The FanDuel Maximum Strategy Guide

The FanDuel Maximum Strategy Guide - How To
Win At Daily Fantasy Basketball
What is FanDuel? If you haven’t already heard, FanDuel is the premier daily fantasy sports destination for heads­up, tournaments and 50/50 leagues. Players face off daily against other players, never against the house. The best thing about FanDuel is that it is profitable, as long as you know how to win. This Strategy Guide will help you learn the best practices for winning at FanDuel. Before we start delving into our strategic system for profitability, let us whet your appetite with people who have turned this hobby into a money­making machine. Each day, thousands of people are flocking to daily fantasy sports sites to get a piece of the action. If you are looking for an alternative way to make a living, it is very possible with FanDuel. Here are just a few success stories of people that have taken advantage of this new system to generate a hefty profit. Mark Guindi: 24 year old Brooklynite with four brothers that scored over $65,000 in less than one season. Relatively new in the world of daily fantasy sports, he will attempt to make six figures next season. ​
(Source: New York Post) Michael Leone: Former mathematician left the stability of a full­time job in New York after winning $75,000 in a tournament. He reached the low six­figures within one season of daily fantasy sports. ​
(Source: New York Post) Tommy Gelati: A stock trader that makes $400,000 annually in his day job, made $500,000 with daily fantasy sports within two years. He spends his weekend conducting research and to gain an edge over his opponents. ​
(Source: New York Post) Erik Hafner: A former online poker player making $80 per hour until the federal government shut it down; now makes over $100,000 per year playing daily fantasy sports. ​
(Source: USA Today) Drew Dinkmeyer, a financial analyst in Florida, struggled with managing a website and strategy at his day job, decided to quit as a financial analyst and focus on fantasy sports full time with the support of his wife. ​
(Source: USA Today) Has these success stories sparked your interest even more? Well, if you are into making money, it should! One thing we should mention about daily fantasy basketball is that it is unlike sports betting. Most sport bettors often compare sports betting to the stock market. Except instead of day trading companies, you are day trading sport teams. Athletes are analyzed to gain knowledge in understanding the outcome. Betting trends and line movements are also taken account every part of the day. Yet sports betting can be very volatile. You can lose a big chunk of change in a situation of hours, while the risk of playing the stock market are less erratic. It means you have to be lucky, and it is the main reason why sports betting is in so many casinos across Las Vegas. The secret to money­making success with FanDuel is the ability to spread the risk among many games and FanDuel opponents. Luck tends to play less of a role when risk is spread across many factors. Just like the stock market in the financial world, knowledge in daily fantasy leagues will help create a generous profit. Reach into the depths of your courage and see yourself make a living off something you have always thought to be a hobby. With that said, it takes three characteristics to start making a living in the world of daily leagues. Commitment, dedication, and humility. Let us go over these characteristics and why they are necessary for your journey into the wild west of fantasy sports. Commitment The first thing I want you to do is to go to FanDuel and deposit some cash. Why? Because it shows you are committed. Even if it is only ten dollars, do it. Once you have money in your account it gives you the motivation to start. But hey, FanChecker is ready to reward you off the bat for your bravery into the arena. Use promo code “FANTASYCHECKER” and you’ll get your first deposit doubled. Once you have completed the first step, take a breath, and get ready for some intense action! But remember to stay committed even if things do not always seem to go your way. Sometimes, things just do not happen the way they should, even if you did study your butt off for your daily lineup. It is possible that any player could theoretically figure out the right things to research. But it requires a certain personality and a certain temperament to understand that you are going to be very wrong at least 25­35 percent of the time. First step is to become a “grinder,” or a person generating about $50 a night on FanDuel.com. Once you become committed into becoming an elite player and building up a large bankroll, you might start playing upwards of 500­700 games (not kidding) a night to make some real money. Dedication Money never falls from