Different Bankroll Strategies for Game Types
The term “bankroll” refers to the amount of money that you have in the different daily fantasy sites that is going to be used exclusively for daily fantasy sports. Before we get into too many specifics, I want to talk about the different types of player in the industry. They fall into 3 broad categories:
- Recreational players are playing mainly for fun and have other sources of income besides fantasy sports. If they lose their bankroll they can easily fund it with fresh money from their regular source of income. This is the most common type of player.
- Serious players are good and profitable players but do not depend only on fantasy sports for their entire income. They have a sizeable bankroll and treat this as a profitable hobby.
- Professional players depend on fantasy sports as their only source of income. They cannot afford to lose all their bankroll as this means that they would lose their job. There are very few of these players in the industry.
The more serious of a player that you are in daily fantasy sports, the more strict your bankroll management techniques should be. If you are interested in moving from a recreational player to a serious player, learning solid bankroll management should be at the very top of your list. This lesson should give you some guidelines on how much of your bankroll should be in play based on the type of leagues that you are entering.
Many DFS players prefer to grind out head to head and 50/50’s while others like to hit it big in the GPP’s. New players in the industry are often unaware of bankroll management and tend to just take it day by day or week by week based on how they are feeling about their teams. Not having a solid bankroll strategy could quickly find players without any bankroll at all. For that reason, we can’t stress this enough: bankroll management is the single most important concept that you need to understand and master if you want to be successful in the long term.
There are differing opinions on the best bankroll strategy, but the concept is always the same. You want to know how much you have on each site and then build certain rules for each bankroll so that you can maximize your profits over the long run. This helps manage not only how much you have in play each day, but also how much you have in play based on each league type. This will help you yield much more consistent results and will hopefully help you avoid losing your entire bankroll.
We are going to cover the different types of leagues as well as a suggested use of bankroll for each. After reading this, you should be able to decide which type of player you are and then decide if you want to think about increasing/decreasing the amount that you are putting into play each night.
The very first step in bankroll management is deciding how much risk you are willing to take each night. You always have to assume the possibility that you will lose all of your leagues so you don’t want to put a huge portion of your bankroll in play each night. The typical player will put into play anywhere between 5-20% of their bankroll each day depending on the size of their bankroll. The table below is an example starting with a $100 bankroll. It shows you where you would be after 4 straight days of losing based on the % of bankroll in play:
| Bankroll | % In Play | Night #1 | Night #2 | Night #3 | Night #4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $100.00 | 5% | $95.00 | $90.25 | $85.74 | $81.45 |
| $100.00 | 10% | $90.00 | $81.00 | $72.90 | $65.61 |
| $100.00 | 15% | $85.00 | $72.25 | $61.41 | $52.20 |
| $100.00 | 20% | $80.00 | $64.00 | $51.20 | $40.96 |
The purpose of this table is to show you the worst case scenario for your bankroll if you were to lose every league 4 days in a row (hot and cold streaks are very common). As you can see from the table, if you are only playing 5% of your bankroll each night, you will still have $81.45 left after that cold streak. However, if you play 20% of your bankroll each night, you are down to $40.96 after only 4 days. The opposite of this is true as well, the higher % of your bankroll in play, the bigger your winnings could be. However, the purpose of this is to show you that if you play a smaller % of your bankroll each night, your chances of that bankroll lasting long-term will increase dramatically.
The second purpose of this table is to show you that your bankroll strategy should change based on which game type you are playing. We will get more into this when we discuss each game type.
Double-Ups & Head to Heads
Double-Ups and head to head’s get lumped into the same category because they are similar in that they have the smallest amount of variance and you have the same chance of cashing in both, essentially 50% since you only half to beat either half the field or one other player.
A player that grinds out these types of leagues is not in it to make a ton of money in a short period of time. The goal of grinding out these leagues is to make a slow and steady profit over the season. If you fall into this category of player, the first thing that I would suggest is to decide how risky you want to be with your bankroll. Since you have a much greater chance of winning your leagues each night, it allows you to put more of your bankroll in play than if you were just playing GPP’s.
The odds of a very good player losing every head to head and double up for 10 days straight are pretty much next to none. Since you are playing leagues that aren’t nearly as risky (50% chance of winning), you can feel more comfortable putting more of your bankroll in play each day. It all depends on the individual, but I generally recommend playing 10-20% of your bankroll if you fall into this category. Just remember to try to stay consistent.
GPPs/Large Field Events
GPP’s can be very tempting for both new and experienced players. They offer the chance to win big sums of money without having to pay large entry fees. There are a lot of players out there that are strictly GPP players and are very good at what they do. But in order to be a GPP-only player, you really have to be OK with the ups and downs of daily fantasy sports.
In a GPP, your odds of winning or cashing are much lower than they are in a head to head or double up league. This will cause your bankroll to have massive swings because you could easily go a week or two without any big wins. Take a look at that table at the top again; this worst case scenario could very easily happen to GPP players. 10 days in a row without a big win is certainly a bad stretch, but it could easily happen. For that reason, I think that GPP players need to play a much smaller amount of their bankroll each night than the head to head players.
In order to avoid losing all of your bankroll, my recommendation would be to put in play anywhere from 1-10% each day if you only play GPP’s. This lower percentage each day will allow you to withstand those long streaks when you don’t have a big win.
The All-Around Player
Most experienced players in the industry aren’t just head to head or GPP players. Most of them like to play a mix of the different game types. If you fall into this category, I would take a quick look at what the ratio of the leagues that you play is. If that ratio is 75% head to head and double ups and 25% GPP’s, then come up with a % of bankroll that works best for you. The main point of this lesson is to learn the importance of playing consistently and knowing which type of player that you are and how it should affect your bankroll strategy.
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