These days, it's easy to get into playing daily fantasy sports (DFS). All you need is a credit card and a connection to the internet. But if you're new to the space, the DFS world can be overwhelming and an easy place to make errors.
RELATED: An Early Look at DFS Strategy in Week 1 here >>>
Let's keep those errors from happening.
Here are the most common mistakes new players make in DFS.
1. DFS Bankroll Mismanagement
Bankroll management is one of the keys to success within DFS. Far too often, we’ve seen very experienced and profitable DFS players suddenly disappear, only to realize they had three or four bad weeks in a row. This is my 14th year playing NFL DFS, beginning in 2011, and I’ve had my share of bankroll management ups and downs, as you learn throughout your time playing the hobby.
There are two different methodologies that you could use, which are outlined below. However, the biggest thing you should never do is significantly deviate from these strategies based on a big week. Success in one week does not predict future success. To truly realize if you’re a profitable NFL player, it takes years to have a sample size large enough to factor out some of the fluctuations of winning or losing streaks.
DFS Methodology #1- The % Methodology
This one does not work for everyone as it requires more discipline, so if you’re struggling with following it, move on to methodology number two. With this methodology, you will need to allocate an annual budget and then a percentage of the budget you want to play each week. If you want to be extremely conservative, 10% of your weekly budget is on the low end, while 15-20% is more common. Then, based on your success or failure each week, you continue to play that same % of your bankroll with the amount in play, adjusting up or down accordingly.
For example, in week one, if your annual budget is $100 and you’re playing 20%, you’d play $20 in that given week. Then if you lost $10 that week, your new balance would be $90, and you’d stick to that 20% and play $18 that week, adjusting throughout the year based on wins or losses.
DFS Methodology #2- Play a pre-determined consistent dollar amount each week throughout the season
This is a method I learned from a friend who goes to Vegas and puts his daily budget in socks prior to going on the trip. He then uses only that amount of money as his budget, and win or lose, he goes to the next sock, putting back the money that he won into that day's sock at the end of the day. It’s a little extreme to use socks instead of envelopes, but it works for him.
In this method, it’s pretty simple. Each week, deposit the amount that you’re comfortable playing with. Win or lose, withdraw everything at the end of that given week. Not having money sitting in your DFS account can reduce the urge to enter college football, basketball, hockey, or any other sport you’re not as strong in.
Summary
Risk management is completely up to you. Whether you want to play 20% of your bankroll each week or 40%, at least you have a plan that demonstrates your understanding of the risks at the start of the season.
2. DFS Recency Bias
The biggest trend that we see within our DFS questions is recency bias. We hear all the time something like, “Team X gave up 200 rushing yards to this mediocre rushing attack, and now they’re facing an elite running back”. While this can work, the reality is that far more often, if you’re thinking it, so is the rest of the crowd. Even more importantly, so is the team that just gave up all those yards. NFL teams are on an evolving journey throughout the season. The season is almost double the length of the training camp in preseason, so the team that you end up with, even on a week-to-week basis, is not going to be the same. They will have different schemes, rotate players, create cohesion amongst each other, and improve throughout the year.
Another example of recency bias is that Player X has three consecutive 100-yard performances. While it’s an important fact to know, the odds again are that the site has factored this into his pricing. The opposing coaches know that Player X has seen heavy involvement, and the other receivers on that team are going to want more involvement after a breakout performance from their receivers over the last several games.
So, what does all of this mean for DFS? The short answer is that recency bias is one of the easiest ways to build a lineup, but again, if you’re doing it, so is everyone else. Instead, there is random variance within this sport, but even more so when you factor in touchdowns.
3. Following Groupthink
Groupthink can be dangerous within DFS, especially given the different positions, which have more variance. What is groupthink? Essentially, it means creating your lineup based on large collective narratives that exist throughout the industry. Many content creators, especially free ones, just repackage other people’s content as their own without doing their own unique analysis. This can create weeks where a significant portion of the field is building similar lineups that all seem identical.
For things such as team defense, cheap players who are not benefiting from an increased role due to injury, or even the quarterback position can be areas where, collectively, people follow the crowd far too often. The reality is that football is a game of balancing opportunities with variance utilizing projections. So, for example, if there’s a wide receiver who is projected to be 20% rostered and score 13.2 points compared to another wide receiver who is projected to score 12.5 points but only be 5% rostered, then for a GPP play, often times it can be better to take that 12.5 point player to get leverage on the field as there’s likely a 40% chance that the lower projected player would outperform the higher projected player at a quarter of the roster percentage.
