This is the second of our Q&A’s with people in the DFS industry, and it’s with msize44, a former sports bettor who has transitioned into the daily fantasy sports market. He was nice enough to answer a few basic questions about his background, his strategy, his process, and where he thinks the DFS industry is heading. We had a great time hearing his responses, and we hope you enjoy as well.
[Note: Also check out our first Q&A with DraftDay’s Scott Redick, an avid daily fantasy NBA player.]
Q: Would you consider yourself a “high-volume professional player?” About how many games are you entering on a daily basis during this MLB season and across how many different sites?
A: “Yes. Obviously ‘high volume’ is a relative term. I enter hundreds of games every day across [a dozen] different sites. I am the head of a small four-person syndicate, and together we put into play around $10,000 per night, more on Tuesday and Friday nights. We have accounts at I believe 14 different sites (StatClash, Fantasy Aces, Swoopt, Wardraft, Star Fantasy Leagues, DraftTeam, DraftDay, Fantasy Thro
Q: What’s your background? When did you get started with daily fantasy sports (DFS)?
A: “I have been a professional sports bettor for almost a decade and still make some money off of traditional sports wagering. But as the offshore market has gotten increasingly difficult to move money and less efficient markets have dried up in terms of how much you can get down on those inefficient markets, I have switched to DFS. Now, 85 percent of my income comes from DFS and 15 percent from sports betting … When you start winning a lot and get continued positive results, you come to the realization that this is your job.”
Q: How many hours do you spend on this per week? What’s your typical day look like?
A: “I spend 60+ hours a week on DFS. I work basically 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. West Coast time every day.”
Q: Would you consider your approach more numbers-oriented or more feel-oriented?
A: “My approach is 80-percent numbers based and 20-percent feel based. I have spreadsheets for everything with projected point totals, and those point totals are just put into the DFS sites’ different salaries to come up with the most efficient players and most efficient lineups. Spreadsheets in my opinion work best for football, second-best for basketball, and worst for baseball due to the massively high variance for an offensive player’s projected point total in baseball.”
Q: What’s the biggest win you’ve ever had in a single event?
A: “I won $250,000 in Week 16 of the NFL last season … I just worked hard to accumulate tickets for the big events at each site throughout the year, and then cashed in with some nice Peyton Manning to his wide receiver stats combined with LeSean McCoy in everything against the laughable Bears rush defense of the past season.”
[Editor’s note: Manning threw for 400 yards and 4 TDs against the Texans in Week 16 last season, and McCoy had 162 total yards and 2 TDs.]
Q: For someone completely new to DFS but has a good grasp on sports betting, analytic thinking and the sport they’d specialize in, how long do you think it’d take for them to be +EV in DFS?
A: “Sports betting is way different than DFS. Obviously there is overlap in the information, but like anything it takes experience to learn the ins and outs and different strategies. The best DFS players (and the DFS industry in general) have no clue about sports betting. As a whole, they are completely uninformed and novices about sports betting. I don’t really have a feel for the other end of the scenario, but I’m guessing it is the same thing. I feel like I have a good fusion of both worlds, and that is why I have done quite well in both realms. My general sense is that sharp sports bettors have yet to grasp how fast DFS is growing and how big of a market it actually is and will be. If you live in the United States and consider yourself sharp, you should be playing DFS.”
Q: What percentage of the people on one of the big sites like FanDuel or DraftKings truly know what they’re doing, and what percentage could be described as “fish?”
A: “The number of ‘fish’ has decreased dramatically in the past year with the rise of RotoGrinders and other sites that inform new players and veteran players about basic strategy and daily advice. There are very few completely clueless fish out there at this point, but there are a lot of people playing who aren’t what I would call ‘sharp.’
“That being said, I think searching out clueless opponents might have been a viable strategy two years ago, but it is not any longer because no one really plays heads-up games anymore. Everything is large-field double-ups, triple-ups and matrix games; head-to-head produces very little revenue for DFS sites at this point. Also, the real money is made in the large-field guaranteed prize pool (GPP) tournaments where you win an entrance ticket into a destination final or just a final in general. Assembling teams for this type of tournament is completely different than constructing a team for a heads-up game or double-up game (commonly referred to as cash games).”
Q: Which site would you say is the toughest to win at?
A: “Whatever site has the least overlay that you can find is the toughest to win at. [Editor’s note: ‘Overlay’ is generally defined as when a large-field GPP or double-up doesn’t fill enough for the DFS site to make money. If the guaranteed prize pool is larger than the total amount of entry fees, the difference is the ‘overlay,’ and it’s a very +EV situation for the participants.]
“Some sites have sharper pricing, and some have easier pricing to attract more of the common players. Any site that has sharp pricing and team composition of positional flexibility will in most cases give the sharper player more of an advantage. A site like FanDuel with soft pricing might be more difficult for a +EV player, although those factors are mitigated to a degree by the size of the player base of a site, which leads to the ability to get more money down on a daily basis.”
Q: How much are the top players in this industry teaming up?
A: “Not sure how much good it does you to ‘team up’ with another top player. I actually believe not letting anyone know you are a top player is probably the smartest thing to do long term. The only reason a top player would share information is if they are compensated for it, or if they are trying to cultivate a ‘personality’ in case the industry really blows up. (Or the third case would be if you are me and you answer Betting Talk’s questions.)”
Q: Order these three from most common to least common… The people making a lot of money in this industry have a background in A) poker, B) sports betting, C) stock trading/Wall Street/finance?
A: “Most common is none of those. Fantasy sports in more niche than people realize, and DFS is even more niche than regular fantasy sports and has its own game theory and many, many small intricacies. If I had to take a guess I would say Wall Street, poker, and sports betting in that order.”
Q: What’s the next big step the DFS industry has to take to become more mainstream?
A: “The DFS industry simply needs to market and advertise. Watch the World Series of Poker this year, and you will see DraftKings advertising all over the place. It has grown a lot already and will continue to grow. There are a lot of rumors floating around that one of the big boys (Yahoo, ESPN, Google) will enter the DFS market soon, and if they do then it will explode. Also, there is something to be said for dumbing down the game to make it a pick ’em format instead of the somewhat ‘convoluted for the average guy’ salary cap format.”
Q: Following up on that question, what happens when that “big boom” comes? The assumption has to be there would be much more “dead money” coming in, so does that change strategy or outlook at all?
A: “If the ‘big boom’ comes, then there will most definitely be more dead money in games. But, perhaps more importantly, the GPPs will expand and there could be more overlay on a daily basis. The large-field double-ups will definitely become softer, and they are already soft.
“The biggest misconception about DFS is that the rake makes it an unworkable situation, but keep in mind there is overlay every day if you know where to look, and all sites have loyalty programs that further reduce rake. If you can get figure out how to manipulate the affiliate programs, you can even further reduce rake. If you have a large bankroll you have a massive, massive advantage in DFS because in large-field GPPs you have the ability to make multiple teams in big tourneys and take full advantage of all overlay.
“Myself and my group have qualified for at least 20 major championships over three different sports. We already have a DraftKings, FanDuel, and StarStreet ticket for their respective baseball championships this year, which equals over $90,000 in liquidity.”