trees. That is why you need to absorb information from all over the sports world. Yahoo! Fantasy Sports, ESPN, NBA.com, Rotowire, SB Nation, and FantasyChecker.com are great sources of information that you will need to advance your earnings. You will need to study player projections, player notes, player statistics, team statistics, player trends, players stats against their next opponent, etc. That’s right. STUDY, STUDY, STUDY! It’s not an easy task to make money. You need the dedication of a warrior in the world of daily fantasy leagues. Be ferocious and cunning against your opponents when creating your daily teams. Figure out which players can give you the most value for their salary. Hopefully you have already signed up for our daily emails. We’ll send you daily updates on which players are hot, player injuries, and optimal team lineups so you can start your teams with confidence! Let us go over some of the important websites you will be using to create the ultimate daily team: ● Yahoo! Fantasy Sports ­ You may have started your fantasy sports life here. Football, basketball, baseball, hockey… Even Nascar! They have knowledgeable veterans in the fantasy field and are ready to share a piece of their knowledge with you. ● ESPN ­ They have their own fantasy section with important information as well. However, they are catered more towards regular fantasy sports. Use their headlines to gauge trade rumors and past scores to record player trends. ● NBA.com ­ Also more geared towards regular fantasy sports, but can sometimes give knowledgeable information. ● Rotowire ­ You will use this site religiously. They have lineup optimizers, value reports, and projections. It will help you immensely when construction your team. We will discuss this site more in detail below. ● SB Nation ­ These bloggers post several times a week, offering tidbits of valuable information, such as sleepers and busts, game previews, and player trends. Read their articles on a daily basis. ● FantasyChecker ­ A useful website that allows players to get information from other players via polls. There are a ton of websites out there devoted to daily fantasy sports. These are the major ones with important tools and information to help jumpstart your daily fantasy sports career. However, there are a ton of valuable information all over the internet. Go out and find other websites, such as forums, discussion boards, blogs, etc. to help you gather additional knowledge and create new strategies to win. Humility Greed is what corrupts us when we make risky decisions. Always play humble and within the price range that fits your bankroll. Too many times have we seen players think too valiantly about their daily fantasy team. They go all in with too much confidence, and then bam ­­ they lose everything they have. Remember to never spend it all in one place. Once you have decided the type of contest you want to play, the next tough decision to make is how many contests you want to enter, and at what entry level? Every player has a different bankroll and a different daily budget, but whatever it is, you need to identify yours. If you treat your bankroll as a broken faucet, your money will go down the drain accordingly. Once you know how much you can afford to spend each day or week, you can identify your appropriate entry fee level. You could put your entire daily budget into one contest, you could enter as many $1 contests as you have dollars, or you could find a balance between those extremes. Putting all of your money into a single contest, or even just a few, exposes you to more volatile outcomes. Even with a good score, your opponents may still outscore you and you’d lose all the money you staked that day. To that end, the appropriate entry fee level for you is the one that allows you to enter the most contests. The more unique opponents you face, the more accurately your winnings will reflect the relative performance of your team each day. I like to take the sports betting approach, and split my bankroll into units of 1/20th. A unit in sports betting is a measurement of the size of someone’s bet. It is a tool to keep track of profits and losses without the dollar value. Using the bankroll management strategy that recommends 1­5% of your bankroll on each bet you would essentially want to bet between 1­5 units. Because daily fantasy basketball takes all the games in one day in effect, I choose to use five percent. So if a handicapper released a 2 unit play (quite confident) and you have a $1,000 bankroll, you would be betting $100. Catch yourself from over betting, even if you are super confident. You might just end up losing all your profits you’ve made from past weeks. In the next section, we discuss in­depth about the bankroll building process. Building Up A Bankroll
