How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love DFS
Love DFS? Hmm.
Perhaps to my detriment in this changing world, I am not a gambler. I started playing fantasy sports back in the mid-1980s for the intellectual challenge and the camaraderie. The money was a nice carrot at the end of the season, but it was never even remotely a part of the motivation for me. Maybe that’s why my Three Cardinal Rules for Winners look like this:
Rule 1: Revel in your success; fame is fleeting.
Rule 2: Exercise excruciating humility.
Rule 3: 100% of winnings must be spent on significant others.
To this day, I still get pushback from some readers on Rule 3. No, you can’t split it with your significant other. No, being your own best friend does not qualify you as your own significant other. No, schizophrenia doesn’t count.
But I acknowledge that cash is a pretty strong carrot and it represents at least a moderate motivation to play the game. For Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS), that motivation amps up from moderate to major.
It’s all good.
It has taken several years for me to come to terms with the game, but I found a way to preserve the challenge and separate the “game” from the “gambling.” So yes, even though I am not Dr. Strangelove, I have come to love DFS. But how does this non-gambler navigate through a competition where bankroll management is the measure of success?
Here is how I handle it:
Focus exclusively on the game play: At its core, DFS is a fascinating exercise in evaluating a bunch of diverse criteria to attempt to construct a roster with the best odds of putting up some numbers. Of course, that is the exact definition of full-season fantasy as well. The difference in DFS is that some of the criteria are different and you can evaluate the results of your effort quickly. It’s essentially Fantasy Immediate Gratification.
So, we want to look at skills, obviously. Playing time is taken care of already (you wouldn’t take a player who isn’t in the starting lineup). But lefty-righty match-ups are more important as well as home/road splits. Then there are also such variables as odds of precipitation, wind direction and even umpires. The criteria may be different but the challenge is just as complex. And unlike full season, you only get one shot at getting it right (but you can try many, many times).
Consider the entry fee as merely the cost to play. We don’t drop $100 for a ballgame ticket with the expectation of coming home with more money, nor would we expect to get any type of entertainment product for free. There is a cost to play. You have to decide how much you’d be willing to spend for the enjoyment of participating in a given night’s DFS action.
If it’s a night with poor match-ups, maybe you only play $1 games. If you have more confidence in your lineup, maybe you’d be willing to play a $5 or $25 game. In some ways, it’s not unlike MLB teams charging more for tickets to games against better teams or natural rivals. Better match-ups cost more.
But in the end, I am not paying for this entertainment product with any expectation of getting a refund, or windfall. In fact, I wish the game operators would just put the winnings in a separate bucket and hide it from view. The running total of initial investment MINUS entry-fees PLUS winnings is what feeds the gambling gene.
Establish your own benchmark for success. In full-season leagues, the bar for success is obvious – finishing first in your league’s standings. In DFS, that bar is unrealistic. I’ve found that you can make the best use of your analytical skills, set moderate goals and define “winning” in such a way that you can feel a sense of true accomplishment. For me, that means playing in single-entry 50-50 cash games.
Here, winning is defined as finishing better than half of the competition. Skill alone can yield “victory” a good 50 percent of the time. Winning even 55 percent the time could even mean that you would be playing DFS for free. A higher percentage would mean potential profit. In fact, last year I played 55 times. I finished in the upper half of the standings 33 times (60%) and took Sue out for a few very nice dinners (Rule No. 3) while enjoying myself (Rule No. 1) and not getting too cocky (Rule No. 2).
So 55 percent is doable but tougher than it looks, and not for the reason you’d expect. We are hard-wired to win; trying to finish only better than half of the competitors is a different mindset. (Can you imagine if your goal in your 15-team full-season league was to finish 7th?) In fact, it requires a good amount of discipline not to try to win outright. The goal is to ferret out the best percentage plays and then just playing them. There is nearly no speculating on sleepers. No taking chances. No trying to game your opponents.
Those are the lower-odds tactics required when playing in DFS tournaments. The big money is the lure of those games. But doing well means competing against grinders who enter hundreds of lineups. Doing well means speculating on contrarian picks and lower percentage plays. In some ways, it runs counter to how we’re wired. And do you really want to play a game where you can lose more than 70 percent of the time?
Not me, because again, the money is not the carrot. My carrot is cracking the system, finding that hidden variable that can provide a more palatable percentage play on a consistent basis. You might think, well, all these grinders already have found the secret sauce. Maybe. But entering hundreds of different lineups doesn’t really scream “Skill!” to me.
Position yourself for the maximum odds of success. This seems obvious, but that’s not how many gamers play. Regular DFSers will toss in a few lineups every night – what the heck, something might click. I’ll only play when there is enough information to make informed decisions. If a particular night has poor match-ups or too many uncertain variables, I’ll sit it out.
