Tag: Q&A

Q&A /

College football Week 4 Q&A with Eddie Walls

Professional bettor Eddie Walls joined the Betting Talk Slack’s college football channel to discuss this weekend’s college football card. He took requests on more than 20 games and offered his thoughts on each. You can follow him on Twitter at @walls_edward. You can also sign up to join the Betting Talk Slack community using the sign-up form on our home page! 

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305 MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE
306 CHARLOTTE -3, 56

Walls: I bought MTSU initially and had to get off. My number is based on QB Hockman, who is now gone. I also have huge issues with this staff at MTSU which is troubling at best. You have a supposed offensive guru who is calling plays at a Wisconsin pace and you have DC Shafer who can’t figure out run defense. I don’t like Charlotte at all. They’re really young on D and have no run offense to speak of. They were exposed by Georgia State last week who never needed to throw the ball. If I had any confidence in either offense this is an easy over play but it’s clear teams can grind on Charlotte and possibly could say the same for the Raiders here, too. Also think it’s worth something when a QB quits the team. I think he knew this was not a good team.

307 WAKE FOREST
308 VIRGINIA -4, 68.5

Walls: I love Wake Forest and always will. I think they have the most underrated head coach in the nation in Dave Clawson and I also love QB Hartman and feel their D is being slept on from last year where they virtually started over. I’m a fan of both UVa coach Bronco Mendenhall and QB Armstrong. I can make a case for the over just based on UVa’s defense. It’s not good. It’s mostly a bend-don’t-break approach but it breaks often. The run defense is good but the pass D is very troubling. UVa has to gamble on defense to create stops and hope for turnovers. I made this UVa -2 and the total 69. I played Wake small but only because I have zero sample size from Wake, who I backed last week. They could have slept through the second half and did mostly. 

313 BOWLING GREEN 
314 MINNESOTA -31, 51

Walls: I don’t have anything here. I’m dead when trying to make a better number for Bowling Green. They do nothing great but they do control the ball for long periods of time and stay mostly on schedule with 4-yard passes. Their D has been interesting in that they’re just OK versus the run and took away USA’s best WR in Tolbert for a half. Minnesota doesn’t want to pass the ball and also wants to control the clock however this will be a small defense and young defense. I lean under but I’m not brave. I lean BGSU and also am scared. Neither bet I’m going to feel confident in.

317 NOTRE DAME 
318 WISCONSIN -6.5, 46.5

Walls: I’m going to start by saying that I believe Notre Dame is a fraud. Almost lost at FSU, hung on for dear life against Toledo, etc. I don’t have a number that can reflect that yet. I drop or raise gradually. I also feel Wisconsin is fairly fraudulent. Please look at the box score of Saturday’s Penn State game and look at Auburn’s ability to run the ball comparatively. I do feel Wisconsin has a top 5 defense. They play into that. It’s under or pass and I made it Wisconsin -4. I played under 47 which is still available at some books. 

319 TOLEDO -4.5, 56
320 BALL STATE

Walls: I am out to lunch on both of these teams. Toledo has a sample size of almost beating Notre Dame with explosive plays and not being able to get a yard vs Colorado State over and over. Ball state, I’ve had major concerns about a lack of run offense and regression from QB Plitt who played out of his mind last year but they leaned on a big RB who is no longer there. Toledo should roll but coach Jason Candle handles close games poorly and also I loathe Bradley at QB. I just find it asinine that they recruit so well and have such a great defense and run offense and can’t find a better QB. I’m rambling, sorry! Made this Toledo -4 and 55, but that was three weeks ago and feel I can’t go any higher or lower currently. I passed. 

333 MIAMI OHIO
334 ARMY -8.5, 48

Walls: I played under early here. This will be Army’s first test against a team with a defense. Subsequently Miami has struggled moving the ball some and while they fared well against Minnesota it was only after they trailed big. Both teams play slow and it will be a large run offense from Army versus a slow-developing pass offense from Miami. I don’t have any value on a side in Army — made it -7.5. I’d be more likely to play Miami +9 but preferred under. 

