New to Daily Fantasy Games?
New to Daily Fantasy?
Welcome to the world of Daily Fantasy Sports! If you’re here reading this, then you’ve heard that the $3-$4 Billion dollar Fantasy Sports industry 1 has been adapted into an awesome new market which allows you to play Fantasy Sports every single day! RotoGrinders.com is a community entirely focused this new game and its players. In this quick guide we aim to enlighten you on the world of daily fantasy and teach you how to play.
Daily Fantasy Sports is a rapidly growing industry, with huge potential, and it is still in its earliest stages. These incredible new games allow you to draft as many fantasy teams as you would like, in any sport, and have those teams compete for one day or one week only. Busy Tuesday and can’t watch the games? No worries. When Wednesday rolls around, you can draft a team from the sport you choose, against a field size of your choice, and only for the Wednesday night games.
The benefits of the Daily Fantasy Sports structure are many: You can enjoy a fantasy draft or salary cap league every day, make a lot of money by exploit your edge against weaker opponents more often, and set your own schedule without the season long commitment. Each of the Daily Fantasy sites offers a variety of draft types to suit almost any fantasy sports fan’s interests.
Daily Fantasy Sports can be played by signing up with the Daily Fantasy sites listed here on RotoGrinders.com. RotoGrinders.com has made a point to partner with only the best sites in the industry. All of our partner sites have been thoroughly tested and reviewed by our staff, have simple and secure deposits and withdrawals, and are recommended to all daily Grinders. Once registered, you will notice Daily Fantasy NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL leagues throughout the sites. Some sites offer an even wider variety; expanding into Daily Fantasy Golf, Daily Fantasy NASCAR, Daily Fantasy NCAA Basketball, and Daily Fantasy NCAA Football. Each of the Daily Fantasy sites will offer you a variety of draft types, so we went ahead and started a Daily Fantasy Sports Glossary to help introduce you to the process. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. Before you get started, let’s go over some key concepts!
Strategy: Research, Research, Research
Daily Fantasy Sports is a game of skill, so there are definite strategies involved that separate the winners from the losers. Every game consists of many variables. Here are some of the key strategies that the best players focus on:
Research Injuries and Transactions: Injuries and transactions have a huge effect on the day-to-day strategy in Daily Fantasy Sports. Injuries and transactions usually create situations where a player with a cheaper cost steps into starter’s minutes for a limited period of time. This creates a lot of value for this player. Like when Jamaal Charles inherited the Kansas City Chiefs starting Running Back job from Larry Johnson, his Salary value on DraftZone was still at the cost of a back-up running back for a couple of weeks, even though he was going to receive starter’s carries for the remainder of the season. Another opportunity where a player has Salary Value is when a pitcher is brought up from the minors to start in the big leagues. Before they prove themselves, you have an opportunity to get a starting pitcher at an extremely cheap price compared to the price of regular starters. Constantly keep an eye out for the latest value to be had from injuries, transactions, and the like in the RotoGrinders Forums.
Research the Sites: Each Daily Fantasy site independently sets the salary costs for individual players and your total team salary cap. Each site also independently chooses their own rules and rosters(Reviews Link), sometimes leading to different position and roster dynamics. At one point, DraftZone had Tyreke Evans (Guard, Sacramento Kings) valued at $11,100 with a $60,000 salary cap and 7 roster spots ($8,571 per roster spot), while SnapDraft had Evans costing $3.36 million with a $27 million cap and 6 roster spots ($4.5 million per roster spot). These structures put Tyreke Evans significantly over the average roster spot allotment on DraftZone, while the NBA rookie of the year comes in safely under the average roster spot cost on SnapDraft. This means that you can get more value on Tyreke Evans on SnapDraft than DraftZone per Guard slot, but note that this does not mean SnapDraft is better than DraftZone, or that you should necessarily take Tyreke on Snap Draft and bench him on Draft Zone. Player value is most meaningful when you also…
Research your Opponent: Knowing whether or not to take Tyreke Evans, depends a lot on how aware your opponents are of his value. If you know all of the opponents you are competing with in a league, and know that they are knowledgeable Daily Drafters, his value on SnapDraft is completely negated. If you are playing some Daily Fantasy ‘Newbs’ (that have not read RotoGrinders’ New to Daily Fantasy column), then you are in for a treat. Select Tyreke on SnapDraft and grin ear to ear. To determine if a player is a newbie, search for his username on the Home Page of RotoGrinders.com. If he or she doesn’t have many results than he could be the fish you are after. In an article with the Wall Street Journal 2, daily fantasy grinder ‘Tippy’ confesses to “search[ing] out weak opponents.” Daily Fantasy Sports is similar to poker in that the more you know about your opponent, the more you will win against that player and overall. You can learn about your opponents by putting in the hours on each of the daily fantasy sites, or you can learn about them quickly by using RotoGrinders’ Opponent Search feature.
Research…the Weather? Yes, even The Weather Channel is your ally for daily fantasy. In MLB, games are regularly postponed due to weather. If two teams are playing in a city with an outdoor stadium and a high chance of the movie Twister3 rolling into town, you should probably avoid them. Most inexperienced players overlook something as simple as checking the weather, and it really costs them in the long run.
Prize Pool Value: Finally, if you want to be a long-term winning player, you need to pay attention to the financial details. Finding Overlays and avoiding Rake are two key components to financial success in Daily Fantasy Sports. Though some are similar, each site independently chooses the amount of rake they will take from each Daily Fantasy contest prize pool. You can get an overview of who is charging the most, and who is offering the best rake deals in our Review Section. In addition to monitoring each site’s rake, a skilled player should keep an eye out for Prize Pool overlays. A Prize Pool overlay is when a site guarantees an amount of money that will be paid out, regardless of how many contestants sign up. SportsGeek had amazing overlays last NFL season, generating awesome value and huge prize pools ($1,000 on a $50 or less entry for 1st place was standard). FantasyFactor is another site that often guaranteed prize pools and unlimited contestant entries. Head on over to the RotoGrinders Forums to keep an eye on any special prizes or giant overlays.
The bottom line is that Research is the key to success in Daily Fantasy. Lucky for you, you’re at the right Daily Fantasy site. When you’re done with this, and signed up on all the sites, hit the RotoGrinders Forums, check out some Site Reviews, and hit our Daily Fantasy Research page hard. Before you know it, you could be at the top of our Daily Fantasy Player Rankings
How Much Can I Win?
Short Answer: A lot. The Daily Fantasy Sports Industry is picking up steam, and its uncle, ‘Season-Long Fantasy Sports,’ is already a $4 billion industry 4. The Daily Fantasy Sports industry is fresh, still-growing, and has very high potential, yet already users such as Kaiser Roll have brought in $55,412 in winnings in a single sports season. As the market and community grows, that figure, and the number of people earning it are sure to increase.
Daily Fantasy Sports Legality
One question you still may have is: “Are Daily Fantasy Sports games legal”?
Don’t take Ben’s word for it, Daily Fantasy Sports are 100% legal in the United States! Fantasy Sports are considered a game of skill and received a specific exemption from the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). All Daily Fantasy Sports sites listed on RotoGrinders use the same rules as a season long fantasy sports game, the only difference is that their games last for only a day or a week. Thanks to Fantasy Sports being specifically excluded from the UIGEA, any Daily Fantasy Sports site listed on RotoGrinders.com is completely legal. Your credit cards will work fine for making deposits and withdrawals are quick and easy. You can even deposit with PayPal on most sites!
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1 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_sport
2 – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703915204575103652233621286.html
3 – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117998/
4 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_sport
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