4 ms·

Since I don't know much about the topic, how much gambling is involved in fantasy sports? In other words, how much skill would be involved in all the drafting a

by NhanH 11y ago

Since I don't know much about the topic, how much gambling is involved in fantasy sports? In other words, how much skill would be involved in all the drafting and picking etc, as opposed to just pure luck?

ericdykstra 11y ago
There's a lot of skill involved, but Fanduel (and DraftKings, the other major DFS site) take ~10% of every entry fee, which makes it very hard to be a consistent winning player. It's not that hard to be break-even given you know the players across the league well and have a real understanding of the underlying mechanics of the sport. As far as the business goes... At some point they'll run out of new players, and the sharks will have a big enough bankroll to basically suck all the dead money out of the game leaving almost nothing for good, but not fantastic players. When that happens, either people will keep playing because it's fun and Fanduel has a great business on their hands (precedent: sports betting) or people who are not making money will get out, and new players will be discouraged from joining an established scene (precedent: online poker). I'm leaning more towards it going to the fate of online poker eventually, but it might not happen until sports betting is legalized in the US.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  I don't think the 10% fee will be sustainable in the long run. Price competition will be inevitable once the manic growth phase is over.
  - ericdykstra 11y ago
    The players who care more about the fees are the better players who see it as cutting directly into their ROI. If only top players move to low-fee sites, that doesn't help their ROI much, does it? Casual sports betters prefer sites with convoluted bonus and rakeback programs to sites with low fees. I think casual DFS players will stick to the names that are on the commercials and the sites with the prettiest and most trustworthy-looking UI. I believe something similar happened in poker, where players would go to the sites where the worst players were, and not where, player-strength being equal, they would make the most money.
  - acconrad 11y ago
    Except there are a ton of competitors and it's already become an oligopoly. FanDuel and DraftKings alone have accounted for 95% of the DFS revenue as of 2015, and just acquired the two other biggest competitors in the space (DraftStreet and StarStreet). Big prize pools drive harder than lower fees.
prawn 11y ago
Fair bit of skill. A knowledgeable fantasy player is going to trump someone guessing or even someone with a passing interest unless there are major and unexpected injuries. I've previously played NBA fantasy, NBL (Australian league) fantasy and also bet small-stakes on basketball (mostly NBL). I no longer have time for fantasy but still bet. When playing fantasy NBA against friends, I used various methods of calculating average output and forecasting it against a schedule and then made decisions on when to trade players. That was in a league where player values rose and fell based on their popularity in the system. It can get very time consuming if you want to maximise your chances. The NBL was simpler but someone using a spreadsheet to time trades through the season would always beat those who weren't. I bet on the NBL because it's not a strong and well-researched market by bookmakers in Australia and I have very good domain knowledge short of advanced statistics (hear a lot of rumours, know players, tendencies, injuries). I have been approached in the past by a bookmaker about trading my info with them for a weekly tab. I imagine these daily fantasy comps remove the schedule from the equation (besides fatigue, etc), but you'll generally be up against other committed players. Never played one personally. I imagine you'd have to rely on fleecing fresh/occasional players rather than the established pros.
waylandsmithers 11y ago
It is a skill game similar to poker in many respects (and it seems that the operators of these daily fantasy sites have modeled a lot of their games after online poker tournaments). It is a negative sum game due to the fees that the operators take out of the pools, and luck dominates the short run, but skillful players with better estimating skills or access to privileged information can win consistently in the long run.

by NhanH 11y ago

ericdykstra 11y ago

There's a lot of skill involved, but Fanduel (and DraftKings, the other major DFS site) take ~10% of every entry fee, which makes it very hard to be a consistent winning player. It's not that hard to be break-even given you know the players across the league well and have a real understanding of the underlying mechanics of the sport. As far as the business goes... At some point they'll run out of new players, and the sharks will have a big enough bankroll to basically suck all the dead money out of the game leaving almost nothing for good, but not fantastic players. When that happens, either people will keep playing because it's fun and Fanduel has a great business on their hands (precedent: sports betting) or people who are not making money will get out, and new players will be discouraged from joining an established scene (precedent: online poker). I'm leaning more towards it going to the fate of online poker eventually, but it might not happen until sports betting is legalized in the US.

waterlesscloud 11y ago
I don't think the 10% fee will be sustainable in the long run. Price competition will be inevitable once the manic growth phase is over.
- ericdykstra 11y ago
  The players who care more about the fees are the better players who see it as cutting directly into their ROI. If only top players move to low-fee sites, that doesn't help their ROI much, does it? Casual sports betters prefer sites with convoluted bonus and rakeback programs to sites with low fees. I think casual DFS players will stick to the names that are on the commercials and the sites with the prettiest and most trustworthy-looking UI. I believe something similar happened in poker, where players would go to the sites where the worst players were, and not where, player-strength being equal, they would make the most money.
- acconrad 11y ago
  Except there are a ton of competitors and it's already become an oligopoly. FanDuel and DraftKings alone have accounted for 95% of the DFS revenue as of 2015, and just acquired the two other biggest competitors in the space (DraftStreet and StarStreet). Big prize pools drive harder than lower fees.

prawn 11y ago

Fair bit of skill. A knowledgeable fantasy player is going to trump someone guessing or even someone with a passing interest unless there are major and unexpected injuries. I've previously played NBA fantasy, NBL (Australian league) fantasy and also bet small-stakes on basketball (mostly NBL). I no longer have time for fantasy but still bet. When playing fantasy NBA against friends, I used various methods of calculating average output and forecasting it against a schedule and then made decisions on when to trade players. That was in a league where player values rose and fell based on their popularity in the system. It can get very time consuming if you want to maximise your chances. The NBL was simpler but someone using a spreadsheet to time trades through the season would always beat those who weren't. I bet on the NBL because it's not a strong and well-researched market by bookmakers in Australia and I have very good domain knowledge short of advanced statistics (hear a lot of rumours, know players, tendencies, injuries). I have been approached in the past by a bookmaker about trading my info with them for a weekly tab. I imagine these daily fantasy comps remove the schedule from the equation (besides fatigue, etc), but you'll generally be up against other committed players. Never played one personally. I imagine you'd have to rely on fleecing fresh/occasional players rather than the established pros.

waylandsmithers 11y ago

It is a skill game similar to poker in many respects (and it seems that the operators of these daily fantasy sites have modeled a lot of their games after online poker tournaments). It is a negative sum game due to the fees that the operators take out of the pools, and luck dominates the short run, but skillful players with better estimating skills or access to privileged information can win consistently in the long run.