Yahoo! Daily Fantasy Doubles Down on Guaranteed Overlays in NFL, NBA
In Week 15, Yahoo! Daily Fantasy ran an NFL Million Dollar Baller contest where it gave away $1,000,000 in prize money, including a $250,000 guaranteed overlay.
So what is Yahoo! doing for an encore? More guaranteed money.
For NFL Week 16, Yahoo! DFS will run back its Million Dollar Baller contest with $100,000 to first place, plus the site is also offering NBA contests with guaranteed overlay all week long.
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Starting on Monday night, Yahoo! DFS is running an NBA $100,000 Baller contest. It’s $10 to enter with $10,000 going to first place and a guaranteed $25,000 overlay. There is a 10-entry max for the NBA contest.
Just like last week, Yahoo! DFS will feature another NFL contest with $250,000 in guaranteed overlay. The tournament is $20 to enter and also has a 10-entry maximum.
What’s the catch? There is none. It’s marketing. Currently far behind the two giants in the DFS space, DraftKings and FanDuel, Yahoo! DFS wants to close the gap, and there is plenty of ground to make up. By offering contests with high guaranteed overlay, Yahoo! will attract more serious and casual DFS players to its games. With its two recent NFL contests and NBA contests, Yahoo! DFS has already ponied up $500,000 in guaranteed overlay for the month of December.
If Yahoo! DFS keeps this up through December, its guaranteed overlay will surpass $1,000,000 by the end of the month, something previously unheard of in the DFS industry and a pretty great value proposition for the players.
For the uninitiated, overlay is the difference between the total guaranteed prize-pool by a DFS site and the actual number of paid entries. It’s money the site has to put into the prize pool themselves rather than being added by other DFS players.
Offering high guaranteed overlays is a smart way to attract people who play DFS for a living to Yahoo! contests. If the last two weeks are any indicator, Yahoo! is renewing a push to become a serious player in the DFS industry — and more competition in the space is good for everyone.