Daily Fantasy Sports, or DFS, grows more popular every day. Many punters find themselves asking whether they should devote more time to DFS or to conventional sports betting.
The answer isn’t simple, since there are advantages and disadvantages to both options. Knowing what these are can help you decide what’s right for you.
Daily Fantasy Sports Basics
When you create a DFS team, you get to pick exactly which players are on it. You have to be careful with your selection, since you’ll have a salary cap that you can’t exceed. That means you won’t be able to choose star players only.
Real-life performances are converted into fantasy points, and the squad with the highest score wins. Tournaments take place within a much shorter time-span than they do in the physical world, and you know the results much faster.
DFS Advantages Over Traditional Betting
- Less Research is Required although you will need to do some to look into each player. But since you’re looking at how each individual – such as Knicks star Julius Randle performs, you can take quite a narrow, statistics-focused view. You need the same insights in DFS and regular punting, but building and tweaking a squad it won’t take up as much of your time.
- You’re competing against fellow punters, not professional bookmakers so their handicapping skills are likely to be at or even below your level. You’re better-matched, giving you a greater chance of coming out ahead.
- You’re allowed to use the same line-up in several contests so if you’re really happy with your roster, you can enter it into $1, $10 and $100 head-to-head competitions. In the same way, you can enter several teams that are only slightly different into the same tournament.
- You won’t be banned for doing well which is what often happens to frequent winners at conventional bookies. They’re often accused of limiting wins or banning punters. By contrast, DFS sites encourage successful bettors to boost volume and liquidity.
Traditional Betting Advantages Over DFS
- You’ll be paying lower commissions, so you’ll get to pocket more of each payout.
- Pros won’t enter low-stakes games as they often do in Daily Fantasy Sports. Since you can enter as many DFS contests as you wish to after creating a single team, it’s not time-consuming for pros to bet on low-stake games. They often do just that, scooping up profits that might otherwise be coming your way. In conventional sports bets, this doesn’t happen.
- There are more markets and sportsbooks to choose from, so you’ll be able to find the sport and wagers you are actually interested in. There are also a lot more props, such as predicting the colour of the Gatorade poured over the winning team coach’s head at the Super Bowl!
- You’ll have a greater potential for profit since many DFS sites have a top payout of $100 which is pretty common on Aussie sports betting sites. At the moment, 6-figure paydays for DFS wagers are unheard of – although that may, of course, change in the future.