So how much should you start playing with? Well, I recommend at least $200. Our Promo Code allows for you to get your first deposit doubled up to $200. Deposit $200, and FanDuel will give you an additional $200 to invest with. The bonus does come in rather slowly; however, free money is free money. If you can afford to start with more, then by all means, go ahead. But remember the suggestion of establishing a single unit as five percent of your total bankroll. That means you would bet a daily amount of ten dollars on a regular day. If you were extremely confident in your lineup, you would bet more units. Use this as a guideline: The 1,2, and 3 unit plays are more of the average plays, while the 4, 5 and sometimes 6 and 7 unit plays are the big plays where the handicapper feels they have found a lot of value on a play. I recommend that seven units be the maximum you bet. You do not want to find yourself too greedy and lose it all on a rush. A total of 7 units on a $200 bankroll is $70. The reason why you have to be 99% confident is because you could lose up to $130, which is more than 60% of your bankroll! Spread that $70 across multiple $5 dollar games means you will be playing a total of 14 games, head­to­head. It may look confusing, so I broke it down again: The average bet is 1­3 units: We’ll say 3 units because $200 is a low bankroll to start out with. .05 (Unit Ratio) x $200 (Total Bankroll) = $10 (Your Unit Based On Total Bankroll) 3 (Units You Want To Bet) x $10 = $30 (Your Bet Total) We suggest you spread your bets across 2 $5 dollar matchups and 20 $1 matchups to minimize your risk. The maximum bet is 7 units: You are 99% sure your outcome will be a victory. .05 (Unit Ratio) x $200 (Total Bankroll) = $10 (Your Unit Based On Total Bankroll) 7 (Units You Want To Bet) x $10 = $70 (Your Bet Total) Figure out how much you can invest in FanDuel. If you have not tried FanDuel before, I’ll give you a brief description of how it works below. Otherwise, you can skip this next section. How FanDuel Works
If you played this during the fantasy football season, you know how it works. You have a salary cap, and you pick your lineup without going over the salary cap. If you want to check out a player’s stats before drafting him onto your roster, click on his name. A box will pop up displaying tons of data along with recent news, injury reports, and trending statistics. Each player you draft reduces your cap salary by the dollar amount listed next to the player’s name. If your salary cap is in the negative balance, you won't be able to submit your team. Once you fill out your roster, review it one last time and submit your team. A box will pop up, asking you to confirm your entry. You will get used to creating your lineups on a daily basis, and you'll be on your way of making six­figures fast! So if you are new to daily fantasy basketball, do not worry. We will give you a quick rundown of what it is about. There is a whole lot of strategy and thought that goes into playing a single match. And unlike fantasy football, it is also one of the more consistently predictable sport on a night­by­night basis. For example, Kevin Love tends to do well in every game because of his double­doubles, and is usually a safer bet to garner more fantasy points. Always have a few players that have very high floors. That way, you will be guaranteed to have a great matchup. Let us go over in more detail on how a daily fantasy basketball contest at FanDuel works: ● FanDuel is the largest daily fantasy sports site in the USA ● 100% Legal in most states ● Risk and Win Real Money ● Entries start as low as $0.25 ● The Big Daily Fantasy Basketball Tournaments are on Wednesday The FanDuel Website And Lobby
Every piece of information you need can be accessed from the main lobby after logging in. Take a look at the row of tabs near the top of your screen. ● Home – a list of upcoming contests along with filter features on the left side ● How It Works – a brief discussion and video about FanDuel ● Rules And Scoring – a breakdown showing how many points are scored for any given action in the sport ● Promos – a list of current FanDuel promotions ● Leaderboard – a ranking of FD users based on the number of wins each user has accumulated. It can be sorted by sport. Six months of rankings, including the current month, are available. ● Support – frequently asked questions, a support email address, a toll­free number, and support ticket system. ● My Contests – a list of your live, upcoming, or historical contests ● My Account – a summary of your account, such as your balance, FanDuel points and user details. You may also deposit money into your account, withdraw money via PayPal or check, review your transaction history, and change your settings. Contest Types
