For one participant in the DraftKings Sports Betting National Championship (SBNC) beginning on Friday in Jersey City, New Jersey, the contest will double as a father-son outing.

“I’m going to make a weekend of it with my Father,” said John Lee, aka ‘TipAndPick,’ about his plans for inaugural SBNC. “We’ll arrive on Friday, make some initial wagers, have a nice dinner and cocktails, and do the same until the NFL games wrap up on Sunday evening.”

It’s a business and recreation trip in one — the rare kind with $1 million upside for the first-place finisher and $2.5 million guaranteed overall. But Lee is not a professional sports bettor. Like several dozen other competitors, Lee won his way into the tournament through a qualifier. He placed in the top 10 of a NFL Week 17 MegaQualifier.

As many of you may know, Lee is a DFS writer/analyst for Football Guys and RotoGrinders, and expects there to be some chaos and loads of uncertainty in a sports betting contest making its maiden voyage, drawing contestants largely (so far) from the daily fantasy sports community. And of course, from the poker world, which will have representation from Phil Helmuth. In other words, there’ll be a lot of smart people with similar but different skill sets, starting at a $5,000 bankroll, shooting for $1 million against a relatively small field of approximately 200 (our estimate).

“I will be floored if a ‘professional gambler’ actually wins this event,” said Lee, who will be making the trip from suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “I suspect the winner will be somebody who is aggressive and ‘runs hot’ for 48 hours.”

The following interview has been edited lightly for brevity and clarity. For more on the rules and tournament structure, please hit it here or scroll to the event page rules/FAQs.

DK SBNC competitor talks plan of attack, winning bankroll

RotoGrinders (RG): Have you used the DraftKings Sportsbook before or another new, legal sportsbook in New Jersey?

TipAndPick (TP): I used the DK Sportsbook (via the DK Sportsbook app) when I was visiting NJ briefly in September of 2018.

RG: What are your impressions of it?

TP: The app is straightforward and easy to use, but I did have some issues with geo-tracking that initially prevented me from entering my wagers.

RG:  Any sense of what the competition will be like at the SBNC?

TP: My feeling is that the field will be softer this year than any subsequent year. Why? First, because a lot of people (like myself) won entries via DFS, which does not necessarily make them effective sports gamblers. Next, there is no predefined script by which entrants can strategize. We don’t know how much money it will take to win. We don’t know how aggressive the field, in general, will be. We don’t know a lot of things about how to approach the tournament.

As a result, I suspect that an established gambler with a multi-sport background will have a distinct advantage this year. Given that 80% (my uninformed guess) of the field does not fall under that description, there is a real edge to be had for those who do fit that description.

RG:  Are you entering with a specific plan of attack or some sides/totals/props in mind?

TP: In Jeopardy, it is impossible to win if you enter Final Jeopardy with less than half of the leader because the most you can do is double whatever is in your account. With sports betting, it is possible to make dramatic jumps in those final stages with, for example, a 5-team parlay. That said, the odds of hitting a 5-team parlay are a hair over 3% and I don’t want to be forced to gamble my entire bankroll on such a risky proposition. My ‘plan of attack’ is less about ‘attack’ and more about staying close enough to the field to be able to win on Sunday. I may not be successful, but if I am within 50% of the leader on Sunday morning, I will have given myself a chance to win the tournament without forcing an otherwise illogical bet to get there.

RG: What sport(s) besides football (required on Sunday) do you think you dabble in or consider for wagering purposes?

TP: I will consider any sport where I think there is an exploitable betting line or edge to be had. I suspect there will be some actionable NCAABB lines because the season is still early and there appear to be well over 100+ games on Saturday; Vegas is superb at generating accurate betting odds, but it is impossible to get them all right. The key will be to find those games where Vegas is the most off-base.

RG: Any guess as to how high the winning bankroll will get?

TP: Pure conjecture: $75K.

RG: Are there any contest rules that could use clarification, in your opinion?

TP: No.

RG: If you were to combine your time/efforts spent researching/modeling/preparing for DFS contests and sports betting, what percentage do you estimate is devoted to the latter?

TP: Fortunately for my competitors, it is less than 5%.

RG: Anything else/thoughts you can add about the event?  

TP: I will be floored if a ‘professional gambler’ actually wins this event. I suspect the winner will be somebody who is aggressive and ‘runs hot’ for 48 hours. All of us have done this at one point or another in our lifetimes, but none of us can say that we’ve done it with $2.5M at stake. I’m excited about the prospect of winning the tournament, but am realistic about the likelihood of that notion becoming a reality. No matter what happens, I’m ecstatic about participating in the inaugural edition and thankful for the chance of winning life-changing money.

[Also See: H3Budda Talks Strategy, Competition Ahead of DraftKings Sports Betting Championship]