At Footballguys, all of our writers build their lineups using their own processes. We also produce our roster percentages, which look at the expected roster percentage of each player on a given slate to try to identify highly rostered players.
4. Trying to Be Too Contrarian
While this may seem contradictory to point three, there’s a fine balance between completely following groupthink and ignoring the crowd. Particularly in cash games, you’re going to want to pick your spots where you’re going to be different, but intentionally ignoring players just because they will be highly rostered is a mistake.
Running back is the main position where you can make a mistake ignoring the crowd. In most weeks, the key to running back success is going to be determined by the number of touches that create the highest expected results. Suppose there is a week where a lead running back is hurt, and the backup running back is 80% rostered in cash games and 50% in GPPs. In that case, you’ll likely want to ask yourself whether you want to avoid that player just to be contrarian or if you want to find ways to differentiate your lineups elsewhere. Do not automatically avoid players that have a high rostered percentage, but instead, take an analysis of how they compare to the rest of the field. If it is a situation where they are significantly above players in a similar price point, then it’s likely that you can play them in your lineup.
5. Contest Selection
As you approach each week, you need to evaluate your risk tolerance. It goes without saying that the more people in a contest, the lower your chance of finishing first. Everyone who plays DFS has dreams of winning the $1M first-place prize in the multiple large contests held each week. However, these typically have hundreds of thousands of lineups in these contests.
It's critical that you have a game plan going into a given week regarding which contests you want to pick. This goes along the lines of bankroll management, as it is not enough to just determine what percent of GPPs and cash games you want to play; instead, focus on the tournaments that you want to play.
6. Understanding Cash vs GPP Lineups
There’s a different methodology when it comes to building a cash lineup compared to a GPP lineup.
For those unfamiliar with the terminology of a Cash lineup, this is a lineup that is often going to pay 25-50% of the entries with a flat payout structure where it does not typically matter if you finish in first place or the lowest cashing position. In these contests, you will want to build a lineup with a high floor and a near-optimal lineup based on projected value. Utilizing an optimizer tool can be a useful tool as a starting point, tweaking it to remove players with high variance and replacing them with players who have a higher floor and more stability.
In a GPP lineup, it’s all about the upside of building a lineup. You want players with the highest ceiling of a given slate, often stacking a game or a quarterback/wide receiver pairing to get correlated upside if a certain game becomes a shootout. Avoiding high-volume low-upside that may not get red-zone looks is a strategy that can often pay off. Taking higher variance players who can catch a 50+ yard touchdown may be a player you’d typically avoid in cash games but would want to consider in a GPP.
7. Not Checking Lineups on Sunday
If you’ve followed my Cracking FanDuel series, where I share my lineups on both Saturdays when the article is published and on Sunday mornings once injury news is released, you’ll know how critical the Sunday Morning Update of lineups often is. This is a simple one, but if you aren’t going to be around on a Sunday, take a week off. If you know you’re going to go out late that Saturday Night, don’t enter contests until Sunday morning to know that you’re going to be fully cognitive and not be rushing to build a lineup
Winning in DFS is hard enough as it is. You’re playing against people who are fully committed to putting out the best lineup each week, and limiting yourself by ignoring Sunday information puts you at a significant disadvantage.
8. Forcing Too Many Stacks
Stacking can be a profitable strategy that’s used extremely frequently throughout DFS. However, knowing when to stack and when not to can be critical to having success. We’ve seen new players stack entire games by taking five, six, or even seven players from the same game. My rule typically is no more than three players from the same game, whether that’s a quarterback and two wide receivers or a quarterback, a wide receiver, and a receiver from the opposite team. Some people will go up to four, but any more than that will be losing too much opportunity cost of the other players across the slates. On smaller slates, such as the afternoon only or Thanksgiving slates, you could stack more.
If you have a traditional drop-back passer, you’ll always want to have at least one pass-catcher stacked with them in a GPP. However, if you’re targeting a player such as Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, Jayden Daniels, or even Josh Allen, so much of their value comes from their legs and rushing opportunities. You don’t need to force a stack with these players, but instead, one strategy could be to take these quarterbacks and then take a wide receiver from the opposing team.