How the Daily Fantasy Sports Industry Turns Fans into Suckers

[Dan Druff]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/ma...o-suckers.html

The article was written by a former DFS player.

It basically says that ordinary players have no chance due to being up against advanced scripts and computer programs setting thousands of lineups against them, and that DFS ads purposely mislead players into thinking they are in a fair competition.

This fact has been largely ignored by the media, which has only focused upon the cheating allegations.

Side note: A guy mentioned in the article, Chris Fargis, was said to have been the first one credited with writing about the idea of DFS, back in 2006.

I used to play limit holdem with Fargis, who was a humorless douche. He complained to a friend of mine that my "Iraqi" routine on Ultimatebet was offensive and inappropriate.

Fargis now works at DraftKings.

[tgull]

Even if online poker became legal again (and it won't), I would not play, and I am someone who religiously played from 2004 until about the end of 2009. The computer programs basically destroyed the competition. Same has happened in DFS. I still love to gamble, but I only do so in a casino every now and again, or on individual sporting events with a human book.

Same thing for daytrading stocks, the high frequency traders have so much advantage, why even bother. I gave that up too.

The UIGEA accomplished one thing for me that was truly a lifesaver. I no longer stay up to 5am on a poker drinking bender and wake up at noon trying to recreate what I lost the night before, scrambling online accounts to see what I spent. I just bought a nice leather chair the other day that I was debating whether is was too expensive until I remembered back in the day it was one night on Party back in the day. The I whipped out the AMEX.

[GambleBotsChafedPenis]

DFS is similar to poker in that the pros will always have the edge over the amateurs...some of these articles make it seem like these guys cant be beaten...they can, they're not infallible...

the commercials did make it seem like it was easy to win millions, but fuck if you actually look at the week 1 NFL millionaire maker on draft kings and think it's gonna be easy to slog through 590K entries to win $2M off of a $20 entry then you need to get in touch with reality...

and im not defending DFS as being a perfect industry, far from it...but it's a lot less dire than some people make it seem...

[Dan Druff]

DFS is similar to poker in that the pros will always have the edge over the amateurs...some of these articles make it seem like these guys cant be beaten...they can, they're not infallible...

the commercials did make it seem like it was easy to win millions, but fuck if you actually look at the week 1 NFL millionaire maker on draft kings and think it's gonna be easy to slog through 590K entries to win $2M off of a $20 entry then you need to get in touch with reality...

and im not defending DFS as being a perfect industry, far from it...but it's a lot less dire than some people make it seem...

I was just discussing the difference bewteen DFS and poker, and I feel it's apples and oranges.

With poker, all but the most delusional clods realize that there are massive skill differences among players in the game. So unless you're living in a dream world, you don't believe that you have the same chance as the pros when you sit down to play poker as a novice player. Like any other competition, it is obvious that the least experienced will be at a big disadvantage.

DFS is different. It is marketed as a fun thing you can do to compete against people setting lineups just like you are. Even if you believe that some people have done better research than you, it is easy to rationalize that those people will have just one entry (or at most, a few) and are unlikely to severely lower your chances of winning. You also would assume that you're playing against human beings, and not automated tools.

So the commercials are really, really misleading. The average n00b to DFS has no chance, but the commercials are implying that he does.

[MumblesBadly]

DFS is similar to poker in that the pros will always have the edge over the amateurs...some of these articles make it seem like these guys cant be beaten...they can, they're not infallible...

the commercials did make it seem like it was easy to win millions, but fuck if you actually look at the week 1 NFL millionaire maker on draft kings and think it's gonna be easy to slog through 590K entries to win $2M off of a $20 entry then you need to get in touch with reality...

and im not defending DFS as being a perfect industry, far from it...but it's a lot less dire than some people make it seem...

I was just discussing the difference bewteen DFS and poker, and I feel it's apples and oranges.

With poker, all but the most delusional clods realize that there are massive skill differences among players in the game. So unless you're living in a dream world, you don't believe that you have the same chance as the pros when you sit down to play poker as a novice player. Like any other competition, it is obvious that the least experienced will be at a big disadvantage.

DFS is different. It is marketed as a fun thing you can do to compete against people setting lineups just like you are. Even if you believe that some people have done better research than you, it is easy to rationalize that those people will have just one entry (or at most, a few) and are unlikely to severely lower your chances of winning. You also would assume that you're playing against human beings, and not automated tools.