339 BOISE STATE -9, 70.5
340 UTAH STATE

Walls: I have a large position on over but that is long gone, however I’m going to state that I had no idea they were playing at 9 am PST. Why? I love QB Bonner and his ability to go long. Also like the dual QB system. I think it’s very clear we have D issues when you give up 45 points to Air Force who was trying to kill clock at times. On the flip side, who’s betting Boise State at this point? It’s clear this new head coach manages the first half well and goes into a shell in 2nd halfs against BETTER TEAMS. I don’t know if USU has a defense to allow him to do that. Boise has holes on the D. I knew they’d play faster with the OC from UC Davis but it’s clear they only play this system when they have clear advantages on offense. They have them here.

343 MISSOURI -1.5, 59
344 BOSTON COLLEGE

Ed-RAS: We laid -2 and added more at -1/-1.5. Have seen other sharps on it as well, but there’s been big market support for BC today. What are we missing?

Walls: I don’t think you’re missing anything personally. Missouri is currently a one-sided team with a great QB and explosive wide receivers. They have a dynamic offensive coordinator for a head coach. Their run D is bottom of the barrel. Boston College with Dennis Grosel at QB is going to be very run oriented and wasn’t prepared to be so. No injury thus far into the season is bigger than BC starting QB Jurkovec’s, and there’s going to be a lot of support for opposition until we can see a sample from Grosel and Flowers—who will be utilized as a runner. The BC defense is very talented but has mostly run D concern for me. I made it pick em and passed but I can make an argument for both sides. 

347 NORTH CAROLINA -12.5, 63
348 GEORGIA TECH

Walls: Easy pass for me. Georgia Tech is all ball control and doesn’t pass the ball well. They have mediocre pass D and great run D. I can make a case for playing every UNC game over but it doesn’t add up here. Made it UNC -14 and total 62. 

351 INDIANA -9, 64
352 WESTERN KENTUCKY

Walls: I have a pretty big position here. I like over. WKU has almost no interior defense after losing their stud DE to UCF and their DB’s are pretty bad. I think Indiana has holes in their secondary and I think this will be a heavy air attack from WKU who gashed Army’s stellar secondary. You’re going to get a ton of tempo spread from WKU. I don’t love Indiana QB Penix but if he can’t succeed here then call it a day, Hoosiers fans. I also think Indiana can run the ball at will here if they choose. I made it Indiana -10 and total at 67. 

363 UCLA -4.5, 58.5
364 STANFORD

Walls: I believe it’s UCLA or pass here with so many Stanford injuries. Also think we get a tad bit lucky if looking to back the Bruins that Stanford has won two in a row. I still don’t think David Shaw has a run defense and while they have looked better with a new QB this offense is still a bit of a mystery. They have to face teams who pass and are pretty basic in pass offense schemes to have great success on defense. I made this UCLA -7.5 in Week 1 and I have moved the Cardinal up some but still have this right around UCLA -6. I show no value on the total. 

365 OREGON STATE
366 USC -10.5, 62

Walls: I think USC is clearly a “Buy” team now without Helton as coach. A team is only as good as their coach and they haven’t had one for awhile now. Also notice how the offensive direction changed last week. I think Helton held a lot of cards in play calling. On the flip side I like Oregon State’s offense a lot. I don’t care who the QB is. Jonathan Smith can call a game. He has no defense and never will. You’re not getting D recruits worth anything with Oregon, Washington, Cal, etc, being your neighbors. Made this USC -14. Leaned making it higher to be honest and 64. Played over tiny. Injury reports for USC still scare me some.

367 LOUISVILLE -1.5, 63.5
368 FLORIDA STATE

Update: RAS released under on this game in today’s Steam Warning show, dropping the total to 61.5. You can view the release here.

Walls: I don’t like either teams’ defense. However, I do like FSU coach Mike Norvell and his ability to run the offense. I do feel that both defenses are pretty bad. I really wanted to play over but can’t get there. Made it 63. I don’t trust either team in close games and while we have a sample size of years with QB Cunningham it mostly shows me an inconsistent QB who struggles on the road some. On the flip side we have QB Milton for FSU who is no longer mobile and is pretty much a mediocre arm with a lack of playmaking receivers. Made this Louisville -2.5. Really nothing there for me but do lean over.

