Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS)

What are Daily Fantasy Sports?

Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) is a subset of imaginative sporting events. Similarly, as with conventional fantasy sporting events, players go up against others by building a group of expert competitors from a specific association or rivalry while staying under a compensation cap and acquiring focus on the major parts’ actual exhibition in true rivalries. Daily fantasy sports are a quick variation of traditional fantasy sports that are directed over short periods. For example, a week or single day of rivalry, rather than those played over a whole season. Daily Fantasy sports are commonly organized as paid rivalries regularly alluded to as a "challenge"; winners get a portion of a pre-decided prize pot supported by their entrance expenses.

In America, the daily fantasy sports industry is dominated by two competing companies: the New York-based FanDuel and the Boston-based DraftKings. Both companies were established as venture capital-backed startup companies, received funding from investment firms, sports broadcasters, leagues, and team owners, and have become known for the aggressive marketing of their services. As of September 2015, both companies have an estimated value of a minimum of $1 billion and control 95% of the U.S. Daily Fantasy Sports market. The two primarily compete against smaller Daily Fantasy Sports services, like DRAFT, Fantasy Aces, and Yahoo!. Daily fantasy has also been credited with helping to enhance television viewership and engagement with sports.

Types of Daily Fantasy Sports

The main type of Daily Fantasy Sports is the one offered by DraftKings and FanDuel, with variations across a spread of operators.

They enter the contest and then select a team of players, under a “salary cap” set by the location.

Once a user has picked a team, all that’s left is to attend for the important games to start and watch how your team stacks up against the competition. You are awarded a cash prize if your team beats the opposing team.

Contests can vary widely in terms of what proportion they cost to enter (some are free, with others being as much as $10,000) and the way they're structured.

Guaranteed Prize Pools

Players pay a group entry fee to compete for a share of a hard and fast prize pool; GPPs run regardless of refill.

Cash games

Players can either join an existing league or create their own league, during which the team that beats the others gets the prizes. These are smaller than GPPs and not bound to run.

Head-to-Head

A contest that pits two players against one another; the winner receives the whole prize pool.

50/50

The highest half of the sector nearly doubles their investment; the opposite half the sector receives nothing.

There are a variety of other variants of Daily Fantasy Sports that stray from the DraftKings/FanDuel model, although they need the common thread of always being supported by player statistics. In some forms, players are selected without a “salary” attached to them; there are house-banked versions where you are trying to predict how well a particular player or group of players will do. There's even in-game fantasy, during which scoring and decisions happen in real-time.

Parlay and Prediction Fantasy Sports

In addition to the salary-cap model, there's a replacement class of fantasy products that specialize in predicting individual player performance as against choosing a full roster.

Sports Offered in Daily Fantasy Sports

The major North American team sports are the foremost popular for Daily Fantasy Sports:

• Football (NFL)

• Basketball (NBA)

• Baseball (MLB)

• Hockey (NHL)

DraftKings has various other sports like:

• College football

• College basketball

• Golf

• NASCAR

• Soccer

• Mixed martial arts

• Esports (like League of Legends)

• Regulations cropping up in some states ban contests supported by amateur and/or college, high school, and other youth sports.

• Daily fantasy basketball

Fantasy supported by the NBA is similar to the NFL. You choose a roster of players from real NBA teams to add to your fantasy roster(s). Then the players earn fantasy points for his or her performances (based on scoring, assists, steals, blocks, etc.)

Throughout the season — because contests happen nightly — DraftKings and FanDuel will likely distribute more prizes than they are doing for NFL contests.

Are Daily Fantasy Sports Legit?

The legality of daily fantasy sports is currently a big issue in the US. Answering the question of “Is Daily Fantasy Sports legal?” is difficult, as it always depends on what state you’re talking about.

In most jurisdictions around the world, Daily Fantasy Sports is taken into account as a gambling product and requires a gaming license to operate. In the US, the legality of Daily Fantasy Sports is usually quite murky.

So you have some context on the history of gambling; the whole industry sprung up in the wake of the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. This federal law deals specifically with payment processing for online gambling, but it's a carveout that exempts fantasy sports.

However, many people — including the UIGEA’s author — believe the law wasn't intended for Daily Fantasy Sports. That’s additionally to the thought that state law trumps federal law, during this instance, in determining what’s gambling and what's not.

