With just weeks away from the kickoff of the regular season, week one contests have started to be posted, and they are slowly starting to fill.  With millions of dollars in contests prizes being highlighted, it’s best to use these weeks leading up to September 10th to set your strategy on how to approach not just week one, but the entire DFS football season.  Below is an overview of the type of contests available, and some tips and strategies on how to approach them.

 

Choosing Your Site(s)

The first step is to find which site you feel most comfortable playing on.  While sites may have similar contests, their roster constructions differ.  For instance, FanDuel uses a kicker position while DraftKings and FantasyDraft have a flex position spot, but no kicker.  Take advantage of the preseason to enter some free contests, and see what you feel more comfortable about playing.  For week one, pricing is usually a little softer as a way to attract new players.  It’s best not to fully take into account salary pricing with the sites until a few weeks in the season.  If you are a new player, make sure to sign-up, and make you first deposit using one of our links to earn free months of our playbook pro and tools.

 

Setting a Goal

Whether a casual player, or one trying to make a large splash this season, it is best to set a goal for yourself.  Deciding what type of player you want to be, and then creating a strategy behind that will help you when looking at the large number of contests available.  Nobody can tell a person what type of player they should be, but knowing what type of player you are makes your winnings and losses easier to handle.  

 

Types of Contests:

Understanding the type of contest, payout structure, and who your potential opponents are, should all be factors, and looked at before entering any contest.  Below is a look at the key contests types currently in the lobbies:

 

Free:  One Billion dollars!  That’s how much DraftKings is offering if you can correctly choose the perfect week one lineup.  Yes, it’s a longshot, but it’s free, plus other you can win other prizes even if you aren’t perfect.  Yahoo will do their season long NFL Cup again, with $100,000 in free cash prizes awarded, including $50,000 for the overall winner.  FanDuel too a slightly different approach to their large free offering this season with their Golden 5 contest.  A weekly pick’em contest, in which you choose five players.  The jackpot for a perfect selection starts at $20,000, and increases weekly if not hit.  Overall, they will award over $300,000 in free prizes.  While it may seem hard to cash in a large free event, there is no reason not to enjoy the feeling of winning thousands of dollars to even a billion right up to the opening kickoff.

 

Double Ups and 50/50 Contests:  These contests are considered “cash”games, in which your goal is to beat a certain number of the field to double, or win close to double your money back.  The same payout goes to first place, as it does for the last spot in the payout line.  The decision here is if you go for the double up, or the 50/50 approach.  You’ll have to do some extra searching to find some 50/50’s, as most are not guaranteed, and usually have a much less users than the double ups.  In 50/50’s you only have to beat half the field to win.   

Double ups have become the norm in DFS now.  Both DraftKings & Fanduel have their large double ups posted in the lobby.  On both sites, their $5 large double up contests have over 20,000 entries, and finishing in the top 40% over 50% doubles your money..  This is where looking at the contest structure is key.  If playing double ups over 50/50’s, you have the option of single entry, limited entry of 20 max, or go with the large double ups where users can enter up to 150 lineups.  Please note that those that multi-enter cash games, usually go with a train of the same lineup.  

For example, the FanDuel large $11 double up in the lobby has 6,896 spots, with the top 3,000 winning $22.  With a 150 entry limit, 20 users can max enter a train lineup, and take down the top 3,000 spots.  Even if just seven users max enter, and all cash their trains, that’s over 33% of the winning lineups coming from only seven users.  50/50 and single entry cash game options aren’t as sexy, but if serious about winning, and not a mass entry player, there is no need to play the large doubles with the large selection of contests available for NFL.

 

Tournaments:  Also known as guaranteed prize pools (GPP’s), sites offer a wide range of entry fees, and structure types to choose from.  Similar to cash games, you’ll have to decide what you feel most comfortable playing.  What is almost a must though, is if you are a new player, take advantage of any experienced players excluded contests.  If looking for the large payout without being a multi-entry player, there are plenty of single or three  entry tournaments in the lobby to attack.  These contests eliminate any advantage you think a player who can enter 150 entries has, while still offering nice payouts, without it being too top heavy. If looking to test out mass entering tournaments, I suggest maxing out your 20 entries first using the DK quarter arcade.  Week one has a $75,000 prize pool.

 

Pick’ems:  New this season, but not new to DFS, will be pick’em contests.  These consists of choosing a player from different tiers, over having a salary to think about.  The scoring is the same as the classic games, but pick’ems keeps it casual, while still offering a challenge.  Currently, DraftKings has a $1,000,000 prize pool pick’em contests for week one.  At a $3 entry fee,  a little over 392,000 entries, and a 20 max entry per user, this is a perfect spot to try out pick’ems.

 

Survivor:  Survivor contests are popular for NFL, and FantasyDraft has their first survivor posted in their lobby.  For survivor contests, each week a portion of the field is eliminated.  The more popular strategy for survivors is to roll out a train of your entries each week until the last round. 

 

Millionaire Makers:  Both FanDuel and DraftKings will roll out large gpp’s that feature a first place prize of $1,000,000.  For DK, you’ll be competing at the $20 entry fee level vs a little over 321,000 other entries.  The entry limit per user 150, and most who enter this contest take the Ricky Bobby method of first or last.  The top prize of course is the million, but finish 9th out of that many, and you winnings drop to $10K.  Finish in the top 1% of the field, and you winnings are only $125.   These contests are nice for those who have a multi-entry strategy, and huge bankroll, but the top heavy payouts make it hard to enter with flatter payouts from the other contests. FanDuel’s millionaire maker is also 150 max entry, but is cheaper at $7.  There are twice as many entry spots, at a little over 672,000, but it’s similar to DK, where you have to question if it’s worth entering for you.  Finishing 500th out of 672,000 plus, returns $200 to you. FantasyDraft’s large week one gpp is $250,000, at a $25 entry fee, and while Y!’s is not posted yet, their large gpp entry fee last year was at the $10 buy in lvel.

 

The Overlay Dilemma

Expect to receive emails, see it on banners, and hear all over the place the morning on Sunday, September 10th about massive overlay taking place.  Try not to jump on every site and contest where overlay is taking place.  It’s not guaranteed that overlay means easy money, and there are plenty of ways users can mass enter last minute to bridge that gap of what you saw or heard as potential overlay.   Where I do like to attack overlay, is in the cash game options.  Try not to impulse enter contests, but having your rosters in place early on week one provides you the opportunity to monitor the overlay on the sites.   On a side note, outside of DK and FD, be very wary of any site that starts offering deals for free entries or large deposit bonuses the week leading up to opening day. 

 

Conclusion: The DFS sites are once again going all-in for week one.  If you create a plan by strategically entering the contests that you feel comfortable with playing, you’ll put yourself in a position to be successful this year.