I’ve always found the best way to build my bank roll is to play heads up and double ups and then once you start winning, start entering more leagues. I try to keep my maximum amount of leagues per night at 25% of my total bankroll. That way you avoid having one bad night and having your bankroll completely gone.

But it is different for everyone. I’ve never been good at placing in the GPP’s so I think it just depends on your strategy. If you can consistently place in GPP’s, then I would say use the strategy you mentioned.

Sprom, I enjoy playing in the GPPS but I don’t recommend them for building a bankroll. The variance is so high you could wipe yourself out before you get going.

If I were strictly focused on building a bankroll I would pick a few sites and play in every 50/50 game I could find on those sites. The 50/50 games offer the lowest variance. Diversifying your sites will require you to do extra research on the differences between each site’s scoring system and salary structures. Once you put in the extra work and get comfortable with a few different sites you will be increasing your diversity of opponents.

You may find that you consistently perform better in one site’s scoring system, or vs. the opponents that one site offers – in that case I would focus more on that site, but I wouldn’t advise doing so until you have a very large sample size of results – maybe a couple hundred games on each site.

Agreed with Notorious to not put more than 25% of your bankroll at stake on any given night – even the best players are going to have terrible nights, especially with injury risk.

I come from the poker industry and have experience building a bankroll there. I know what it takes to build 2 figures -> a lot of figures, it can be done! There are a lot of parallels between that and the DFS industry so I will give you my thoughts:

-You will find the most dead money in the Guaranteed games, but it’s not going to provide consistent income. You should take ‘shots’ at these games when conditions are right. Be on the lookout for overlays or for games that are likely to attract the weakest of players. Only play these when your bankroll can afford it, you should be trying to stay afloat / making a small profit on your day to day smaller games, use a piece of that income to try to pop off a big score.

-play on multiple sites. you don’t need to keep a bankroll on multiple sites, but at least be keeping an eye on what is going on. for example, DraftDay had a $5 game last weekend with $25,000 guaranteed prizepool. There was an overlay of $5,000 in this game, that’s free equity for anyone who played. One guy put in 50 entries into the game and cashed for $7,000+.

-game select. if you see guys who are playing tons of games day in and day out, you should consider avoiding their action.

-play on sites that are likely to attract NEW DFS customers. at the end of the day, the people who consistently outpick their opposition are going to make the money. it’s much easier to do that when you are playing against people new to the industry. there are some sites out there that aggressively are trying to grow the industry, and there are sites who are trying to grab players that are already on other DFS sites.

-specialize. NFL has the most action, but there is also a ton of good information about the game/players. it’s much harder to get great fantasy hockey, basketball, and college sports info. get an informational edge in these games and you will see the results in your bottom line.

good luck!

game selection…..game selection…double ups! like Taylor said, newer sites offer a great opportunity to build a roll..great promos and freerolls are always nice…finding overlays is the right way to go… DraftDay has had some great values lately..Id suggest you check them out. Good luck…..Its not a sprint its a marathon.

Grind the lowest stakes head to heads and 50/50s with no more than 25% of your bankroll a night, play as many as possible

I think find your winrate and follow kelly criteron is the real answer :-p, but honestly I have to agree, if your worried about maintaining a low Risk of Ruin, game selecting, playing lower stakes, and sticking to games of lesser variance like HU and 50/50s are all very valid. I do think however you should definitely take shots at competitions with solid value in overlay will be tough for a solid grinder to not be VERY +EV in them

As you can see there are many answers to this question. I think to get a more definitive answer you need to give more info.
For example; How much bankroll are you starting with?
Different strategies take different bankrolls.
The larger money winners on these sites use a strategy that wont work for lesser banks. Lets say you enter a 50/50 league and finish 10th. In theory, had you played 50 h2hs you would have won 40 of them. That is why you see these top names with so many games listed. On good weeks, this type of play pays off well but on bad weeks, you lose big!
For small banks (such as mine) I recommend just plugging away at the 50/50s and live drafts. If you do leagues, stick to small 5 to 10 team ones. On DZ you need only hit 1 out of every 6 10 man to break even. You should be able to do that on a regular basis so, I dont consider them a huge risk.