All of that has led to a confusing situation about where you'll actually play Daily Fantasy Sports, and to tons of legislation looking to clear up the legality of Daily Fantasy Sports. In 2016 through this, a variety of states enacted Daily Fantasy Sports laws.

States Where Daily Fantasy Sports Are Illegal

The question of which states allow Daily Fantasy Sports isn't a simple one to answer, either. At the highest level, there are four states where Daily Fantasy Sports has always been considered illegal:

• Arizona

• Iowa

• Washington

• Montana

• Most sites also don’t operate in Alabama, Idaho, Hawaii, and Nevada

The biggest daily fantasy sports sites, including DraftKings and FanDuel, are in about 80 percent of states. Still, others operate in far fewer states than that. This is supported by a more conservative reading of state law.

States Where Daily Fantasy Sports Are Legal

Daily Fantasy Sports are legal and controlled now in:

• New York

• Indiana,

• Virginia,

• Massachusetts,

• Colorado,

• Missouri,

• Tennessee

• Mississippi

• Kansas

Sites must pay a license fee to operate in those states (except for Mississippi).

Where Can You Bet on Daily Fantasy Sports?

DraftKings Daily Fantasy Sports Betting

DraftKings has emerged as one of the leading daily fantasy sports platforms and is starting to make moves to position itself as the potential sportsbook of the longer term within the US. This comes months after a Supreme Court ruling that permits states to manage sports wagering within their jurisdiction. DraftKings hopes that they will at some point function as the nationwide leading sportsbook and daily fantasy sports platform.

DraftKings was founded in Boston in 2012 and has served as the number one sports partner across many sports leagues and has developed a number of the foremost popular user-based fantasy games within the industry. you'll read Daily Fantasy Cafe’s full DraftKings review, which incorporates the corporate history from a daily fantasy perspective. Per Daily Fantasy Cafe, DraftKings is now a public company and trading on the NASDAQ exchange.

DraftKings has quickly become the fastest growing daily fantasy sports site and is cemented because of the second-largest site within the industry behind FanDuel.

Sports Offered

Most people are conversant in the essential principle of fantasy sports. You draft a team of players, and you score points that support those players’ performances during that day’s or that week’s games. The team manager (you or your opponent) wins to support how well her team’s score compares to her opponents.

For decades, this type of fantasy sports game has been played on a season-long basis. Daily and weekly contests—the kind that DraftKings offer—are relatively new. You’re given a salary cap, and you draft from an inventory of players provided on the location. Your opponent(s) do an equivalent. But once that day’s or week’s games are played, the competition is over, and you get your winnings or suffer your losses.

You’re then liberal to enter more contests, take the time off, or take the week off. Daily and weekly fantasy sports don’t require a season-long commitment.

One thing you can’t neutralize these sorts of contests is recruit your team all from an equivalent sports team. that might make it the equivalent of just depending on the result of the sports, which entails all types of other legal considerations. You want to choose different players from different teams for your team.

Since that selection is skill and knowledge-based, the US government doesn’t consider these sorts of contests gambling on sports. If you’re one of the frustrated players from the US who want to love playing poker on the web, DraftKings may be a great opportunity to urge some similar action without having to stress about the legalities. DraftKings had lawyers re-evaluate their business model carefully to form sure that everything they provide is above-board.

That being said, these contests aren’t available in every state, because state laws regarding the pertinence of skill in gambling vary.

DraftKings offers games for the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, PGA, WNBA, Euro Basketball, NASCAR, MMA, Tennis, college basketball, college football, and more.

Types of Contests at DraftKings

DraftKings makes multiple sorts of contests available to players. These include:

• Guaranteed

• Qualifiers

• Head-to-Head

• 50/50

• Leagues

• Multipliers

• Steps

• Beginner

From the lobby of the location, you'll filter which choices you see consistent with sport, buy-in, and sort of contest. you'll create your own contests otherwise you can purchase into contests that other players have already created. DraftKings creates a number of the contests themselves, too, especially those with guaranteed prize pools.

Let’s check out how each of those contest types works.

Guaranteed Contests

A guaranteed contest offers a minimum prize pool no matter what percentage or how few people register for the competition. This sort of tournament is additionally popular at Internet poker sites. Smart gamblers love these sorts of contests due to the overlay potential.