Tournaments All tournaments on FanDuel are labeled as “Guaranteed” and display a blue “G” symbol. These contests are guaranteed to pay out regardless the number of people that enter. Once a tournament is created we do not change/adjust the prize pool or the number of participants. Thus, the daily large field tournaments (Bomb, Bunt, Baller, etc.) will run whether or not they fill. These include guaranteed Double Ups, Triple Ups, Quadruple Ups, etc. Double/Triple/Quadruple Ups Guaranteed prize pools that allow users to double, triple, or quadruple their entry fee. Leagues A league can run as 3 Player – 250 Player league with various entry fees. These structured contests require a specified number of participants. If that number of participants is not reached before the start of the contest, the contest will not take place and your entry fee will be refunded. For example, a head­to­head challenge cannot take place without two willing competitors and a 10­person league will not be conducted with only 9 interested participants. 50/50 Leagues Leagues where the entrants who finish in the top half of the contest will receive prize money. For example, in a 20­Player 50/50, the top 10 ranked users will receive prize money. As these are leagues, they must fill in order to run. Head­to­Heads In Head­to­Head (H2H) matches, you have only one other opponent. You can create these contests and invite your friends, or use the Head­to­Head contest filter to join already created H2Hs. FanDuel does not create these contests and you will always be challenging another user. If your challenge is not accepted, we will attempt to find you an opponent at game time. If we cannot, the entry will be refunded at game start. Head­to­Head Matrix A Head­to­Head Matrix takes the best parts of Head­to­Heads and Double Ups and puts them into one contest. Essentially, it is a group of twenty smaller head­to­head contests in one entry. The more people you finish ahead of the more money you win. Only last place doesn’t win a prize. Satellites Satellite contests offer you a chance to win an entry into another bigger contest. Satellite winners will be automatically entered into their earned contest with a ‘default lineup” that they will be able to edit to satisfaction prior to the start of said contest. All ‘default lineup’ entries will appear in a user’s ‘Upcoming Contests’ section Additional Contest Information The list of contests displayed in the main Lobby shows each matchup. On each contest, you might see a small blue graphic with a “G” or “M.” The blue graphic indicates a guaranteed prize pool. The column tabs are listed as follows: ● Cap – total salary cap. Usually at $60,000. ● Entries – the number of entries in the contest ● Size – maximum number of entries allowed ● Entry – entry fee to join the contest ● Prizes – total prize pool (clicking it will show you the breakdown of the prizes) ● Starts (ET) – contest starting time (Eastern Standard Time). ● Enter Button – join the contest Once you have joined a contest, you will need to select a lineup. FanDuel requires you to start two point guards, two shooting guards, two small forwards, two power forwards, and one center. Just like their daily football league, FanDuel has no utility positions in basketball. Because of this, you really don’t need to compare players at separate positions. It really does cut down on research time because you will not need to figure out if centers are inherently more valuable than point guards. Also note that requiring two starters at very specific positions means you’ll typically find yourself digging deeper for quality options. On a night when there are not a lot of quality point guard options, you could potentially start more players at other positions on other sites. That’s not a possibility on FanDuel. It is more likely that you will use a stars and scrubs roster construction approach, combining the most consistently solid players with bargain players, on FanDuel than anywhere else. Let’s Analyze The FanDuel’s NBA Scoring System:
**NBA Roster NBA Scoring Point = 1 Pt Rebound = 1.2 Pt Assist = 1.5 Pt Steal = 2 Pts Block = 2 Pts TO = ­1 Pt How does this compare with other daily fantasy sites? Well, all three sites give one point for a point scored, 1.5 points for an assist, and two points for steals and blocks. FanDuel gives 1.2 points per rebound, which is just slightly less than the 1.25 from DraftKings and DraftStreet. FanDuel does not give extra points for three­pointers, so all points are treated equally. Thus, when you are analyzing scorers, you need not to worry about deciding which player has a better three point shooting percentage. As long as they score points, you will be rewarded the same. You’ll also want to be careful on FanDuel with reckless players. Turnovers cost an entire point on FanDuel. Luckily, missed shots do not account for any negative points on