they have always figured out the right thing to do next to keep me there.  Maybe not as fast as I would have hoped, but they always figured it out.  If there is a future for DFS as anything other that a nice little thing some of us to on top of our other fantasy sports, it's in their hands.