NFL DFS Bankroll Management: Week 7 Selection Guide
Hello Grinders. Week 7 is upon us, and this NFL season is slowly flying by. Before we know it, there will be turkeys on our dinner tables and Christmas gifts in our living rooms in no time.
The purpose of this article is to scan the DFS sites and highlight some of the various contests around the industry. I’ve structured the article to try and focus on contests that may appeal to five different types of DFS players.
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!
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Group 1 – Overlay Chasers / Penny Pinchers
I’m combining the Overlay Chasers and Penny Pinchers section into one section this week because I want to re-highlight the Pooch Punt nickel contest on FanDuel.
If you recall from Week 6, FanDuel shrunk it all the way down to just 718,562 seats after it didn’t fill in the prior Week 5. This week, FanDuel is going bold and bumped it all the way back up to 958,083 seats:
I have no idea how adding 240K seats is going to impact this contest, but I am going to monitor it closely as there could be some overlay here. I realize that playing nickel tournaments isn’t appealing for some of you high rollers, but if you’re on a budget and there’s potential overlay here come Sunday morning, this may one you decide to max out for just $7.50.
I also want to highlight that the overlay on Yahoo is gone now:
Yahoo did bump their main GPP up from 15,000 seats last week to 15,200 seats this week, and it does have one of the flatter payout structures in the industry, but keep in mind it pays out just 19.76% of the field. You do double your $15 buy-in if you min cash, but this is no longer a contest where I’m chasing overlay given they’ve shrunk the number of seats down drastically since opening weekend.
Group 2 – Top Heavy Chasers
If you’re a baller and have $3,000 to spare, the Luxury Box on DraftKings has one of the most top-heavy payout structures you’ll see for a tournament:
1st place gets 20% of the pot, while the Top 10 get a massive 61% of the pot. You will double your $3,000 investment if you min cash but only 17.03% of the field will min cash, making this a tournament where you better be aiming for the stars to make it worth your investment as there’s a huge drop off outside of the Top 10.
Over on FanDuel, the $22 Kickoff has one of the more top-heavy payout structures:
1st place gets $100,000 but 2nd place gets just $20,000 and 3rd place gets $10,000. In fact, the Top 10 gets 48.25% of the pot, with 1st place getting a massive 33.33% of the pot. I personally am not a fan of these types of payouts where you’re basically either first or last, but if this is your cup of tea, I totally understand as a $100,000 1st place prize is appealing for just a $22 buy-in.
Group 3 – Flat Structure Chasers
I keep writing up the DraftKing Slant tournament because it remains one of the best flat structure GPPs in the industry:
You double your money with a min cash, and for $9, you get a chance at a $50,000 1st place prize. With 31% of the pot going to the Top 10, it’s as fair as it gets.
If you don’t want to pay the $9 buy-in or go up against 150 lineups, the DraftKings Tiers First Down GPP is only a $1 buy-in and a 20-max contest:
This is even flatter than the Slant where 1st place gets just 5% of the pot and the Top 10 get just 16.25% of the pot. In other words, this is nearly half the percentages you see in the Slant. Note that you only get 1.5x your buy-in if you min cash, but 27% of the field will get paid out. This is a very friendly tournament for those still testing out NFL DFS and don’t want to break the bank.
Group 4 – The Singles
I’m going to continue highlighting the RotoGrinders Single Entry Tournaments on FanDuel as they not only have a very fair payout structure, but there’s the added bonus of the online live final if you finish among the top scorers after the tournaments are done, so you’re playing for more than just the weekly payouts.
There are three buy-in levels this week ($5, $33, $100) so you have some options to choose from. You can find more details about the RotoGrinders Single Entry Series here if interested.
If you prefer the DraftKings format, the $12 Fair Catch Single Entry tournament is very appealing:
It’s somewhat large field as there are 24,509 seats in this tournament so you’re going to have to get a bit contrarian with this one, but I like that it’s one of the flatter payout structures (just 10% of the pot to 1st place and 24.6% of the pot to the Top 10). I also like that you get 2.08x your buy-in for min cashing.
I was curious what kind of lineup construction won the $12 Fair Catch last week and here was the winning lineup by DraftKings user “Beeter99” courtesy of ResultsDB:
This lineup took 1st place for $25,000 and used a Matt Ryan / Julio Jones stack and brought it back with Justin Jefferson. With Ryan and Jones both sub-10% owned, it didn’t matter as much that the rest of their lineup had players with double-digit ownership as that was enough to differentiate them to the top.
Thanks for reading, and good luck this weekend. May variance be on your side.