An Introduction to Daily Fantasy Sports

The continuing uncertainty of online poker in the US has had a profound impact on all American poker players. Some of us have wiped the dust off our college degrees to enter the ‘real world,’ while others have relocated to exotic destinations like Mexico or Malta to continue playing online. Another group is grinding the brick and mortar casinos and a small subset has taken their skills from poker and applied them to other industries with similar demands.

As many of you know the CardRunners founders Taylor and Andrew have started a new venture, DraftDay. They’re optimistic that the industry is ripe for growth and represents a chance for skilled players to use their sports knowledge to earn a profit. While no one knows just how big the industry will become, they believe that getting into the industry now could bring great opportunity for sharp players. For those unfamiliar with the industry, we’ve compiled an overview of daily fantasy sports and some tips for getting started. While we don’t yet consider this industry a viable substitute for poker, we hope some of you may use this information to start earning supplementary income in the daily fantasy sports industry.

Daily fantasy sports information:

1.)    Legality – Daily Fantasy Sports are specifically excluded from the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act of 2006, better known as the law that killed online poker. As many know, there is a fantasy sports carve-out in the UIGEA. Cashouts and deposits are quick and easy through the use of credit cards, PayPal, or check. As always, make sure you deal with reputable companies when considering where to play.

2.)    Industry in its Infancy – The daily fantasy sports industry is only a few years old (think online poker in 2000). This means there are fewer resources available: no tracking sites, analytics software, training sites, and minimal places to flatten the learning curve. Serious players who are dedicating the time to get good at this can have a significant edge on the competition. 

3.)    Game of Skill – There is a clear skill component in daily fantasy sports. There are biases by casual players to draft superstars or over-priced players. Sharp players pay attention to injuries and recent trends to gain an information advantage, monitoring resources such as Twitter or blogs like the daily fantasy sports blog at DraftDay.

4.)    Conducive to Grinders – One drastic difference in daily fantasy sports games, is the ability for players to play a high-volume of games with ease. Unlike poker where playing multiple tables will affect your performance and focus at your other games, submitting your lineups in dozens of daily fantasy sports games is easy and requires no additional time commitment. Build a star lineup and enter it in as many games as you’d like.

If you are interested in trying out daily fantasy basketball, DraftDay posts a free NBA game every day of the week. In addition to this, CardRunners members are periodically emailed special freerolls for signing up through CardRunners’ links. If you’d like to sign up for DraftDay, we recommend you do it here: Sign Up at DraftDay.