INDUSTRY FORUM

On behalf of DraftKings, we are proud to announce our newly created Community team. Our group was formed to listen, engage, and advocate for the player community at large while championing our industry leading commitment to a world class game experience. We are here to represent your feedback inside the walls of DraftKings, because your ideas can help us deliver an increasingly better experience for all players. You can read our introductory post here: https://rotogrinders.com/threads/draftkings-cm-is-now-on-rotogrinders-2496208

Now it’s your chance – what would you like to know? Do you have a suggestion you would like to share? We will do our best to answer all honest and respectful questions you post in this thread, in turn we hope to help players like you have a better understanding of how the world’s largest fantasy sports ecosystem works. Please allow us some time before responding to your questions and comments, you deserve well thought out answers – and that takes time.

- DraftKings Community Team

That’s the juicy bit of info I needed to hear.

Follow-up question: How many TDs does it take to reach the 12th milestone/50,000 crowns?

Also, I just want to point out that there were 1371 total TDs scored in the NFL last season, not all of which were scored by players rosterable on DK (and yes I realize you can “double-dip” on passing TDs).

Thanks for sharing and that is great to hear about more Achievements coming at the beginning of the season.

With the in-season Achievements you mentioned, will they be added to your season-long total or need to be redeemed in a specific (shortened) period of time? Thanks!

Back to the topic of MLB Showdowns and the debate about whether having a captain is a good idea or not…

Baseball is already volatile enough as it is. A home run is worth 14-20 points, which is tremendous. A home run from a designated captain in a Showdown match is bulked up to 21-30 points, which is absurd.

At this very moment, there’s a Showdown happening between the Cubs and Nationals. Adam Eaton hit a solo homer off of Jon Lester. That’s 21 points awarded to the 2.52% of the field that made the ill-advised move of making a lefty bat with a .550 OPS against lefty pitchers their captain.

There’s contrarian and there’s dumb. When you start to reward dumb, it takes the skill and the fun out of it.

When will the Thursday-Monday slate be released for week 1 NFL?

You guys mentioned 2 days ago that the live final would be announced very soon (in all caps). Is that gonna happen today? I’ve been on the edge of my seat since you said that.

Go to NFL Achievement Faqs, then click on Terms and Conditions. I dont want to post the answer here because it’s too bugs bunny/depressing for me to reach.

Hahaha… I see it up now! Yes!!! The wait is over! Looks like another very good prize pool with $10 million total and $2 mil to 1st. Location is TBD for now, but I’m still satisfied.

I’ve searched quite a bit and can only find a thread from 3 years ago about it. If I am traveling to Las Vegas for week 1 of the NFL season, can I enter contests in my home state before I leave and still be able to edit them once I arrive in Las Vegas?

That used to be the case but not anymore.

Heavens to Betsy!

1,000,000 touchdowns? That’s sinister! You’d need 59,000 touchdowns each week to hit that number.

Football is without a doubt our biggest sport, it brings in a tremendous number of new players every year. It is in our best interest – and yours we hope – to retain these new players as we introduce them to NBA, NHL, and every other sport offered by DraftKings. We would like the first experience for these more casual players to be a positive one, as a result we tend to offer Achievement goals that are easier to obtain and priced accordingly. Keep in mind the total count of possible games are greatly reduced for NFL, it’s a 17 week season vs MLB’s half year or 8 months for NBA season. Make it Reign! – DraftKings Community Team

Can I give some insight into this? One of the eye opening achievements from previous seasons/sports, Ironman, has scaled back it’s reward to 20% of its payout through the second MLB season. It was a reward that was enticing, and easy to obtain for new players as it rewarded playing each contest day. I actually do understand that with $0.10 contests 25K crowns is alot to give away for only 48 contest days, but the only achievement that offers the same enticing achievement bonus is Touchdown Machine, which would require 29,412 touchdowns scored a week for the same 25K bonus point payout. Even the 250 touchdown achievement would require 15 touchdowns each week over 17 for a mere 25 crowns!? How is that enticing to new players?

*edit sorry for the huge quote. I guess I didn’t follow the instructions properly

I love the DraftKings achievements but for some reason you have closedown the golf achievements before the last tournament has even finished. Can you reassure me that we will get all the achievements we are entitled to.

BrianSnail

That is typical for all achievements that the only chance you have to hit the top levels is to play 300-500 lineups a slate. Guys who max enter everything will hit those numbers easily.

How can the PGA achievements be completed when the tournament isn’t even over yet? Are the 6/6 and high fiver achievements still accumulating? What about single round achievements?

the terms and conditions state the achievements are accumulated through August 25. They all still should count.

Achievements aren’t exciting to be honest. What’s exciting is the “Bargain Bin” contests with guaranteed overlay. Anything that gives more to the prize pool I’m in for. My rankings of sites are 1.FantasyDraft 2. DraftKings 3. Not playing at all. 4. FanDuel.