Suppose you've got a contest with a $100 buy-in and a $200,000 guaranteed prize pool. If 1,000 people register for that tournament, the location has only taken in $100,000 in entry fees, but they’re guaranteeing payouts as if 2000 people had registered for that tournament.

Mathematically, this provides a player with a greater potential return on their investment. Let us explain why.

Suppose the prize pool is about up in order that the players with scores within the top half the sector each win an equal percentage of the prize pool. With 1,000 contestants, meaning 500 of them will win 1/500 of $200,000, or $400. Assuming most are of equal skill level, you've got a 50% chance of winning $400, albeit you simply put $100 on the road.

Most overlay situations aren’t that extreme—in fact, they’re usually tons closer than this. I just used that example because it’s obvious how math works. Guaranteed tournaments are fun albeit they don’t offer an overlay opportunity.

Qualifiers

A qualifier may be a contest with a coffee entry fee, but if you’re one of the winners, you get an entry to a costlier contest. For instance, you would possibly play during a qualifier that costs $5. If you’re one of the winners, you would possibly win entry to a contest that might normally cost $100 to enter. This model is some things that the daily fantasy sports industry has also borrowed from the planet of poker tournaments.

Head-to-Heads

A head-to-head contest is one during which you play against one other player, and the winner takes all. This is often my favorite sort of contest. These are usually available during a sort of buy-ins, as low as $1 per player and as high as $530 per player. These contests are opportunities to double your money.

50/50 Contests

A 50/50 contest is one during which multiple players have fantasy teams. If your score falls within the highest 50% of the sector, you win money. Otherwise, you don’t. These are, just like the head-to-head contests, opportunities to double your money.

Leagues

These are contests where multiple players compete, but only the highest tier (often the highest 3 players, but it depends on what percentage entries there are) gets paid. The variance in these contests is higher, because you've got a smaller chance of winning, but you win a bigger jackpot once you do win. The strategy for league play differs significantly from 50/50 play.

Multipliers

These are multiplayer tournaments that supply you the chance to win 3X or 10X your entry fee. In these contests, the highest scores all win an equivalent prize. for instance, the highest 3 players might win $15 each rather than having a special prize amount for 1st place, 2nd place, and 3rd place.

Steps

Steps are contests that enable you to parlay a little buy-in at a coffee level into an enormous win without having to pay the large entry fee. These are almost like qualifiers, but you'll invest the step at any of the four levels you'll afford.

Step 1 may cost $2 to enter, but you'll enter at step 3 if you'll afford the $25 entry fee. the highest of the steps is step 4, in which you'll also invest directly.

Steps are almost like qualifiers. The fantasy sports folks also borrowed this model from the web poker industry.

Beginner Contests

Beginner contests are only available to players who’ve competed in 50 or fewer contests for a specific sport. Once you’ve competed in 50 contests for a specific sport, you’re not eligible to play within the beginner tournaments.

These are sports-specific. For instance if you’ve played in 60 fantasy baseball contests but only 20 fantasy football contests, you’re still eligible to play within the beginner fantasy football tournaments. You’re not considered a beginner at fantasy baseball though.

Sign Up and Deposit

Signing up for DraftKings is fast and straightforward. you'll create a replacement account together with your email address. Or, check-in through Facebook to form the method even smoother.

Once you’ve created an account, you’re liberal to explore—there’s no requirement to form a deposit. you'll even start playing free daily sports contests, many of which have cash prizes.

When you’re able to add money to your account, the method is pretty simple. you'll pay with a Mastercard, open-end credit, or PayPal, and therefore the platform offers preset amounts to hurry up the method. there's a $5 deposit minimum to stay in mind. But, at the time of writing, DraftKings will offer you $20 free of charge the primary time you create a deposit.

DraftKings Sportsbook is a completely separate service from DraftKings daily fantasy sports. You’ll get to create a separate account, and there’s quite a bit more personal information required—including your Social Security number. That’s because DraftKings has got to report gambling winnings to tax agencies.

DraftKings Sportsbook

DraftKings Sportsbook covers almost every professional sport you'll consider . you'll back golf, motorsports, football, rugby, soccer, tennis, and far more, and there are multiple leagues available for putting bets within each sport.

