Daily Fantasy Sports

[bitowl]

Anyone here play? I've recently gotten back into NBA for the first time since I was a kid and have been considering making a deposit. I keep hearing comparisons with poker but can't really see the analogy. Using stats and some optimizer type program just seems trivial... I don't see where the edge is. But then again, people could say the same thing about poker and they'd be completely wrong so maybe I just don't know the game.

 

[emirlidan]

never played but fantasy sports is all about matchups from what I can tell

I still don't recommend it as I find sports super difficult to bet on

 

[99TERRANCE99]

Do you mean draft kings and fan duel type ?

 

[we will rock you]

i play every sport on both sites you need to do your research and stats for nba that are helpful are usage rate and minutes played

 

[99TERRANCE99]

i play every sport on both sites you need to do your research and stats for nba that are helpful are usage rate and minutes played

ACCURATE INJURY REPORTS is by far the most important in sports betting /fantasy because if you pick guys who dont play you are done and your team is to most nights ,stats,trends etc are after the fact in my opinion

 

[bitowl]

ACCURATE INJURY REPORTS is by far the most important in sports betting /fantasy because if you pick guys who dont play you are done and your team is to most nights ,stats,trends etc are after the fact in my opinion

I made a deposit about a week ago and am down 25$ lol.

I had some up and down nights, was slightly down and not quite sure if what I was doing was +ev. Then 2 nights ago I made 4 lineups, entered each into a 1$ double up and 2 heads up matches. I lost every single one. Then last night, played just a single line up in a 50/50 and 2 heads up and lost all of them yet again...

so I'm done with that for now. In a way I'm actually glad I got raped so hard early on when only playing baby stakes. For one, it showed that there really is a large skill component to dfs so there is hope I can improve. I was basically just listening to DFS podcasts and randomly picking the guys they said were good picks, but that obviously isn't enough. That's almost like the equivalent of a preflop poker chart when playing 200bb deep 6max.

I think the edge just comes from the amount of data available. You have to worry about individual player performances in a vacuum, how many minutes they'll get, matchups vs other teams, injuries and their effect on other lineups etc. Then on top of that is the actual assessment of the sport and players which probably takes a lifetime of passionately watching the sport to acquire. I think I was a bit foolish in my approach tbh.

One other thing that surprised me was how much more fun watching the games is when you have $ on individual players. There were a few times where I was in a headsup match where we were in the last 10 minutes of the final game of the slate and we had different players across both teams. So you end up rooting for specific players instead of teams and it adds this weird meta level to the game which is really cool and interesting. It's also undoubtedly sports betting, which as a poker player has always been the thing I've been warned to stay away from... I'm not quite sure what to think of it but will not be playing for $ until I can really get my mind around it and if I think it's beatable.

 

[bitowl]

never played but fantasy sports is all about matchups from what I can tell

I still don't recommend it as I find sports super difficult to bet on

This is probably wise. I do think though, that there is a difference between DFS compared to traditional sport betting in that you play against other people instead of vs the house.

DFS is probably similar to poker in that for it to be actually profitable for an amateur/enthusiast, requires a lot of fish in the games. It's entirely possible that DFS could get to the level where no one is making fundamental mistakes and any edge gained from using statistical tools or whatever is less than the rake. It might happen pretty soon actually because there is nothing stopping pros with 100k bankrolls from just playing every single 1$ game against fish like me.

 

[we will rock you]

also you need to know who you are playing against fish or sharks

 

[bitowl]

also you need to know who you are playing against fish or sharks

This is true. Last night I entered a 1$ double up just for fun. It was one of those with like 20k entrants. I noticed so many people at the top had entered the same lineup like 20 times. I know this is common but it just kind of stuck out at me for the first time.

Going with a poker analogy it's like playing .01/.02 thinking everyones just having fun but really you're playing 25nl+ because everyone else is maxing out the number of entries.