But first, I need to have enough stats in the books to provide a good performance baseline. I want batters t0 have about 100 plate appearances. I won’t touch a starting pitcher until he has at least five starts. I need BABS to stabilize. Anything less and you’re playing with too much volatility. Sure, Clayton Kershaw is always a good play, but how many DFSers have been losing money on Matt Harvey and Chris Archer?
In short, it all means that I don’t play DFS in April.
(I do play in Tout Wars Daily, because it’s against industry colleagues and it’s free. Until this past Friday, I had been unsurprisingly doing lousy. But the match-ups were particularly good this past Friday, the stars aligned and I finished first overall.)
Once May begins, I’m all in, with a disciplined approach to playing the cash games.
That approach starts with a plan to play DFS three times per week, on average. That provides enough opportunity to pick and choose the nights when the odds are highest. The following chart shows how a $100 buy-in with even a 59 percent win rate can nearly double your money by season’s end. Just one more win adds $40 to your profit. Two more wins adds $88. Once you get past break-even, every additional win has a huge impact on your bottom line.
I’ve earmarked Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays to play, but it can be any three days. Spend no more than 10 percent of your bankroll each night. A “win” returns the buy-in plus 90 percent, a typical rate on most DFS sites. You’d be getting a season’s worth of fun while playing with house money, as it were.
| MO | Date | BALANCE | 10% BUY | W/L |
| May | 3 | $100 | $10 | L |
| 4 | $90 | $9 | ||
| 6 | $98 | $10 | L | |
| 10 | $88 | $9 | ||
| 11 | $96 | $10 | ||
| 13 | $105 | $10 | ||
| 17 | $114 | $11 | L | |
| 18 | $103 | $10 | ||
| 20 | $112 | $11 | ||
| 24 | $122 | $12 | ||
| 25 | $133 | $13 | L | |
| 27 | $120 | $12 | ||
| 31 | $131 | $13 | ||
| June | 1 | $142 | $14 | L |
| 3 | $128 | $13 | ||
| 7 | $140 | $14 | ||
| 8 | $152 | $15 | L | |
| 10 | $137 | $14 | L | |
| 14 | $123 | $12 | L | |
| 15 | $111 | $11 | ||
| 17 | $121 | $12 | L | |
| 21 | $109 | $11 | ||
| 22 | $119 | $12 | L | |
| 24 | $107 | $11 | ||
| 28 | $117 | $12 | ||
| 29 | $127 | $13 | L | |
| July | 1 | $114 | $11 | |
| 5 | $125 | $12 | L | |
| 6 | $112 | $11 | ||
| 8 | $122 | $12 | ||
| 15 | $133 | $13 | L | |
| 19 | $120 | $12 | ||
| 20 | $131 | $13 | ||
| 22 | $142 | $14 | L | |
| 26 | $128 | $13 | ||
| 27 | $140 | $14 | L | |
| 29 | $126 | $13 | ||
| Aug | 2 | $137 | $14 | |
| 3 | $149 | $15 | L | |
| 5 | $134 | $13 | ||
| 9 | $147 | $15 | ||
| 10 | $160 | $16 | ||
| 12 | $174 | $17 | L | |
| 16 | $157 | $16 | L | |
| 17 | $141 | $14 | ||
| 19 | $154 | $15 | L | |
| 23 | $138 | $14 | ||
| 24 | $151 | $15 | ||
| 26 | $164 | $16 | L | |
| 30 | $148 | $15 | ||
| 31 | $161 | $16 | ||
| Sept | 1 | $176 | $18 | L |
| 6 | $158 | $16 | ||
| 7 | $172 | $17 | ||
| 9 | $188 | $19 | L | |
| 13 | $169 | $17 | ||
| 14 | $184 | $18 | ||
| 16 | $201 | $20 | L | |
| 20 | $181 | $18 | L | |
| 21 | $163 | $16 | ||
| 23 | $177 | $18 | L | |
| 27 | $160 | $16 | ||
| 28 | $174 | $17 | L | |
| 30 | $157 | $16 | ||
| FINAL | $186 |
I’ll go into all the rest of the gory details – the roster construction process that yielded last year’s 60 percent hit rate, and last week’s Tout Daily win – on Friday, so you’ll be all set for next month.The “L” games are the losers; I’ve entered them randomly here. In fact, you could lose those games in almost any order but as long as you finish with 38 wins, you’ll net the same $186 amount. Here is the spreadsheet so you can play with it yourself. (Please download the file if you plan on tinkering.)