FanDuel. So even if Carmelo Anthony misses the hoop about fifty times, it will not matter as long as he scores a lot of points. Each matchup has a salary cap that allows you to spend $60,000 on nine players. For the math­challenged, that comes out to an average of $6,667 per player. Remember to play cautiously if a player is injured, because the price still stays the same even if they are inactive. Here is one example of how to play: Suppose you are looking at Carmelo Anthony ($9,000), Chris Bosh ($7,800) and Dwayne Wade ($7,700). Let’s pretend Bosh is injured so there's no reason to not to snatch up Anthony and Wade. With Bosh out, Wade, being on the same team, should see his numbers go up a bit, yet Carmelo Anthony is still always a solid play. Yet the Miami Heat are facing the Celtics’ weak defense. The Celtics have a defensive rating of 115.2, the sixth worst in the league. It may be a better decision to select Wade, and save that additional $1,300 for another player. Player consistency might be the most important attribute to look for in a player. Basketball is a consistent sport. You have your typical starters that produce. This is unlike fantasy football, where a wide receiver like Andre Johnson might be projected to get fifteen points, but ends up only getting about two catches for a small amount of points. Rock solid evidence of a consistent player is in the minutes category. Players that spend more time on the court usually score a lot of fantasy points, whether it’s baskets, rebounds, steals, or blocks. Obviously the starters tend to absorb most of the minutes. However, when you are selecting a backup due to salary cap space, it is extremely advantageous to identify players that have seen an upward trend of minutes. It may be due to an injury or trade, but you must keep an eye out on great bargains against the cap salary. You usually need a few bargain bin players in order to incorporate the elite players such as LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. Battlefield Tips
Tip #1: Be Diverse Like we have said before, when you spread yourself against many opponents, it is less about luck and more about skill. Even when you are on a 5­day winning streak, you have to stay humble. So let’s say you have a bankroll of $1,000. You’ve been on a hot streak and want to bet two units (5% is one unit in my book), which is equal to $100. Instead of betting $100 on a head­to­head matchup against one opponent, create 20 $5 dollar games yourself. Therefore, you do not stand the chance of losing it all if you opponent gets a super high score because one of his star players went off. If your team is truly built for victory, you will win more than you lose, and still end up with a mighty profit! Tip #2 Identify Your Must­Starts (Star Players) Is Carmelo Anthony starting against the defensively­ill Sacramento Kings? That means huge potential for you to select Carmelo Anthony, even if he is somewhat pricey. Is Kevin Love starting against the Philadelphia 76ers, a team that is one of the worst at getting rebounds? If there are star players facing a defensively weak opponent, do your best to add them to your lineup. You will lay the foundation in creating a superb team with players that will get you a solid amount of points. Tip #3: Identify Your Sleepers (Value Players) Here is where the Rotowire Value Report comes in handy. You can always play your James Hardens, your Russell Westbrooks, you Lebron James, but playing three of these star­studded players can take over half your salary cap! You would still need to fill up six additional player slots. This is where you must identify your sleepers, or value players, to coexist with your star players. Use the Rotowire Value Report and click on “Today’s Value.” You will sort the players that will have the most potential value, otherwise known as “more bang for your buck.” It will help you realize which bargain players can give you a good amount of points based on their salary. Use this tool every time you create a team! Tip #4: Know Your Opponent Before you enter in a Head­to­head contest, make sure to analyze your opponent by clicking on their account name. It will show how many games they have won on FanDuel. A useful tool to understand if your opponent is an expert. We suggest looking for someone that has less than a couple hundred wins. But who knows, there is always beginner’s luck! Tip #5: Play At The Right Times Try to avoid days where there are only a couple games available the entire day. For example, sometimes there are only two games on a Monday. This will mean less options and it will create more difficulty when trying to get ahead of your opponent. Less choices, the tougher it is to win by using the correct tools, and more about luck. Tip #6: Use Your Lineup Optimization and Value Tools These lineup optimization tools are your friends. They will help uncover potential value players you have missed. Do you have seven players selected and have no idea what other two players to plug in? A lineup optimizer will select the best combination of players to fill your spots via their daily value. It makes the game simpler even for people that are new to fantasy basketball. Value tools show which players have a high ceiling relative their salary. Valuable when you want to manually fill in a few bench players but do not know who has the most potential. We will go through each tool thoroughly in the next section. Tools Of The Elite
