Welcome back to The Daily Grind, the place where I will be discussing all the happenings in Daily Fantasy Sports on a weekly basis. The Daily Grind will be my voice to help you through the constantly changing DFS landscape as I highlight important news, free articles, resources, potential overlay situations, great contests to play and more every week. The emphasis here will be first to cover the four sites that we partnered with this year (FanDuel, DraftKings, FantasyAces and FantasyScore), but I will still discuss major news and contests beyond those sites when applicable.
THE DFS NEWS OF THE WEEK
Over the last few weeks I have been talking about the DFS landscape and how quickly it is changing, not so much from a contest perspective but more from both political and legal viewpoints. As much as you may want your sports to be separated from issues like these, the unfortunate reality is that daily games and now fantasy in general are getting spotlighted by both arenas. As I have said before, I owe it to all of the readers of The Daily Grind to let them know what is going on and to keep them informed, because lack of knowledge equals lack of power. This sort of reminds me when many people did not care about restrictive laws were being passed against perceived minorities years ago where I live (Maryland). Years ago most bars and restaurants allowed smoking in their establishments, and after many health concerns and general complaints were raised, lawmakers started to not just restrict where smokers could light up but also ban their habit in very restrictive ways. Most non-smokers (of which I am one) felt like “what do I care about their rights – get rid of that second-hand smoke and I’m good”, and I completely agreed – but only so far. At some point you have to accommodate people’s rights to smoke, and also for an establishment to serve that clientele if they so choose. The laws started to go too far and smokers felt discriminated against (such as making designated smoking areas 100 feet away from any buildings).
So how do smoking laws tie in with DFS? Great question. Many people do not care about DFS at all – they just want their televisions to stop screaming about daily games every 10 minutes. Even more people could care less about fantasy football, but there are a large number of fantasy players (probably everyone reading this right now) who do want their right to play fantasy sports if they so choose. This is where the smoking at restaurants and bars makes for a good parallel. Not everyone eats out, but if you choose to go to a restaurant or bar, do you want to have restrictions on choices for you, or certain rules to be in place for how you enjoy that experience? Daily fantasy sports games may be stealing all the headlines right now, but the impact of the legislation that is being put out there impacts not just DFS players but all fantasy sports fans. Imagine if you are no longer allowed to have a draft at your buddy Steve’s house next year, but have to go to a casino instead to draft your fantasy team – or if you need to get a license or pay a fee to register your team. How annoying would that be? What if you were not even allowed to have a fantasy team any longer in your state? Things are changing so quickly in DFS and so many laws are being proposed that the general belief now is that all of fantasy sports is under scrutiny. While you many not smoke or you may not live in Nevada or Florida, you should know what is going on and the potential impact to you if your state decides to pass any laws that might impact your hobby or habit. That’s why you should care and keep abreast of what is going on in DFS, even if you have never played a single game at FanDuel, DraftKings or any other DFS site.
FanDuel kicked off a petition recently that asked fantasy players to help protect your rights and the rights of other fantasy players to play any fantasy sport if they so choose. It is a short statement – under 100 words – but I think it is important enough to quote, so here it is:
Every year 50 million Americans play online fantasy sports. I am one of them.
There are many problems facing our nation, but passionate sports fans that want to connect with our favorite players and teams is hardly one of them.
Fantasy sports is fundamentally a test of knowledge. I play because I love the competition and the camaraderie. In fact, I think fantasy sports is what makes watching sports an American pastime.
I oppose any measure that would ban online fantasy sports. And to anyone looking to end this game I say: Let us play!
To me, this is such a no-brainer that I cannot see why anyone would oppose it. If you are an adult that is capable of making decisions of how to spend your leisure time and money, you should be afforded that possible choice. You may choose not to play (or smoke, or drink, or anything else), but ultimately you have the right to choose. If you agree that the choice is yours, make the choice to read and sign this petition.
Now, about the week that was in DFS, and unfortunately we are still talking mostly about legal issues rather than awesome contests. I cannot wait to get off the legal beat and back onto the “how do we win a million bucks” discussions, but for now I give you what you need to know. So here goes.
First, we had a ruling come down regarding the DraftKings’ employee that won the big prize on FanDuel and also happened to have access to data from DraftKings contests that same week. An independent law firm investigation stated that the data was made available to him after FanDuel contests locked and also well after he submitted his winning lineup, so he was cleared of any wrongdoing. Of course the damage was done, both for him, his family, DraftKings and the DFS world in general. I expressed my opinion when that story broke that maybe this could be a positive in the long run, becoming the tipping point moment where sites started to protect players more and creating a better daily sports ecosystem. While still too early to tell, I do believe that we are heading in that general direction, but with states getting more involved in hearings and proposing legislation the answer to the question of whether daily sports will get better soon from my DFS Magic 8-ball has changed from “Signs point to yes” to “Reply hazy, ask again later”.