59000 touchdowns a week among 500 paid entries is 118 touchdowns per lineup. So not only would they have to put in 500 entries per week, they would need to enter it 12 times and average 10 touchdowns per lineup (3 for QB, and 1 each for EVERY position in the lineup in EVERY lineup), just to keep up. Will some do it? Absolutely, it is an insane achievement, but it runs contrary to the stated goal of making achievement that are appealing to new players. Just to be clear, achievements like this absolutely should exist. I just think that even the lower levels of this achievement are absurd given the reward, many of the others are simply lucked into, and the Ironman one is a shadow of previous seasons (across all sports).

How the heck can’t you implement a ‘Home Run Streaker’ tab? I’ve been stuck on 23 HR for 2 months yet I know I’ve had Home Runs.

You do realize there is like 10-15 slates per week and not just 1 right? So if you max enter just 1 contest every slate which the top players do your playing about 2000 lineups a week. The top players max enter multiple contests at various price points per slate and some are probably playing 10,000+ entries per week.

The top levels have and always will be for the max entry players only and not the casual player.

Yeah, as I said, some will do it, and it absolutely belongs. It does nothing to make the new players feel welcome though. Imagine being a new player, putting your toe in the water to see if DFS is for you, and after playing about 15 lineups worth of entries you have reached level 1 of this achievement and got a reward that is smaller than the daily mission for $1. Nothing welcoming about that. 3 fairly small percentage achievements if you play limited lineups, and the only thing left are the 3 achievements based on contest days played at a greatly reduced reward that what we have had before. I am interested to see what this upcoming achievement they are working on is, but, as it stands, most of these can be ignored by the large portion of players (most of us will probably wind up with the contest day based ones anyway), and I don’t see the stated goal of achievements that are welcoming to new blood. Does anyone like the head to head achievement? I don’t play H2H myself so I wouldn’t really know.

What do you expect? The sites make pennies for every $1 you put into play. So it only makes sense that rewards programs will be fractions on that. You can’t expect more back than you put.

DK doesn’t have to give anything away and they would be fine. I 100% ignore the achievements when it comes to contest selection and just collect what I end up with even if it’s only a few pennies.

Dear Draft Kings,

Is there anything that prevents you from, through your sportsbook website, offering games for free or for “points”? The reason I say this is that as sports gaming rolls out, most of us are still in states that don’t allow it – at least for now – and it would be fun to test our luck with “monopoly money” so-to-speak. Perhaps this could be done to win tickets on the Fantasy Sports side? Just wondering if this would be possible.

@hcassidyi
noticed mine stopped when i couldnt play one day then read the FAQ’s

Note: Progress for this achievement will reset to 0 after each day you do not draft a player who hits a home run in a paid lineup or if you do not play.

Follow-up question: How many TDs does it take to reach the 12th milestone/50,000 crowns?
Go to NFL Achievement Faqs, then click on Terms and Conditions.

Jki7p6 has you covered! You can access the 2019 NFL Regular Season Achievements FAQ page here: https://www.draftkings.com/achievements-faq#nfl. As mentioned, we include all of the milestones in the Terms and Conditions page which can be found at the bottom.

With the in-season Achievements you mentioned, will they be added to your season-long total or need to be redeemed in a specific (shortened) period of time? Thanks!

Wait and see! It’s too soon to discuss, but rest assured we have plans. If you would like to do your research, take a look at mid-season Achievements that we previously offered: the MLB Home Run Hunt.

At this very moment, there’s a Showdown happening between the Cubs and Nationals. Adam Eaton hit a solo homer off of Jon Lester. That’s 21 points awarded to the 2.52% of the field that made the ill-advised move of making a lefty bat with a .550 OPS against lefty pitchers their captain.
There’s contrarian and there’s dumb. When you start to reward dumb, it takes the skill and the fun out of it.

We are not here to judge the skillfulness of anyone’s lineups, but we can provide some advice on how to think about these scenarios. Ask yourself if you would rather play against someone that is making ill-advised strategic decisions, or someone who is making a very skilled choice that is hard to win against in the long run? It’s probably best if we let others elaborate further.

When will the Thursday-Monday slate be released for week 1 NFL?

The Full Week (Thurs-Mon) slate for NFL week 1 will be posted in the near future. Once those contests are live, we’ll be sure to update everyone following along in this thread!

Hahaha… I see it up now! Yes!!! The wait is over! Looks like another very good prize pool with $10 million total and $2 mil to 1st. Location is TBD for now, but I’m still satisfied.

Not only is it a very good prize pool, it’s one of the biggest guaranteed prize pools ever offered in the history of Daily Fantasy Sports!

If that doesn’t incentivize you enough, for the first time the trip is on us in celebration of our 5th annual Fantasy Football World Championship!

Coming soon: location announcement to be made on this page: https://www.draftkings.com/lp/2019-football-world-championship#

I’ve searched quite a bit and can only find a thread from 3 years ago about it. If I am traveling to Las Vegas for week 1 of the NFLseason, can I enter contests in my home state before I leave and still be able to edit them once I arrive in Las Vegas?
That used to be the case but not anymore.

bhdevault is correct. DraftKings users are unable to enter contests or edit lineups from the state of Nevada at this time.

