NBA DFS Q&A Strategy Session with Notorious: Part 1
Notorious has been a staple of the RotoGrinders content team since the very early days of daily fantasy basketball. He’s certainly lived up to his nickname in every DFS aspect, earning a top-100 ranking, award-nominated DFS material in multiple sports and multiple live-final appearances. Despite his busy workload, Notorious also consistently makes himself available to offer advice to the RotoGrinders community.
Lately, Noto-🐐 has begun his NBA Grind Down articles with answers to user questions from previous days. Below you’ll find Part 1, a recap of some of the latest Q&A sessions from one of the industry’s best.
Question from timc9842:
Hear me out before you quit reading…If there are 24 people in a room, the chances of 2 of them having the same birthday is y=1-(365/366)^(24*23/2)=53%. Can this formula be translated to a GPP tournament in finding the chances of duplicate entries? If so, what numbers go where? If not, do you know what the formula might be? If you have no answer, then don’t waste your time…lol. Thanks for all your hard work!
Notorious: I have always loved the same birthday math problem because it seems so unlikely at first glance. The reason most people don’t believe the percentages is that they often put themselves in the equation. It’s not a 53% chance that someone will have the same birthday as you, it’s a 53% chance that two of the 24 people in the room will have the same birthday. Anyway, it’s not that easy to come up with a formula for the chances of a duplicated lineup because there are a lot more factors in play. Salary cap restraints, roster requirements, the size of the slate, and ownership all shift the equation. If there are five players expected to be above 40% one night, the odds of a duplicated lineup are a lot greater than if ownership is spread out. So to answer your question, I don’t have a formula for you 🤣.
Question from Marlinfan:
Not a dfs question but a betting question for you Noto… I’m not a sports bettor so if I misinterpret your bets for today forgive me. I see you bet Utah to cover -4.5 at NO and you also bet the over in the Utah/NO game. Will you make a parlay bet out of that? Or bet the two separately?