All throughout the lobbies on the major DFS sites, the double up games are featured as your “cash game” options.  This appeals to the casual player that can double their money by finishing in the top 43.5% of the field.  The featured double up contests in the sites consists over 1000’s of entries, which stands out more than the last minute 11 or 23 player double ups.  50/50 contests are a little tougher to find in the lobbies, and are hardly ever guaranteed if they do not fill.  While you are not doubling your entry fee, you only have to finish in the top 50 % to win, as well as users can only enter once per contest.

While it is certainly exciting playing against thousands over just a handful of users, is it your best chance to receive a return of your investment?  I do not believe it is.  Before reading further, try to answer the following questions…

  1. Do the same users play every $2 double up and 50/50 they can?

  2. How many users max entry those large double ups?

  3. Are users entering multiple lineups or going with the same lineup?

  4. Are the paylines the same for double ups and 50/50’s?

Below is a breakdown to help you determine if playing in large double ups is the way to go.  I would be happy to share the links to any contest where I used the info from if you question the validity.

For the main slates of MLB on 5/23 and 5/24, I took a closer look at Draftkings  featured $2 double up , and entered a $2, 100 person 50/50.  The featured contest for both night’s consisted of 2,873 entries, with the top 1,250 winning $4.  The 100 person 50/50’s paid out $3.60 to the top 50.

5/23 DraftKings $2 Featured Double Up:  135.5 points to cash.

  • 46% of entries came from 53 users entering 25 team trains:  That’s correct. 53 users used their 25 max entries to take up 46% of all entries.  All 53 users entered their same lineup for all 25 of their entries.

  • Over 55% of all lineups came from 66 users:  Out of the 2,873 entries, 53 had max lineup trains, but another 13 users entered at least 20 entries, but did not go all in with one lineup.

  • Over 74% of all lineups came from 135 users:  Besides the 66 users from above, another 6 entered at least 20 lineups, 21 did at least 10, and 42 with at least five.  These were all lineup trains that amounts to at least 2125 entries by 135 users.  (*outside of max entries, user’s train lineups were group by at least 20, 10, and 5 lineups entered, so number is much higher in reality).

  • Number of times max entry users had the same lineup=7:  There were six occurrences of the max entry users having the same lineup, with three max entry users having the same lineup once.

5/23 DraftKings $2 100 person 50/50:  132.25 to cash.

  • Only 38 users from the large double up in this contest:  This is tough to gauge due to multiple 50/50 contests, but it’s nice to see that 62% of this field was not in the featured double up.  

  • 83 different scoring lineups:  It’s nice to see that many of the users in this contest had a scoring lineup unique to them.  The 17 similar lineups consisted of one lineup that had four entries, one with three, and five that had two of the same scoring lineups.

5/24 DraftKings $2 Featured Double Up:  93.85 points to cash.

  • 44.3% of all entries from 51 users entering 25 team trains:  Pretty similar numbers to the first day.  This is 1.7% taking up 44.3% of the contest on that day.  Asking where they finished isn’t the point, over does this make sense for me to play.

  • Over 68% of all entries came from 91 users:  These were all lineup trains once again that consisted of over 1,955 lineups from just 91 unique users.  Besides the 51 users max entering, seven had at least 20 lineups, 33 with at least 10, and 42 with at least five lineup trains (*outside of max entries, user’s train lineups were group by at least 20, 10, and 5 lineups entered, so number is much higher in reality).

  • Number of times max entry users had the same lineups=6:  These were mainly the same names that did the same thing on 5/23. The difference in this one was that there were at least four times with the 10 plus lineup trains all having the same score.

5/24 DraftKings $2 100 person 50/50:  92.6 points to cash.

  • Only 34 users from the featured double up:  Once again, we see less than 40% of the field not participating in the large double up.  

  • 57 Unique scoring lineups:  This contest saw more similar scoring numbers than the night before with 43 of these lineups having similar scores.  It breaks down to one score having five users, seven scores with three users, and nine with two users.

Final Thoughts: Double ups are not worth it in my opinion with more than 40% of the field can come from less than 2% of users.  If you think FanDuel is any better, it is not.  Their $2 double up today is 5,747 entries for the top 2,500 paid, but comes with an 150 max entry limit.  If just 50 users average 50 entries a piece, that’s once again 43.5% of the field, but this time less than 1% of entries.   If you like the idea of double ups, then stick to the single entry ones only.  If looking to grind out with the best possible odds, stick to the 100 man 50/50’s.  Feel free to ask questions or comment below.