Lawmakers were busy the past week when it comes to daily sports. Last week I mentioned that Nevada was requiring DFS sites to get a gaming license, describing DFS as gambling. Most sites immediately stopped residents of Nevada from playing on their sites, but it also impacts anyone visiting places like Las Vegas from playing DFS while there. I am certain that some of you have already experienced this “inconvenience” on a Vegas trip. How annoying that would be to not be able to adjust a lineup because you are on vacation in Las Vegas, the sports gambling capital of the United States. But I digress…
Other states stepped up their actions on DFS, as Pennsylvania representative George Dunbar announced that he is pushing for DFS regulation via state casinos in a new law. Dunbar was interviewed and stated that players could play online through a casino’s website, but that opposes what the PA bill actually states (see Page 4, lines 6-17 about location). Awareness of present laws in the state of Florida impacted not only site and player participation but also led to the Miami Dolphins considering termination of their sponsorship agreement with DraftKings. This all goes back to the question of DFS legality within each state. One site, StarsDraft (which is owned by Amaya that also owns PokerStars) pulled out of 46 states this past week, the biggest move of any site regarding the state legality issue. Speculation abounds as to why they did this, from saving their site from weekly overlays to legal positioning in the hopes of getting not only favorable DFS legislation but also the approval for online poker to come back to the United States once again. For now, residents of Maryland, Kansas, New Jersey and Massachusetts are the only ones permitted to play on the site. The funny thing is, I happen to live in Maryland, and I have checked the site several times this week and found exactly zero contests available – so fear not, you really are not missing anything right now.
For more extensive coverage of where fantasy and DFS laws stand in a particular state, I recommend reading more at LegalSportsReport, which has done a great job of capturing the current climate for all 50 states. Things are changing quickly and I hope that The Daily Grind and our friends at LegalSportsReport can help you to keep up. Even if you are not a resident of a given state, it is important to know what is going on across the country as states tend to copy each other when laws get enacted.
Before I do my rundown of the contests for the coming week, a general note. The size of some contests are shrinking a little, but keep in mind that this is a direct reflection of a reduced DFS population. A month ago DFS had players in Florida and Nevada all vying for big money, and now they are out of the running. Sites are reacting to that and trying to reduce overlay exposure by making contests somewhat smaller. The prizes are still amazing, but that is the main reason that I see the current group of GPP prize pools a little less gigantic.
Now let’s talk about winning some contests in Week 7:
FOOTBALLGUYS AND DFS COVERAGE FOR 2015
You know the deal by now - Footballguys has a ton of DFS coverage this year. Whether it is our two e-books that cover FanDuel (“Cracking FanDuel”) and DraftKings (“Cracking DraftKings”), or the 50+ articles a week we produce to cover all four major sites each week – we have it all covered. All this articles are linked in our Daily Crusher App that continues to be one of he best ways that DFS players can create lineups for cash games and tournaments and also get deep analysis on their rosters, likelihood of winning and exposure to various players. Once you start using this, it will be hard to imagine how you ever lived without it. I'm still learning all the different ways to use this great tool both by experimenting with it and with the help of our Daily Crusher Manual and I can already see its immense value to me as both a cash game and GPP player.
There's a ton more coverage we have this season for DFS, too much to outline in The Daily Grind, but we have a large section dedicated to each of our sponsor sites listed below.
DraftKings Coverage for Week 7
FantasyAces Coverage for Week 7
FantasyScore Coverage for Week 7
Let's also not forget about the Footballguys' blogs for both FanDuel and DraftKings. Watch for new content every day over there.
We even added new video content for 2015. In a partnership with Rotogrinders, you can now see both John Lee and Austin Lee with Dan Back on The Footballguys Rotogrinders Hour. It is a great show with lots of insight. Check it out!
Of course, if you are a bigger fan of The Audible, we have both FanDuel and DraftKings shows for DFS coverage for each site as well. Be sure to subscribe to these weekly podcasts to get your weekends rolling for the NFL DFS slate.
FOOTBALLGUYS DFS CONTEST
Footballguys wants all of their readers to get in on the fun. With the help of both FanDuel, we have a great contest available to Footballguys here in Week 5. The Footballguys Football Championship, presented by FanDuel, offers contestants with a shot at not just a double-up opportunity on their $10 entry, but also a chance at one of the final prizes. All you have to do is beat Sigmund Bloom, David Dodds and Joe Bryant’s scores in a given week and you get a ticket for the Week 11 final contest, where first place will win $5,000. That’s a pretty sweet deal on top of a normal double-up contest, as these extra prizes create a built-in overlay of about $40,000. This one should fill up quickly.
