FantasyPros has put together a glossary of Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) terms for readers to reference. More and more players are taking part in DFS contests. We’re providing the glossary so that you can easily reference terms and strategies as you get started playing DFS. Below we’ll take a look at daily fantasy football 101.
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When it comes to constructing a strategy for your daily fantasy team, there are some principles that will be the same for each sport, and some that will differ. Here, we will start with some of the universal ideas and bigger strategies before we branch out to sport-specific concepts.
Ceiling
The maximum number of fantasy points you can expect from an athlete in a best-case scenario.
Floor
The minimum number of fantasy points you can expect from an athlete in a worst-case scenario.
Expected Value (EV)
EV is the average of what you can expect from a chosen athlete in comparison to your competition. A +EV move will have a better than average result, while a -EV will have a worse than average result. Your goal is to bring yourself enough +EV moves that the outcome becomes less reliant upon luck or randomness to give you a higher likelihood of winning.
Hedging
Hedging is an advanced strategy, and is not really the best approach for a new player. Hedging involves alleviating some of your risk on a lineup by entering the same or another contest with a completely different set of athletes. The downside of hedging is that if one roster helps you to win money, another might lose. Or worse, both could lose. It’s hard to be profitable with this strategy because of the fact that fantasy sports are not an either/or thing. There are thousands of combinations, and having more than one lineup doesn’t do a lot to increase your chances if you are not sure of what you are doing.
High-Low / Stars & Scrubs
This is a technique that can pay big rewards. It involves picking a couple big name players, and using no-name players to fill up the rest of your roster. The big reward of this strategy comes from having your stars do what they do, and your scrubs having a semi-decent day. When this happens, you will finish near the top of your league. If your stars don’t do well, your lineup falls apart, making it very risky.
Overlay
An overlay occurs in a contest with a guaranteed prize that’s larger than the number of entrants involved. These can bring you greater value per contest entry on your part as you can risk less and earn more. If the Guaranteed Prize Pool is $5,000, and only $4,500 worth of entries are made, the overlay equals $500 and you now have a shot at winning a prize with less competition. These do not typically happen at lower stakes, as the contests tend to fill up more quickly.
Reaching
Reaching is the act of taking a stab at a player that doesn’t provide a high amount of overall value. This usually results in a -EV move. When this type of move pays off, though, you are typically going to be one of only a small number of people that benefit from it. However, it’s called a reach for a reason; it won’t work most of the time. When it does, you have a good chance of doing well. This is something to use only when you have a piece of event-specific information that you believe will benefit that athlete far more than normal.
Roster Stacking
This is a strategy specific to team sports. The general idea is to find a strong team going against a weak team and then choose as many players from the strong team as you can. General observation says that if a team does well, many of the players on the team will do well, too. This concept is sometimes called synergy as it refers to a team working together for better results, with you being the one that benefits. This strategy does work, but not every time. Use this strategy with some caution.
Salary Cap
This is the hindrance that you are given when constructing your team. Lucky for you, it’s the same for each person in your league. When used right, your salary cap is a tool that you can use to gain an advantage over the people in your league that see it as a limitation, and not an opportunity.
Value
Value isn’t a strategy, but more of a tool to use within a bigger strategy. Value is a way to describe how many points you can expect to receive from a player in terms of how much of your salary you spend on them. An expensive player with low expectations would have very little value. A cheap player with high expectations would have a lot of value. Your job is to use this concept to get the most amount of points out of your salary as possible.
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Matthew Young is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Matthew, you can view his archive, check out his blog, Win Daily Fantasy, or follow him @authormgyoung.