The sportsbook includes standard over/under, spread, and Moneyline bets, additionally to a variety of props bets for each match. for many events, you'll also back individual players. Placing bets is very simple, as you only click on the chances you wish and choose what proportion you’re willing to wager.

You’ll also find live betting, which the platform conveniently puts in its own section so you'll keep tabs on all the events happening immediately. Placing live bets on individual plays are often entertaining, but I found that the chances are often inflated in DraftKings’ favor compared to plain pregame bets.

What really sets DraftKings Sportsbook apart is the wealth of in-platform research and stats. Additionally, to the quality sport-specific statistics, you’ll find everywhere, DraftKings Sportsbook offers betting-specific numbers. for instance, you'll quickly determine how well a team has performed against the spread this season or how often a team wins when they’re the favorite.

Unfortunately, you are paying extra for that information. DraftKings Sportsbook charges a way higher sportsbook margin than online competitors like FanDuel and BetStars. watching some recent Moneyline margins, DraftKings Sportsbook charged around 1.5% more within the odds it had been offering.

Customer Support

Customer support is available Monday through Friday from 9 am – 11 pm EST. On Saturday and Sunday, customer service can be reached between 10 am and 7 pm EST.

You can contact customer support by filling out the contact form on their contact page, or you can send an email to [email protected].

FanDuel

You may have only heard of FanDuel as a daily fantasy sports site, but did you recognize they only recently opened a fully-functional sportsbook as well? Well, we did, and that we wanted to ascertain if it lived up to the hype that their ads and press releases claimed that it did. Additionally, we thought it had been about the time that we reviewed their daily fantasy sports side of things also.

When you first get to the location, you select to travel to either the Daily Fantasy Sports side of things or the sportsbook. Both are completely separate and almost operate as two separate companies. you've got to form a separate account with both if you’re trying to find Daily Fantasy Sports and sports betting action. no matter which side you’re curious about, you’re within the right spot to urge the lowdown on what they need to supply.

Sports You Can Bet On

Regarding sports you can bet on at FanDuel, the options are pretty good. They cover most of the major sports (and they cover them well), but they don’t really get into too many of the obscure sports that you might find at some other online sportsbooks. For the sports that they do cover, though, they do have pretty good options.

Here is the list of the sports that they currently cover:

• Auto Racing

• Baseball

• Basketball

• Boxing

• Football

• Golf

• Hockey

• MMA

• Soccer

• Tennis

User Interface

Let’s talk about the FanDuel sportsbook interface. Incredible. Seriously, that’s the sole word to explain what the developers achieved when creating the FanDuel sportsbook layout. If you’ve read any of our other reviews, you recognize that we will be pretty harsh when it involves this section because we’re picky, and that we require near perfection to be happy. We even have no problems calling out a site if they’re slacking or they’ve put out a subpar product.

Thankfully, we don’t need to do any of that with the FanDuel sportsbook. Finding the bets you would like to form is so quick and straightforward and requires no “training” or any real learning curve. Additionally, turning any of your bets and parlays, teasers, or round robins is extremely easy also. Basically, FanDuel gives you incredible betting flexibility with none of the headaches of trying to seek out all the choices you would like.

Let’s break down exactly what we liked and the way things are laid out. First, across the highest of the screen you've got tabs to travel to the homepage of the book, live in-game bets happening, or the promotions tab to seek out what they’re offering. You’ve also got a scrolling ticker with a number of the favored games getting tons of action. Normally, we aren’t a lover of things like this because they will be distracting and clutter the interface. But, FanDuel does an excellent job drawing attention to the favored games of the day without cramming things onto the screen where they don’t fit. This becomes a resource rather than an eyesore love it is at tons of other online sportsbooks.

On the left side of the screen going vertically you’ll find the list of the various sports you'll back. once you click on any of them, it opens that sports list of bets within the middle of the screen. Across the highest of that middle section, you’ll find the various league tabs also because of the different categories of bets offered. This is often one of the items we loved the foremost about our FanDuel review. The bets were organized extremely well into categories in order that you'll find what you’re trying to find easily.

Additionally, they need the “popular” bets on their home screen then a tab to urge more wagers. So, if you’re someone who doesn’t need tons of options and just wants to bet basic money lines, spreads, or totals, you'll see those without seeing all of the opposite options which may confuse you. Somehow, they made it very simple yet ready to be complex and beat an equivalent package. While simple, it’s pretty genius if you ask us. You’ll see what we’re talking about if you inspect the location.

