The payoff comes quicker, the money can stack—or vanish—faster and revenge is only ever a night away. Daily fantasy sports, the fastest-growing segment of sports gambling, is engineered for our instant-gratification, fruitfly attention spans, and its ties to the NHL are official.
In 2013, 41.5 million players in Canada and the United States participated in daily fantasy sports (DFS), according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, and that figure is multiplying as the power players invest heavily in marketing and partnerships with teams and leagues. (The NHL linked with DraftKings for a multi-year partnership in November.)
Look around your regular-season fantasy draft table. Chances are, at least one of your fellow poolies already has a DraftKings and/or FanDuel account.
Much like online poker, daily fantasy hockey games start fresh every night, and participants can bet as little as a quarter or as much as $1,000 to enter a single daily game. Total prizes for a game can range from a loonie to $1 million.
While there are sharks in these waters, people running multiple monitors and raking in thousands of dollars, the average player can still get the same kind of enjoyment they do from their keeper or season-long leagues in quick-hit doses at a price that suits their budget.
Before we set you up with some strategy, let’s explain a few of the popular tournament formats.
50/50
A nice entry-level contest, the 50/50 tournament rewards half its participants with a win and half with a loss—$1.80 for every dollar you gamble (in daily fantasy, the house always takes its share, usually around a dime for every dollar wagered). Simply finish with more fantasy points than half the field and you collect.
But this type of game provides no incentive to finish first—if 100 people participate, the poolie who finishes 50th receives the same payout as the one who finishes first. Thus, filling your roster with safe, reliable players is the order of the day.
Double-Up
A Double-Up tournament operates similarly to a 50/50 but dangles a better payout—$2 for every dollar. In a Double-Up, only the top 45 percent of finishers cash out, and the house skims the other five percent. Strategically, most players approach a 50/50 and a Double-Up the same way. Choosing one or the other is a matter of confidence and personal preference.
Head-to-Head
Fairly self-explanatory. All you have to do is score more fantasy points than your opponent. You won’t quite double your money, but there’s only one person standing between you and profit.
Qualifiers
These are your tickets to the granddaddy championship tournaments, where the entry fee is usually on the high end. Since the prize structure is top-heavy, poolies often take a loaded or contrarian approach to their roster in an effort to get an edge. Higher risk, higher reward.
Overlays
Spot an overlay in a guaranteed tournament and you’ve found an opportunity. The odds have tilted away from the house and toward the player’s favour. If DraftKings is guaranteeing a $100,000 prize with a $100 buy-in, they must make sure at least 1,000 people enter or else they lose money and your chances of winning increase. So if a guaranteed contest is low on entrants, you get better odds if you enter and it doesn’t fill up.
Once you’ve chosen your game, you’re given a payroll with which to build your roster—as simple or as complex as an NHL GM negotiating the salary cap. The dollar figures as well as the player pricing varies by the company, and player prices change by the day as their production (and thus their desirability) rises and falls.
No matter which company you play with and how much cash you’re spending, though, a few simple strategies can help you maximize the returns on your investment.
1. Build from the net out
Since goaltenders earn points with wins, hitting 30 saves and limiting opponents to two goals or less, this one roster slot can account for more than 20 percent of your total points. So choose wisely.
While you may be tempted to just snap up the hottest goalie in the game, you must consider the strength of competition. Carey Price is the best netminder in hockey, but do you really want to draft him if he’s facing a high-flying offence such as Tampa Bay or Pittsburgh that evening? No. Spot the elite goaltenders facing offensively anemic teams. The bigger the point spread, the better (check Vegas odds to help you get a sense of who’s favoured).
And, of course, make sure the No. 1 goaltender is actually getting the nod. After the morning skate, that evening’s starter should be public knowledge. No matter how dependable Pekka Rinne is, he won’t do you any good if his coach is giving him the night off. If a heavily favoured team’s backup goalie is getting a start against a weak opponent (say, Montreal’s Dustin Tokarski at home versus Toronto), it could be a sweet little value buy that saves your budget to splurge on scorers.
Search Twitter or check a handy goaliespecific site such as leftwinglock.com or dailyfaceoff.com, which maintain up-to-the-minute starter info.
A bonus tip: Don’t pick one from a team playing the second half of a back-to-back. Tired teams have proven more susceptible to defensive lapses and losses.
2. If you’re going to cheap out, do it on defence
Since the ideal lineup will never fit under your salary cap, the daily GM will be forced to cut corners somewhere. The fantasy difference between an elite goaltender and an average one is significant. Same goes for a first-line centre and a third-liner. So the trick in DFS—not unlike in the NHL—is to find value in affordable defencemen.
If at all possible, slot in D-men who play on their club’s first power play unit. The more shots they take, the better. Worst case, choose ones who play on the second power-play unit. The hotter the power play, the better your chance. Seldom is a defenceman going to break out with a hat trick or a two-goal night, but a couple of secondary power play assists could push you over the line for a fantasy win.
3. There is strength in unity
Unlike full-season pools, there is little point in hedging your bets when it comes to assembling a lineup. Zero in on duos or trios who skate on the same line and— again—get plenty of power play time. That way, if one of the shooters has a big night, the wealth will likely be shared, and you’ll rack up multiple points with each goal. If you’re taking Alex Ovechkin, grab Nicklas Backstrom, too. Partial to Jamie Benn? Go all in with Tyler Seguin. In DFS lexicon, this is called “stacking,” and most regular users swear by it.
If stuck in a jam, spend a little extra on a centre versus a winger. And look for that undervalued winger who has just been promoted to play with Sidney Crosby or Steven Stamkos.
Take your research a step further and try to find a mismatch between a high-octane offence (Tampa, Dallas, Washington, both New Yorks) and a team prone to porous defence (Edmonton, Buffalo, Arizona, Toronto). If Mike Smith shuts out the Stars, well, you played the odds, and if you keep at it, the strategy should pay off in the long term.
4. Beware the injury! And hit ’em where it hurts
In addition to picking on weak teams, pay attention to which average or strong franchises are dealing with injuries to significant players. Obviously, make sure the players in your lineup are 100 per cent healthy; there are no bonus points for rolling the dice on Pavel Datsyuk if he’s a game-time decision.
At any given point in the season, there is an opponent besieged by ailments—think the 2014–15 Columbus Blue Jackets—and thus ready to surrender fantasy points. Note that DraftKings in particular offers a “late swap,” meaning you can react to breaking news and change the remaining players in your lineup even after the puck has dropped on the first game of the night. This can come in handy for the West Coast schedule.
5. Ice time matters when hunting value
While picking healthy, top-tier offensive talent and a starting goalie is straightforward, the tougher choices pop up when filling out your roster’s depth. While goals and assists are important factors, don’t overlook ice time. The more a skater is off the bench, the better chance he has to get a plus or a blocked shot. Use average time on ice as a deciding factor when filling out the bottom half of your roster.
6. Learn the site’s scoring system—and take advantage of it
DraftKings and FanDuel, the two most popular options, use different accounting systems, so do your research.
FanDuel awards power play points and plus-minus, which should steer you away from selecting players on bad teams. Draft- Kings ignores plus-minus and doesn’t place a premium on the power play but awards a bonus for short-handed points and blocked shots, thus making penalty-killing defencemen more valuable. It’s the extra half-points here and there that can push a team over that all-important cash line.