Tool #1: FanDuel NBA Daily Lineup Optimizer There are a few of these tools on the internet. The best one we have seen is Rotowire’s Lineup Optimizer. Some other lineup optimizers include FantasyCruncher and NumberFire. The picks in the projected optimal lineups are intended as a starting point to help supplement your research in building a solid team. You should not blindly play any lineup the optimizer suggests if you do not understand why the player has been selected. They are based on algorithms with high­order iterations to determine which player combination is projected to score the most points based on each player’s salary price. If you figured out a few must­play players for the day, plug them in first. Then research your way to completing your team by analyzing other potential high scoring players. Once you have plugged your partial team into the lineup optimizer, it will suggest which other players will complement the entire team and give you the best value in terms of points per dollar. Tool #2: Rotowire Value Report Another great weapon for your arsenal is the Fantasy Value Report. The Fantasy Value Report is a list of the day’s current players and their projected value. It displays each player’s position, opponent, salary cost, projected fantasy points, daily value, and season averages. When analyzing the value report, it’s best to find value from players that have been emerging. Typically, their salaries tend to be lower since they have just recently started to catch fire. They will have a decent projected score but have a higher daily value. Scout out these players so you get a better bang for your salary cap buck. Surround your star players with great value players, and that’s the recipe for success! Tip: You can filter by positions, salary, projected points, daily value, and season average by clicking on the table header. Clicking “Today’s Value” can unveil players with high ceilings for the day. Make sure to use this feature on a daily basis as you create your lineup. Tool #3: FanDuel NBA Blogs SB Nation is a superb resource for any fantasy basketball player. In their FanDuel Fantasy Basketball Advice section, they preview important matchups, and give you information about sleepers and busts for the day. They take the work of analyzing the matchups for you in hopes that you reap the benefits. Keeping track of trends and how the players have fared against their opponents in the past, SB Nation hands out free important details for filling out your team’s squad. Bookmark their page, and read them on a daily basis like a stockbroker would read the finance section of the newspaper. Here’s The Step­By­Step Process: 1. When creating your daily lineup, take your time. Prepare yourself by reading daily fantasy sports blogs such as SB Nation as you would read a paper if you were an investor. You will be able to realize potential sleepers and busts. 2. Then use the Value Report to gauge your star players and bargain players. Put together the foundation of your team. 3. If you are stuck, the lineup optimizer will help you finish building the team. Rotowire has one of the best lineup optimizers in the business. 4. Spread your risk among different opponents and lineups. Instead of playing a single $100 contest, play 20 $5 contests. Remember, less risk and more strategy usually yields a nice profit in the end. 5. If you are selecting a contest in the lobby, then make sure to take a look at your opponent’s record. The more experience they are, the more you will want to avoid them. Eventually you will be able to build up your bankroll and start making some serious cash. So that is all for now. You are now ready to venture out into a new money­making journey and start playing some real daily fantasy basketball contests for cash. It is exciting, isn’t it? But never rush yourself into creating a daily lineup, and remember our step­by­step process and bankroll techniques. Remember, you must stay committed, determined, and humbled along the path of daily fantasy success. Soon you will reap your rewards from FanDuel and hopefully be able to start making a living with it as well. That is the life you’ve dream of having, is it not?