1,000,000 touchdowns? That’s sinister! You’d need 59,000 touchdowns each week to hit that number.
That is typical for all achievements that the only chance you have to hit the top levels is to play 300-500 lineups a slate. Guys who max enter everything will hit those numbers easily.

Absolutely, it is an insane achievement, but it runs contrary to the stated goal of making achievement that are appealing to new players.

To build off what Bigez952 said, Achievements are designed to appeal to everyone from the 1st day DFS player where the initial milestones are designed to be realistically accessible, to our highest volume players who aim to have what it takes to reach the top milestones. Our intention is to reward players for their loyalty, proportionately, regardless of how much or how little they spend in entry fees. For this reason, the milestones are designed to cover the whole range of user activity from our least active players to our most active players.

Each Achievement’s milestone is fully disclosed and transparent, we include them in the promotion’s Terms & Conditions. Meanwhile, our high-volume users who accomplish the highest milestones in each sport over each season know where to find the details.

For clarity, the top milestone of a volume achievement is not designed to meet the needs of a new or casual player – volume based achievements rarely appeal to anyone except the grinders. That’s why we offer some fun Achievements that reward the widest range of players if they hit, such as the Donut Shop. A little something for players of all shapes and sizes.

There’s a ceiling for everyone, its a personal choice. You decide your own course, in turn our Achievements fit all sizes.

Can I give some insight into this? One of the eye opening achievements from previous seasons/sports, Ironman, has scaled back it’s reward to 20% of its payout through the second MLB season. It was a reward that was enticing, and easy to obtain for new players as it rewarded playing each contest day. I actually do understand that with $0.10 contests 25K crowns is alot to give away for only 48 contest days, but the only achievement that offers the same enticing achievement bonus is Touchdown Machine, which would require 29,412 touchdowns scored a week for the same 25K bonus point payout. Even the 250 touchdown achievement would require 15 touchdowns each week over 17 for a mere 25 crowns!? How is that enticing to new players?

To keep this topic in context, prior to 2018 there were no Achievements, this is a relatively new way for us to reward players for remaining active and engaged.

The 2018 MLB Achievements program, the 1st Achievements program we’ve ever offered, far surpassed our expectations. In fact, the 2018 MLB Achievements program was so successful that it allowed us to expand Achievements into new sports such as NFL, NBA, NHL, and PGA (see where we’re going with this?) and more to come in the next year.

2018 MLB Achievements was a rather successful test with the entire budget dedicated to a single sport. Now, not only have we expanded into Achievements programs for 4 additional sports (NFL, NBA, NHL, and PGA) but we’re looking to expand even further in the coming year. All thanks to the success of 2018 MLB Achievements. We have given back more to players this year than ever before – and we won’t stop here… wait until you see what have in store for you for NBA, NHL, and new sports in 2020!

I love the DraftKings achievements but for some reason you have closedown the golf achievements before the last tournament has even finished. Can you reassure me that we will get all the achievements we are entitled to.

The deadline for participating in PGA Achievements was extended from 12:00 AM ET on August 25, 2019 to 11:59 PM ET on August 25, 2019 given the fact that the final tournament on the schedule was still in progress after 12:00 AM ET on August 25, 2019.

Consider this our guarantee that you will be awarded the Achievements you are entitled to!

How the heck can’t you implement a ‘Home Run Streaker’ tab? I’ve been stuck on 23 HR for 2 months yet I know I’ve had Home Runs.
Note: Progress for this achievement will reset to 0 after each day you do not draft a player who hits a home run in a paid lineup or if you do not play.

Coheedrodeo’s answer should clear up any confusion here. The ‘Home Run Streaker’ Achievement is Total consecutive days drafting a player who homers in a paid MLB lineup. Therefore, the ‘23’ you see is the most consecutive days you have drafted a player who homered in a paid MLB lineup. Once you go a day without drafting a player who homersin a paid MLB contest, the count resets. On the MLB Achievements page, the ‘Home Run Streaker’ will show your longest streak.

Is it possible that you confused this Achievement for ‘The Big Fly’, which counts Total home runs accumulated in paid MLB entries?. The Home Run Streaker tracks all of the home runs you have accumulated in paid MLB contests as opposed to consecutive days drafting a player who homers in a paid MLB contest.

Is there anything that prevents you from, through your sportsbook website, offering games for free or for “points”? The reason I say this is that as sports gaming rolls out, most of us are still in states that don’t allow it – at least for now – and it would be fun to test our luck with “monopoly money” so-to-speak. Perhaps this could be done to win tickets on the Fantasy Sports side? Just wondering if this would be possible.

You can access our Sportsbook outside the state of New Jersey in order to review markets, lines, and trends. And we frequently offer free to play games in the DraftKings Sportsbook that are accessible from most states. We do this to provide our fans who don’t live in a state such as New Jersey the opportunity to enjoy the sweat for free!

At the same time, we are aware that some users would like to experience our full Sportsbook product in a free to play environment. It’s on our radar, as are many other items we have planned for the future.

- DraftKings Community Team

I see you are having a $200k College Football World Championship. Can you provide further details ie payout structure, is it a destination/live final event, max entries, etc? I didnt see any info under the “Promos” tab. Thanks.