Top 10 Tips for New Players: DFS Beginners Guide
With Daily Fantasy Sports still alive and kicking, more and more players are getting their feet wet in the industry. For those of you that are new (or newish) to the DFS world, here are my top 10 tips to get you started.
1. Make sure to take advantage of all the bonuses and offers tailored to new players. Max your deposit bonus as much as possible, since a lot of sites do not offer many reload bonuses. You might as well collect as much bonus money while you can. Also, if a site offers games for new players only (such as DraftKings’ beginner games and tournaments), make sure to play them as much as you can.
Editor’s Note: Gain access to RotoGrinders’ Premium content by signing up through our DFS site reviews, like this one for FanDuel.
2. Don’t let one day or week give you too much or too little confidence. There’s a lot of variance in the DFS world. Even the best players have losing months (especially if they are GPP focused), and, of course, even the most casual of players can have a great day.
3. Learn to build your lineups for the contest type. For GPPs, learn to stack and increase your variance. For cash games, don’t stack and find safer, high-value plays.
4. Play more of your bankroll in 50-50s and H2H at first. This way, your variance will go down, and you are less likely to have a bad losing streak that’ll make you want to give up. Play at least some GPPs to give yourself a chance at a big score, but don’t totally rely on it.
5. Play some satellites to bigger tournaments, especially on the smaller DFS sites. There’s often a ton of overlay value in satellites, especially on the smaller sites.
6. Become a part of the community. It’ll increase your enjoyment of DFS as well as help you get more “in the zone” when making lineups.
Editor’s Note: This includes the RotoGrinders’ forums, where a large portion of the DFS community gathers to talk about the industry.
7. Don’t stress too much about what the popular plays of the day are. This only matters in GPPs anyways, and the line behind a “must play” and a “good public fade” is often very blurry. Focus more on finding good value and players with a high ceiling.
8. Look at projections for players. It will help you at first. However, don’t take them as gospel and definitely use your head when ultimately deciding who to draft in your lineups.
9. Learn to be rake and value conscience. A really good player that just enters a bunch of high rake H2H games will likely make less (or lose money) compared to a player of slightly lesser skill that continually seeks out lower rake (whether it’s the structure or via bonuses/rewards) and puts more of his bankroll in tournaments that have some overlay.
And most importantly…
10. Have fun and enjoy the process. At the end of the day, DFS is first and foremost a form of entertainment. If you want to “get in the zone,” it’s important to enjoy researching and thinking about constructing lineups.