Daily Fantasy Sports are still based on the traditional “Salary Cap” type Fantasy Leagues most have played before, where players are all given a value and you need to create the best team you can within the cap.

The core differences with DFS is a) It’s usually done with cash on the line, and b) its not a season long format and run just over a single game, day or potentially weekend during the Season. So the upside is you can get a new team with whatever players you want any weekend.

On the betting side, there are “free rolls” on most sites where you can play for free, and then different competitions are set up at different values, with a buy in from anything from $2 to $1,000+. Returns are anything from doubling your money in “double ups” through to some massive prize pools that in the US get up to $1mill, but on Moneyball in Australia can typically sit between $5,000-$20,000.

Cash Games/ Double Ups/ Leagues 

A bit misleading given all kinds of games can be for Cash, “Cash Games” typically reference either Double Ups, Head to Head or Leagues. These tend to have higher odds of winning (30-50%) but for lower returns.

Double Ups – You are matched against other teams and if you score in the top 45% of teams you double your money, below this you get nothing. The reason its not the top 50% is some of the entry money is taking by the website (known as the “rake”)

Head To Head – Just man to man with the best score taking the winnings. Prize pools are again whatever the entrants have paid in less a rake. For example if the buy in was $10 for each player the prize pool would usually be something like $18

Leagues – A number of teams can be entered (anywhere from 6 to 200+ depending on how Comp is set up, but the prize pool is usually split much higher to only the top couple of scorers. So for a 6 man league the Top 2 may get some cash, or Top 12 scores if it was say a 100 team league, so returns are a bit higher but odds lower. Its important to note for Leagues the Prize Pool depends on the number of entrants, so lets say a 110 person comp at $2 entry was advertised as having a $200 prize pool, if only 30 people enter this Prize Pool will only be $60 less the rake.

Guaranteed Prize Pool (GPP)/ Tournaments

GPPS are the higher prize pool Comps, which can often have $5-10,000+ Prize Pools. The “Guaranteed” part comes from the fact the websites put up the pot and guarantee it, even if not 100% of entrant slots are filled (some do require 50% to be filled). So if we look at the opening Sunday Blitz NFL Special on Moneyball, its open to 1,500 entrants with a buy in of $15 each but as long as they get 1,500 entries and the contest runs, the Prize Pool is guaranteed at $20,000.

These GPPs tend to have lower odds of winning, for example the NFL GPP mentioned above has about 22% chance of cashing, but with much bigger Prizes if you land in the Top few teams. The Top Prize for the NFL Sunday Blitz is $2,800, with $1,200 for second, $725 for 3rd etc down to the 66th-344th teams getting a $33,18 return.

I will do a separate post on how strategies differ between these contest types at a later date.