When you click on a bet, it automatically puts it over on a betting site and wears the proper side of the page. We’ve seen this with tons of sportsbooks before. But, one thing that FanDuel does differently is that they dedicated tons of interface space to the present betting slip. tons of websites give more room to the bet types then cram the bet slip over on the side of the page making it hard to read and challenging to figure with. FanDuel gives the slip the space it requires to be easy to read and see all of the choices you've got.

Something else they are doing which will seem small, but is large if you’re someone who likes to beat quiet one game directly. With most online sportsbooks if you decide on quite one bet at a time, it automatically creates it into a parlay for you on the proper side of the screen. This is often great if you’re looking to form a parlay, but quite annoying if you would like to form tons of individual bets at an equivalent time.

FanDuel gives you the choice of both. If you click multiple bets directly, it'll create a parlay option at the highest of the betting slip then leave the individual bets at rock bottom of the slip. If you don’t want to form the parlay or don’t want to form the individual bets, you only don’t enter a wager amount into that space otherwise you can click the ashcan button to get rid of it. This way, if you would like to bet tons of individual bets and don’t want that parlay you don’t need to do all of them individually. Or, if you would like to try to do the parlay only or the parlay and one or two of the individual bets, you'll do this also.

PAYMENT

If we could give FanDuel six stars out of five for any category, it might be in their banking department. They not only have the foremost options that we’ve seen in a while, but they’ve gone above and beyond to form getting money on the location as simple and headache-free as possible. Let’s take a glance at their current ways for you to urge money onto the location to start out playing.

Credit/Debit Card

Many banks will allow depositing through this method, but they're going to be blocked from the subsequent banks. If your bank is on this list, confirm you check out PayPal and therefore the online bank transfer as you'll be ready to deposit money with one among those two ways.

• Bank of America

• Capital One

• Wells Fargo

• TD Bank

• Union Bank

• Huntington Bank

• Most prepaid cards

• FanDuel Prepaid Card

You can apply for this card which will even be wont to withdraw money once you win. you'll fund this card with Visa, Mastercard, or ACH transfer. Processing on the cardboard is instant (though, you won’t receive your text of the cardboard for about two weeks), and there are zero monthly fees with the cardboard.

PayPal

If your PayPal is linked to your checking account, you'll use it to fund your FanDuel account. This could be a workaround if you've got any of the banks that are listed on the blocked list above. Funds deposited in this manner are available immediately. the bounds on this transaction are regardless of the limits on your individual PayPal account. If they're too low, you'll contact PayPal about raising them or make multiple transactions.

ACH (e-check)

If you've got your checking routing number, account number, and a replica of your state-issued ID or driver’s license, you'll use your bank account to deposit through their VIP Preferred Network. We didn’t see tons of details that network on the location so you would possibly want to succeed in bent their support if you’re looking to use this method. The one detail they did give was that funds would be available immediately with this method.

Online Bank Transfer

This is the tactic we recommend if you’re having any issues with the credit or open-end credit option we talked about above. Banks that have online bill pay capabilities are often wont to transfer funds immediately to your account. the subsequent banks are APPROVED and found out to be used with this method:

• Bank of America

• Capital One

• Wells Fargo

• TD Bank

• Union Bank

• Huntington Bank

• Most prepaid cards

FanDuel Prepaid Card

Remember that handy card we mentioned that you simply can use to deposit into your account with? Well, you'll also withdraw your funds on that card also. It’s basically like having an open-end credit linked to your FanDuel account. You'll have to use the FanDuel card to deposit a minimum of once for this feature to be available to you. Funds take 24-36 hours to be available on the cardboard. Once they’re available on the cardboard you'll use them to redeposit if you would like to, use them anywhere a Discover card is accepted, or withdraw the cash from an ATM machine.

Customer Care

The customer service options with FanDuel are top-notch. they provide four alternative ways to urge in touch with them that are all monitored round the clock. Here are the various options they have:

• Live Chat - 24/7 from a tab at rock bottom of the page on the support home

• E-Mail - 24/7 email support if that's the medium you favor to urge in-tuned with the location

• Phone - 24/7 with an 877 (toll-free) number