So the commercials are really, really misleading. The average n00b to DFS has no chance, but the commercials are implying that he does.

Agreed. It's more like the many misleading billboard ads for casinos portraying how easy it is to be a "winner".

[GambleBotsChafedPenis]

see id disagree about that one...

does the average noob have a shot in the long term against the pros? nope...can a noob spike one of these big multi field tourneys? 100% yes...im pretty sure those big milly maker tourneys at the beginning of the year weren't taken down by the pros...but if a noob goes up against the top guys head to head, week after week they will get their skulls caved in...same as poker...like in poker if a guy played you HU in cash for a year you'd smoke 'em...in a tourney while you would be a favorite over the average amateur, they can still bink one...just like in poker you have to differentiate between cash games (50/50, head to head in the DFS world) and tournaments (the GPPs in the DFS world)...

DFS just like poker if you put the work in it you can win at it...but that obviously doesn't sell...not defending their marketing this year...it was fucking obnoxious as hell, but people want to gamble and they have to figure out how to sell to those people...

[BeerAndPoker]

Poker sites don't allow bots while DFS does with it's registration scripts,etc... Anything that allows multiple entries gives pros a significant advantage in DFS when they can just fire up so many entries,etc...

Their are probably ways to fix certain things to make it more of a level playing field such as eliminating multiple entries or at least limiting them to a small number, make it so sharks must create an even number of h2h as they sit with at each buyin stake, lower the rake,etc.. The problem with some things like h2h example I give is it benefits the site too much as well if people trade rake back and forth more instead of raping the rec player but somethings need to be done to give them more of a chance.

Without that DFS MANAGER 1.0 or FANTASY TRACKER 1.0 you are at a disadvantage.

[Dan Druff]

I'm not understanding why this is so hard for DFS sites to police.

They can simply make these scripts completely illegal, and police it by shutting down accounts of anyone who makes more "actions" within a short period of time than humanly possible.

And they can restrict the # of entries to something like 50 per contest.

Yes, it will bring down the prize pool (and their revenue), but this will really shut down a lot of the tactics being used by the pro players.

[GambleBotsChafedPenis]

see there's a tradeoff in the multi entry thing...the multi entries create the bigger prize pools, which is what drives people to these tournaments...lower the entry cap (which they've done) to like 5 entries each, the prize pools decline...ive started to see the sites offering more single entry tourneys that reach their guarantee so that's something that you can enter if you don't like going against the mass multi-entry guys...i'm torn on it...I like the fact that these guys juice the pot with a ton of their entries...if I put in a few entries into these things I know that they should be optimal for what I can come up with...but the guys who put in a ton, a lot of those entries are suboptimal so they're just juicing the prize pool...and yeah I know it gives them an advantage to be able to put more entries in, but it also puts a lot more dead money into the pot, which is good for the rest of us...

I think unlike poker this is here to stay...these sites are in bed with the leagues and this DFS stuff is an immense boon for the leagues...I mean seriously unless you are a really hardcore baseball fan are you really gonna watch some random game on a Tuesday in june unless you have money on it?

again I think DFS is FAR from perfect, theres a lot of shit that needs to be fixed.

[GambleBotsChafedPenis]

I'm not understanding why this is so hard for DFS sites to police.

They can simply make these scripts completely illegal, and police it by shutting down accounts of anyone who makes more "actions" within a short period of time than humanly possible.

And they can restrict the # of entries to something like 50 per contest.

Yes, it will bring down the prize pool (and their revenue), but this will really shut down a lot of the tactics being used by the pro players.

I think the entry scripts are publically available on rotogrinders...

the scummy part of the scripting thing is regs being predators on the new players at low stakes H2H matches on fanduel...you can click on anybody's profile and see how many wins they have in any given sport...so some regs wrote scripts that would auto scoop H2H matches against guys that had <'x' wins...shit like that is bullshit and needs to stop...

right now draftkings has entries restricted to 3% per contest...don't know what it was before, but was higher...they seem to be moving in the right direction with something like that...

[IAmProfessionalTalk]

Everyone has access to the same tools.

Each additional entry in the same contest has a lower expected value.

[Dan Druff]

Publicly accessible on rotogrinders and accessible to the average depositing n00b are two different things.

No scripts of any kind should be allowed.

I have been saying the same thing about HUDs in poker.

[BeerAndPoker]

Publicly accessible on rotogrinders and accessible to the average depositing n00b are two different things.

No scripts of any kind should be allowed.