Can’t believe more people didn’t suggest this, but the easiest way to build an initial bankroll is through deposit bonuses.

The best deposit bonuses I’ve seen so far are the ones at DraftStreet, although other sites have some pretty good ones too. For example, hockey season I think they had a 25% bonus which paid out extremely fast. I deposited $400, played it through breaking even on my games and collected the $100 bonus money and then took my $400 out and have been playing on the bonus money ever since. I did the same for basketball when they offered the 30% bonus and I’m still working through that one.

It’s a great way to build an initial stake and if you lose it, oh well, it was just bonus money anyway.

I’m probably more conservative than most and think putting 25% of your roll on the table every night is probably too much. I’ve been playing for awhile and achieving a 60-65% win rate is tough. With a win rate like that, it’s easy to lose 5 or 6 nights in a row, which would really crush your roll at 25% wagered each night. Something that I’ve experienced is that when I lose with a bad score, I usually lose every game on a given night either because of one bad player or injury. However when I put up a really good score, very rarely do I win every game on a given night. Seems like the really low scores hurt A LOT more than the really good scores help.

Also, if you do decide on 25% per night, I’d keep about 80% of that in H2H or 50/50. I kind of disagree with one of the other posts that win rates in 50/50 somehow predict how you’ll do H2H. For example, Tuesday night I managed to go 10 for 10 in the 50/50, but lost all 5 of my H2H. More random than you would think.

The GPP tourneys are fun, but the luck factor is huge. If you are trying to build your roll through a lucky quick hit, then yeah give them a shot. If you are trying to build your roll through steady application of skill, then stick to hunting down less skilled opponents in H2H matches.

Great advice on the specialization too. Trying to do two sports is very difficult. Also, try to stick to one site and learn the quirks of their scoring. I know for basketball, the strategy and types of players you look for are completely different on various sites and if you tried to use the same players across multiple sites, you’ll be playing inefficiently.

And most important of all, you have to minimize your rake. Find the site with the lowest rake. So far I’m pretty sure FSL has the lowest of any site, especially for the guys who are starting at the lower levels to build a roll.

Keep in mind that as it becomes “known” that h2h has less variance and more reliable returns, it’s going to attract more sharp players. The bottom line is that you need to find weaker players. Go where the sharper players are not. I would guess 10 man games have significantly weaker players than 2/3 mans. Supplement your HU’s with 10 mans.

Sharp players are attracted to:

-promotions tailored to them (low rake, high volume rewards)
-low variance
-big bonuses

Newer players are attracted to:

-chance for a big score
-trustworthy companies
-easy to use interface
-‘sexy’ promotions (fanduel’s vegas promo is a good example)

GENERALLY speaking I would seek out soft games and then low rake in that order, but the good news is you can have both if you know where to look.

Both Daily Joust and Fantasy Sports Live do have “Beginners” leagues only available for newer players so those might be good options for newbies who don’t want to get swallowed up by sharps.

Daily Joust is the only site I know of that has the Solo contests. I mostly focus on hockey, so on nights where there are a lot of games (7+), I enter the solos. All you have to do is beat 100 points. If it’s a slow night in the NHL, I don’t bother, as you have less options to pick from. You can only do a couple of these a day, but you can build some cash up that way if you know what you’re doing, and you don’t have to worry about an opponent getting luckier than you.

haha, seems to be a mass promotional contest :), but i’ll throw in my 2c, like I said before, the real maxEV math way is to follow kelly criterion (as far as the % of your bankroll to wager per tournament), but due to the variance in athletes performance, I don’t mind putting a cap on it like some have mentioned, like never more than 25% of your BR in a day. Something like this will definitely maximize the growth in your BR.

