Daily Fantasy Sports Money Management

Daily Fantasy Sports Money Management
By Adam of Rotopicks.com

One of the most important disciplines to master if you play on daily and weekly fantasy sports sites is money management. By its very nature, daily games have a quick turnover; that is, you pay your entry fee and the game concludes shortly thereafter. For this reason, it is very easy to win money quickly, but more importantly, you can lose a ton just as fast. Without money management skills, it is not that uncommon to use all of your available funds in one scoring period and the next day find out you lost all of your games and have a big fat zero for a balance. Yet, the same principle applies to a successful week, one in which your balance increases dramatically.

Obviously that second option appears ideal, but through my years of experience gambling and mastering fantasy sports, I have learned that a sudden windfall can be just as detrimental as losing your bankroll right off the bat. The reason lies in an observation that applies to almost everyone I've ever met.

When someone gambles and wins, they tend to attribute it to skill. But when they lose, they attribute it to bad luck.

When playing on a daily fantasy sports web site, there is plenty of skill involved in order to win consistently. By the same token, there is plenty of luck as well. So, when you win a daily game, you will pride yourself on your skill, and when you lose, I'm sure your first reaction relates to cursing the bad luck that has hit you. When you take this concept a step further, many people who win (especially early on) believe their skill is enough to let their winnings ride. Often this involves betting bigger and more often, then losing their winnings and original deposit, blaming those losses on bad luck, and finally re-depositing so they can get back to using their skills to win back the money they lost. This is a classic gambler's mentality (completely natural and ingrained in us), but the key to an enjoyable and hopefully profitable daily fantasy sports experience is to be aware of this instinct and develop a money management system that ensures you never go broke and never fall into an addiction.

Starting Out And Beyond

It takes a while to get used to daily fantasy sports sites. The best recommendation is to play freerolls for a bit until you get comfortable with all the nuances of the game and the specific site. However, most people are not that patient. If you are one of them, your first task is to determine the amount you want to initially deposit. This depends on your personal finances, but it helps to see what new member bonuses are available. If there is a 100% match bonus up to $100, then $100 seems like a logical amount to start off with.

Hopefully, you have read the rules, scoring, etc. for the games that the site offers. After choosing what kinds of games you would like to play, I recommend spending only 25% of your bankroll for your first week. If you end up losing a little, stick with 25% of your new bankroll the next week. If you win, you can let all the money that was in play ride into next week (you will still have 75% of your first deposit unused in your balance). Note: if you win a large tournament, this strategy would not apply as it is clearly not safe to play with hundreds or even thousands of dollars in only your second week.

Continue with this strategy until you fall to only the 75% of your original deposit or until you successfully double your original deposit. If you double your deposit, I recommend withdrawing all winnings. Then whatever is left in your account is what you originally started with and you are now playing with only house money. If you lost your first 25% and wish to keep playing, then play with that same amount again. What this does is guarantee you 4 full scoring periods of play, even if you lose every game you enter.

Tips

For the more serious and/or frequent player, there are an infinite number of ways to manage your money. Here are a few:

• Enter the more conservative games only (head to head games and double up games where theoretically you have a 1 in 2 shot at winning)
• Whenever you are up by a fairly small amount, use those winnings (since they're house money any way) on GPP's and try for a major payday.
• Gear more toward the casual player who plays for fun and not a paycheck, you can make sure you diversify your players and use each player only once throughout all of your games. Most of the time, this will enable you to probably win half your games and lose the other half, a strategy meant to increase your odds that you don't lose all your funds.
• For the daring, if you were fortunate enough to cash out your original deposit and still have money in your account to play with, use it all on a bunch of double ups (50% chance of winning): play all sizes of those leagues (head to head, 3-man, 150-man, etc.). Use a set lineup of about 4 or 5 people you feel extremely comfortable with in all of your games. But vary your TE, K, DEF, and at least 1 QB. The reason for this is TE, K, and DEF are very fickle and hard to predict. So you don't want to get stuck with a TE in every league who catches 2 rec for 12 yards. If you chose your core players well, you'll be surprised at how easy double ups can be.

Daily Fantasy Sports as a Career?

Lately, as more daily fantasy sports sites attract new customers, there are many players who play, thinking of it as a job. Like I said before, luck is as relevant as skill. Depending on the roster spot your site uses, TE's, K, DEF, and to a lesser extent, WR have high variance from week to week and are much harder to predict than many would have you believe. This unpredictable nature means you are embarking on a career choice that involves half being based on luck. Verdict: Please think twice before quitting your day job to play daily fantasy sports.

Conclusion

Live to see another day and make sure you do NOT use all of your funds. Be conscious of when your ego starts to take over (i.e. - one or more of these comments runs head, when you brag to friends about how "good you are", when you scream "this is so esy"... etc. These are keywords and when you hear them, walk away and pull yourself out of that trap we like to call delusion and addiction.

Good luck and as always, thanks for reading!

Where do you play daily fantasy sports? Did you know that Fanduel offers new members a standard 100% bonus if you sign up through RotoPicks? Simply sign-up thorugh our Fanduel Review page and use promo code: ROTOPICKS and you'll get the fat bonus!

If you liked this article you may also be interested in checking out a piece on Bankroll Management.

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