I have been saying the same thing about HUDs in poker.

I played DFS a little this year and call me a rec/fish but I honestly wouldn't even know where to start in looking for a registration script even though I haven't done research to find it as most people aren't.

DFS was blasted so hard on TV this year at the beginning of football season that some number probably higher then 95% of the people would be in the same boat unaware of research tools,etc...

I signed up for one site under rotogrinders so they gave me a free year of expert advice in premium tools which I've looked at a bit and would never pay for them. It feels sort of like watching a professional poker training video from a long ways back where you could tell the pros were holding back a few things and with DFS tools I'm sure it's like that too. When more and more people put out videos certain strategies got leaked and figured out better then the very first people to make videos told people imo.

You still have to use your brain in game with poker so even watching a bunch of videos and studying with all the tools you have if you don't apply things correctly you won't be making the maximum possible. We also know people have special huds and various tools that the masses don't even know about and maybe only a handful of players do in poker (private stuff) that help the few ones in the know.

With DFS being so new this is where a huge edge is gained but unlike poker their is no in game play except changing your lineup if you find out a player is going to be out before that particular game starts,etc... The rest relies completely on research but where the pros really crush in the tournaments is with the multi entry effect.

Having top heavy payouts in tournaments a guy setting 100 lineups with all the extra data tools he has access to is going to destroy the new players who only play a single lineup and all the DFS commercials are catering these players towards playing tournaments for the big one million prize,etc...

All that pro needs to do is get a few decent finishes and he's showing profit. If a pro fires 50k a week with a 20% average return that is 10k profit but top guys can be winning way more then that.

[GambleBotsChafedPenis]

Publicly accessible on rotogrinders and accessible to the average depositing n00b are two different things.

No scripts of any kind should be allowed.

I have been saying the same thing about HUDs in poker.

as somebody who usually enters no more than 5 entries into these tourneys I don't know how I feel about the scripts...I side on the fact I like them because as IAPT said, each successive entry that these guys enter is less and less +EV...like I said they do have an advantage over the long term by being able to mass enter these things, but people don't see the days that these guys absolutely fucking brick (which happens a lot) and have juiced up the prize pools with their multiple entries...

from what I read these guys make like 8-12% on their money...if they were making 20, 30, 40+% returns that'd be a problem...they're grinding it out and juicing it up for the rest of us most of the time...

[Dan Druff]

8-12% is still pretty big. Yes, sometimes a guy goes crazy with multi-entries and bricks, but that's just variance.

The problem is that most casual players either don't know about multi-entries, or don't understand how to do it.

When pro players multi-enter tournaments, I see it as similar to a large poker tournament where the good players are all cloning themselves and each clone is entering. So like, at the Colossus WSOP event, you aren't too worried if Daniel Negreanu enters, if there are 22,000 entries. But if 1000 Negreanus enter, then suddenly it becomes a big factor.

Mass entries by pros smooths out the variance, and makes it less and less likely that amateurs will win.

[handicapme]

8-12% is still pretty big. Yes, sometimes a guy goes crazy with multi-entries and bricks, but that's just variance.

The problem is that most casual players either don't know about multi-entries, or don't understand how to do it.

When pro players multi-enter tournaments, I see it as similar to a large poker tournament where the good players are all cloning themselves and each clone is entering. So like, at the Colossus WSOP event, you aren't too worried if Daniel Negreanu enters, if there are 22,000 entries. But if 1000 Negreanus enter, then suddenly it becomes a big factor.

Mass entries by pros smooths out the variance, and makes it less and less likely that amateurs will win.

This will only be based on GPPs since I don't play much of them and feel okay talking about them without giving away strategy.

Pretty horrible example based on the above. Pros may enter 500+ lineups, however the uniqueness of all of them is what would make your example just horrible. I'd rather go up against 500 DIFFERENT pros than the same pro 500 times in poker. In DFS if 1 pro enters 500 lineups, while the correlation accross those lineups will be high, they will all be unique. Where as in poker if you were to clone DN 500 times, there is nothing unique about it.

The only advantage the pro has by entering 500 different lineups is being able to smoothen out variance given their superior knowledge. What makes this unfair for the casual player is that they are not able to smooth out thier own variance in the same manner, not that they are going up against the same pro 500 times.

Your above example basically equates to Pro A enters 500 of the same lineup into a GPP, which unless you're god, would not be a correct strategy at all. Attempting to link this to poker isn't the best approach given the differences.