But, that said, BuzzDraft offers a 50% deposit bonus up to $250 when you sign up through RG, that clears at a rate of 1:1, so you literally play rake free for your first $250 in rake, and on top of that, our VIP system offers far more than any other VIP Program (that i’m aware of) is giving at this time, by giving you another 50% of your rake back if you get the highest level (very doable if your a grinder) and tons of milestones that are released in cash along the way.

I think that method of playing rake free for $250 in rake, and by the time you rake through that your already our 3rd level of VIP and have a very healthy RB %. Don’t think you can beat this for a boost / stability to your BR. Best of luck Sprom!

Since everyone is talking sign up bonus. I would like to mention that if you join DraftZone through your Rg link they OFFER A 100% sign up bonus. I have actually forgone my referrals and recommended that people sign up through here because of it. They also offered weekly freerolls during NFL season and were even doing promos where if you simply “liked” them on facebook they would give you $5. They later offered freerolls for the likes that would have as little as 40 entrants with top 5 paying out. They really do treat their players very well.

Thanks for all the thoughts. One more question, do you guys do a couple of different lineups to give yourself a better chance, or do you just stick with 1 lineup most days?

@sprom said…

Thanks for all the thoughts. One more question, do you guys do a couple of different lineups to give yourself a better chance, or do you just stick with 1 lineup most days?

I use one lineup per site, but I also play on 4 different sites as a way to use different lineups. I very rarely use two different lineups on the same site. The only situation where this might be a good idea is fielding a couple teams in a tourney where you want to take a few different shots.

In H2H I think you have to pick your best lineup and go with it on a particular site rather than using a subpar lineup just to trim variance. Of course, if the players are very close in value and you aren’t sacrificing quality, then definitely field ‘A’ and ‘B’ lineups if you want to be smooth things out.

Yea I had and ‘a’ and ‘b’ lineup tonight as i couldn’t decide between Ryan Anderson and Gerald Wallace. How’d that work out for me. (9 pts. between em)

@Taximike said…

Yea I had and ‘a’ and ‘b’ lineup tonight as i couldn’t decide between Ryan Anderson and Gerald Wallace. How’d that work out for me. (9 pts. between em)

Hey, no complaining, at least you didn’t have them both on the same lineup like I did. Enjoy that $5, I want a rematch, haha

I’ll make the argument for GPP strategy which is what I primarily play and I have been profitable with.
[side note:Until you have a firm grasp of a strategy that work for you, I’d recommend playing for free, freerolls or low $ games and then check your results vs. the GPP leaders to see how you did for that night.]

The reason why I like the GPP is b/c it eliminates statistical flukes (Having the 2nd best score of the night only to be H2H against the #1). Most GPP’s pay the top 9-11%. So if you are confident that you can finish in the top 10% on a consistent basis you will make $$ (to break even you only need to win 9-14% of the time depending on payout format vs 55.5% if playing H2H and 50/50). The biggest thing to note here is since you will lose often you need to have a decent bankroll for the amount you are playing to protect against those 10-20 game losing streaks.
I started playing H2H and small leagues and I remember getting frustrated by losing a 10 team baseball league by 0.25 points but had I played the GPP I would have cashed in the top 10. That was the day I gave up on league play entirely and switch to GPP with some H2H.

Food for thought not sure what others think.

h2h used to be the best way but the player selection now is so limited its almost a dead game. Every player can name the 4 guys on each site who will get most all the action due to having money and ability to swallow up games. The key for me is to win a GPP then withdraw back to where i was…always play as if you are almost broke. Too much money makes u lazy and you tend to enter crap lineups on a hunch just to see the one you liked out do all the hunches. Also stick to sports you are good at, dont play hockey if you suck at it just cause you have money and are bored..Note to self..read this post

@whits23 said…

The key for me is to win a GPP then withdraw back to where i was…always play as if you are almost broke.

Great advice Whits, especially the line I quoted. It’s so easy to get sloppy when you do hit a good score, then suddenly you are back where you started with nothing in the bank.