NFL DFS Bankroll Management: Week 3 Selection Guide

Hello Grinders. NFL Week 3 is upon us, and an often overlooked aspect that we miss is giving thought to our contest selection. Yes, contest selection is not a sexy topic, but I would argue is a fundamental topic in DFS we need to give more weight. While it’s easy for us to want to enter every contest and disregard bankroll management, taking a step back to understand what our goals are and which contests best help us realize those goals is going to be key.

I’ve structured this Week 3 contest selection guide in such a way where I’ve highlighted the top contests across the major DFS sites based on a style of play. While I’m not able to cover every style of play, I hope this gives you some guidance as to which contests may give you the greatest bang for your buck.

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One last thing I’ll mention is if you haven’t already, I highly recommend downloading the RotoGrinders browser extensions here. This will allow you to easily see Margin and Overlay for each contest. Let’s dive in!

Group 1 – Overlay Chasers

Overlay is going to be much harder to find in Week 3, as the sites have adjusted their contest sizes pretty well and with MLB and NBA winding down, casual DFS players are going to fill these NFL contests. Take for example last week the DraftKings Play Action tournament:

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Here it only filled 726K of 792.7K spots, which was 91.5% of the contest. DraftKings decided to shrink it down to just 693.6K spots this week. Oof. Because of this change, it’s likely we see it close to 100% filling.

The one contest I am monitoring is the main GPP on Yahoo:

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Last week, it did not fill as only 34,736/39,775 spots were taken. As you can see, Yahoo made a huge change by not only shrinking it down to 22,715 spots, but also changed it from a $10 buy-in to $15 buy-in. What I am really interested in seeing is whether the price increase scares some casual fans away, or if this contest just now fills with people willing to pay the extra $5 per entry. I’m not sure if this contest will have any overlay considering they cut a significant amount of seats, but this is the one tournament around the industry I am most intrigued by in terms of how DFS players treat it.

Group 2 – Top Heavy Chasers

I was going to write up the Wildcat tournament on DraftKings as that pays out 45% of the pot to the top 10. But take a look at the Power Sweep:

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This pays out even more to the top 10 at 46.2% of the pot. It’s a $150 buy-in with $50,000 to 1st place, but there’s a significant drop to just $20,000 to 2nd place and then a steady decline thereafter. Min cash is just 1.67x of your buy-in and this is the type of contest where you’re going to want to YOLO a bit because of how top-heavy it is.

Group 3 – Flat Structure Chasers

The Slant on DraftKings remains one of the best payout structures in terms of flatness:

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At only a $9 buy-in, min cash is 2x your buy-in and the top 10 only gets 31% of the pot. This remains a great contest for those who prefer a flat payout structure and being appropriately awarded for a top finish.

The other contest that really caught my eye was the $33 Three-Point Stance on DraftKings. This has a higher $33 buy-in, but it’s a five-entry max contest so you’re not going up against 150 lineups like you are in the Slant. Take a look at the payout structure:

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Here, the top 10 receive only 29.67% of the pot, so it’s even flatter than what you’d find in the Slant. If you can afford the $33 buy-in instead of the $9 buy-in, this is one of my favorite options on DraftKings.

Group 4 – The Penny Pinchers

FanDuel has done a great job with its nickel contest, the Pooch Punt. Here, you can max enter 150 lineups for just $7.50 with a chance at a $2,000 1st place prize:

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At 958K entries too, it’s possible we don’t see this contest fully fill, so it’s something to monitor in case there’s a bit of overlay. This is a great GPP for anyone who wants to stay on a budget or test the theory that entering 150 lineups is a guaranteed way to profit (hint: it is not).

Group 5 – The Singles

One thing I like about the RG Browser Extension is that it lays out all the information for you in terms of Margin and prize information. Regarding Single Entry contests, the one that caught my eye was on FanDuel, the NFL Cover 2. It’s a $100 buy-in so it may not be for everyone, but check out these numbers:

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There is only an 11.96% margin, which is one of the lowest on FanDuel. It pays out nearly a quarter of the field, has a relatively flat payout structure with 1st place getting just 10.42% of the prize pool, and you get 2x your money if you min cash. There are only 1,363 seats in this contest too so it’ll fill fast.

Thanks for reading, and good luck this week. May variance be on your side.

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About the Author

fathalpert
Allan Lem (fathalpert)

Allan Lem (aka fathalpert) began playing fantasy sports in high school and transitioned to DFS in 2015. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Economics and lives in California with his wife and two kids. Allan got his break in the industry covering Preseason NBA content. He is currently the Social Media Manager for RotoGrinders, ScoresAndOdds, and FantasyLabs. Follow Allan on Twitter – @AllanLemDFS