BIG CONTESTS FOR WEEK 7
FANDUEL
Last week I pointed out the great FanDuel NFL Survivor contest, and I hope that you are still alive and moving on to the third round. If you did, you need to check your ticket list to see if your entries are available for Sunday. If you don’t know, just click your name on the FanDuel site, then click “My Account”, and then “My Tickets” to see your tickets, and then be sure to update your rosters for Sunday. FanDuel also added the “win a car” freerolls to accounts that qualified (you had to play 2-4 weeks of cash contests, so hopefully you made it). Once again these freerolls should appear on your account, so again, update any dummy rosters.
Aside from that, FanDuel “only” has the same contests as last week on the DFS street continues to offer some of the largest volume of contests around. Start off with the Week 7 $4 Million Contest where someone will win a million bucks for just a $25 entry all the way down to the NFL Sunday Rush, wherr a $5 entry to this contest can win you $150,000 for first place. What a value that one is. But of course there is more, and as we mentioned earlier in The Daily Grind, FanDuel partnered with Footballguys to create an exclusive Footballguys-FanDuel Championship with over $40,000 in free prizes where you can turn a double-up entry into a ticket for a Week 11 final where if you can beat Joe Bryant, David Dodds and Sigmund Bloom in the week you can add up to $5,000 to that $20 you won in the $10 double-up. That's pretty sweet right there. And of course you have to take note of the Playboy College Football Championship, where you can earn one of 70 exclusive entries to the PCFC event at the Playboy Mansion on November 21st. Qualifiers will be running all season long at FanDuel, so take some shots at these great tournaments with extra incentives and prizes. Let's also not forget about the biggest one of them all, the $12M Fantasy Football World Championship that was announced early this season. Find a qualifier you like and take a shot and winning millions of dollars. The hard part is not deciding if to play, but which contests to target and try and take down.
DRAFTKINGS
DraftKings is once again offering their usual slate of great GPP contests. Such is the case in Week 7 with the $6M Millionaire Maker this week. First place walks away with $1M dollars, not a bad payday at all. DraftKings still has the biggest contest around with their $15 Million contest announcement from a few weeks back, and qualifiers are still in play for as low as $3 an entry. Hmmm, $3 for a shot at $5 Million. I’m in, and I think everyone should take a shot at this big prize.
As far as the rest of the contests for this week, there are plenty of tournaments at DraftKings to sink your teeth into, even after the Millionaire Maker. At a price point of just $3, the $1.25M Play-Action tournament is certainly appealing, and this week they kept the $9 tournament at big money levels as the NFL Slant contest offers $500K in prizes and you can win as much as $40,000. There' are also several giant 50/50 contests in the lobby as well, including a $25 entry with 10,000 winners about to get $50 Tuesday morning. Lots of contests and lots of money to be had in Week 5, so get those lineups ready.
FANTASYACES
You have to check out what FantasyAces is offering this season. Not only are they going bigger and better for the NFL, but they are also going for a Live Final for College Football!
First, FantasyAces announced the $500,000 NFL Live Final for 2015, which will be in Las Vegas on December 13th. The live final will have 40 entrants competing for a $100,000 grand prize. Qualifiers will run all season long up until the live event, including satellites to get into qualifiers at a discount.
The other major event for FantasyAces is their other live final, the $100,000 College Football Live Final. The live event will take place in Newport Beach, CA on November 21st where 13 finalist will compete for the $100,000 prize pool. The only way to claim a seat to the live final is to win a FACFC qualifier contest, which will be held weekly beginning September 3.
FantasyAces also has an interesting format called SalaryPro, where you get bonus points for staying furhter and further under the salary cap. More and more are trying out this unique format, so be sure to check out the lobby over at FantasyAces for contests that use this rule.
FANTASYSCORE
FantasyScore is offering up a GPP with a twist this year. If you can finish in the Top 3 in their Fantasy Football Championship Satellite, you can grab an elusive golden ticket for an entry towards the Week 16 championship game where $25,000 will be awarded. Another way to get a ticket is to go after the $20 entry satellite that is giving away four tickets. Check out all of these contests and more at our FantasyScore page.
Footballguys has you covered here - both in major DFS announcements and the tools you need to build winning lineups.
Thanks as always for reading The Daily Grind, and good luck this week.