DFS Tournament Tracking – NFL Week 8

Daily fantasy NFL tournaments provide opportunity for all kinds of players to get into the game. Whether you are a low-stakes grinder, casual player or nosebleed-stakes sharp, the tournament space has a contest for you. But how to select the right ones? 

That’s where DFS Tournament Tracking comes into play. This piece will give all the information you need to know about various tournaments on DraftKings and FanDuel. Here are some of the terms you will need to know to get full value out of this data:

Rake — Percent of entry money paid to the contest providor
First — Percent of prize money to first place
Top 10 — Percent of prize money to the top 10 places
Pays — Percent of entrants finishing in the money
Min cash — How much a minimum cash is worth divided by the entry fee

The tournaments will be put into similar groups so you can easily compare based on your bankroll and play style. 

Mass multi-entry 

High stakes

• This week I added a new column. T10/First gives you the amount of the prize pool given to the top-10 divided by the prize for first. It is another way to view how flat a prize structure is. 
• There is an additional Milly contest on DraftKings this week. It features less rake than it’s lower-stakes counterpart, but has the same top-heavy structure.
• The Hot Route Special has the flattest prize structure of the bunch.

Mid-stakes

• I have been noting how flat the Slant is relative to other MME contests for weeks, but now you can see by just how much. It is clearly the best contest here.
• Both Milly Maker contests are dropping in overall prize pool, which makes them more lottery-style contests than anything to grind EV in. 

Low stakes

• The Dive has the flattest payout structure of any MME contest this week. You will not win a huge prize for first, just 20x of what it costs to max-enter, but great cores that go off should be able to wrangle in a nice chunk of the prize pool even if they don’t win.
• The mini-MAX offers a bigger prize for first, but with a less flat structure. Deciding what to play is ultimately a matter of personal preference, but be sure to set lineups accordingly!

Between 10 and 50 entries

High stakes

• The contests are wildly similar up and down the board, though the Gunslinger and Touchdown appear to have the best payout structures.
• The MON5TER and Field General not only have worse payouts, but require you to beat more opponents.

Mid-stakes

• There is not much variety here, nor has there been for weeks. These contests are essentially the same, but the Hot Route offers a nice rake discount.

Low stakes

• The Safety and Quarter Jukebox offer the flattest payouts, and are nice limit games for low-stakes players.
• The Play-Action is not terribly flat, but does offer a massive prize for first.
• The Huddle is still offered for non-experienced players. It is a massive rake discount.

Fewer than 10 entries

High stakes

• The SWEAT is built to be absurdly flat, and we can see that reflected in the new metric.
• The Stiff Arm is the only other contest with a T10/First over 4.0. With only 149 other players to beat, it seems like a contest to target.
• A lot of the best payout structures occur in this range.

Mid-stakes

• The End Zone is a small-field contest with a flat payout structure.
• FanDuel overall appears to have flattened out their structures a lot this week.
• The Power Sweep seems like a terrible value unless you are just chasing a big first prize.

Low stakes

• The contests at the very bottom and very top of this range appear most palatable in terms of flat payouts.
• The contest in the middle are a little top-heavier, but will pay out more for min-cashing.