NFL DFS Bankroll Management: Week 8 Selection Guide
Hello Grinders. We’re reaching the mid-point of the 2020 NFL season and it’s been going by fast. 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
FanDuel continues to play around with the sizing of its nickel Pooch Punt tournament, which makes it the main tournament I continue monitoring weekly for overlay:
Last week, FanDuel bumped it all the way up to 958,083 seats. Only 738,813 seats were filled, meaning just 77% of the contest filled. This week, FanDuel reduced it all the way down to 790,419 seats. If we see a similar turnout as last week, this contest may now get closer to 93% filled, which means there may not be any overlay to chase. Regardless, this is still a contest worth monitoring in case it doesn’t fill.
Over on DraftKings, they made a big change this week to their Millionaire Maker contest by nearly doubling the size from last week:
In Week 7, the Millionaire Maker had 222.1K seats and it filled. This week, they’ve reduced the buy-in from $20 to $10, but bumped up the number of seats to 411.7K. This is still an insanely top-heavy contest where 40% of the pot goes to the Top 10, but there’s at least a chance this week it doesn’t completely fill. With this being the holy grail of NFL tournaments and the buy-in being reduced to $10, it’s likely that attracts many new players who normally don’t enter it so perhaps there’s no overlay to chase, but I will also be monitoring this one given the drastic change in size and buy-in that DraftKings made to it for Week 8.
Group 2 – Top Heavy Chasers
Speaking of top-heavy contests, there are a few to highlight if you aren’t chasing the Milly. Over on DraftKings, the $44 Four Technique is more manageable in terms of a win where there are only 10,601 seats (compared to the 411.7K in the Millionaire Maker), but it is extremely top-heavy where 1st place gets $100,000 and 25% of the pot, while the Top 10 get 48.5% of the pot:
FanDuel has its version of the Four Technique in the Kickoff tournament where it’s a $22 buy-in and 1st place gets $100,000 as well, which represents 30.03% of the pot:
There is just a massive dropoff in the payout once you get past the first few spots, so keep that in mind if you decide to play this tournament. The payout structure really incentivizes you to aim for 1st place and nothing else.
Group 3 – Flat Structure Chasers
The DraftKings Slant tournament has been the poster child for flat payout structures and it continues to be that, but in an interesting move for Week 8, DraftKings dramatically reduced the size of this contest:
The Slant has typically been a $50K to 1st place tournament with 65,000+ seats. This week, DraftKings changed it to a $20K to 1st place tournament and only 26,143 seats. My guess is they are doing this with the assumption more people will funnel their money over to the similarly-priced Millionaire Maker this week, so perhaps they are trying to avoid too much cannibalization within their own tournaments. But cutting the size of the Slant to nearly a third of what it typically is was a huge move, and if you want to get into the Slant this week, you may need to reserve your seats earlier than normal as this could fill fast.
Group 4 – The Singles
For Single Entry tournaments, I’m going to continue highlighting the RotoGrinders Single Entry Series over on FanDuel where there are multiple buy-in levels ($5, $33, $100) and you have the chance to gain additional prizes through a “live” final at the end of the series if you climb up the leaderboard:
On DraftKings, the $50 Red Zone Single Entry tournament is one of my favorites as it has a relatively flat payout structure with just 10% going to 1st place and 27% going to the Top 10. I also like how min cashing gets you 2x your buy-in and with just 2,272 seats in this tournament, it’s not impossible to finish high in this tournament:
Thanks for reading, and good luck this week. May variance be on your side.
Image Credit: Imagn