377 WEST VIRGINIA 
378 OKLAHOMA -17, 56.5

Walls: I hate WVU QB Doege—period. Guy wants to throw for 1,000 every play and just has no awareness at all. The run defense is tough but this will be the first game they play against an offense capable of passing… I think? Oklahoma is a weird team if there ever was one. They should be much better or should they? I went back to my notebook last night. Guess how many All-Big 12 players on offense Oklahoma has? That’d be one AA QB and no one else.. at Oklahoma! Their D is stellar versus the run and should be. Their pass D I’m still out on. Nebraska QB Martinez got a lot of yards there. I made it OU -17 (might have a bad number on OU) and 57. I think the total is getting to the point it’s reaching over or pass now but I’m not overly interested.

379 LSU -2.5, 57
380 MISSISSIPPI STATE 

Walls: I have a god awful number still on LSU. They have 18 returning starters and half are gone or injured. I don’t like Mississippi State and dont feel they have any advantages against top-level SEC foes. I passed because of my incredibly wrong LSU number that I just remade last night that still feels too high. The SEC is really not my thing just being honest. 

387 UTSA
388 MEMPHIS -3, 67.5

Walls: I have looked at this game more than any other. I’m upside down here. I played under aggressively at the open. Not often do I get played back but when I do I lose sleep. This is one such time. UTSA has an incredible defense and I think I overlooked QB Harris’s ability to throw this year. Also they played with some tempo vs Illinois which skewed a lot of pace stats. I think Memphis is a fraud. I don’t like coach Ryan Silverfield who is 100 percent reactionary. He will play whatever pace and scheme the other team wants with a freshman QB who doesn’t throw the ball downfield. I like UTSA here but my numbers don’t. I made it Memphis -2.5 and total 62. I bet under 65.5 here and a better number is now available. 

389 SMU
390 TCU -9.5, 65.5

Walls: Many outside of Dallas dont know this but this is a huge game for recruiting. Also you have a bit of a Holy War thing I believe. Regardless, I love SMU. They’re my darling in AAC play. With that said, I don’t like this QB who is careless with the ball and also they abandon the run in a small sample. The D is still getting bombed through the air and they have a lack of bodies in the front 7. TCU much like SMU I had a hard time finding weaknesses this summer. Maybe pass offense and lack of explosiveness. However, the D is still using a lot of future NFL guys and the RBs are NFL potential. I laid TCU -9 and it’s still available which is a little worrisome to be honest. I think SMU is a great dog but they hold no clear advantages here.

393 IOWA STATE -7, 47.5
394 BAYLOR

Walls: I’m very big on Iowa State. I had a struggle trying to find any weaknesses over the summer. I guess their lack of big plays would be it. QB Purdy struggles to go down the field. Baylor is not great in my opinion and is getting a lot of fanfare for beating up on two teams rated 110th or worse. They lack an offensive identity from what I can tell. Good D but not great, maybe soon. But this is their first test. I laid it with Iowa State. I don’t think Baylor can move it enough here personally. Also feel that the talent in coaching gives me a decent edge.

397 CLEMSON -10, 48.5
398 NC STATE

Walls: What can we say about Clemson that makes you feel good? The D looks good against a one-dimensional offense in GT, and Georgia never had to score once they were ahead and knew it. Gone are the Watsons and Lawrences. Lynn-Dixon transferring out on a Tuesday. I just don’t get any “Buy” signs here. I love NC State but they have a gambling defense and a QB who is prone to interceptions. Made this Clemson -9 and total 48. I’m pretty much trying to talk my way onto NC State but it’s nothing confident.

401 RUTGERS 
402 MICHIGAN -20.5, 49.5

Walls: I’m going to start by saying I have a bad number on Michigan and will correct it after this game I’ve decided. One thing is clear to me. They have improved. But how much? Verdict is still out. We know they can run the ball. We know their run defense and pass rush is special. They’ve yet to face a good pass offense and again won’t this week. We know Rutgers can stop the run but now missing 2 CB’s which does worry me. They don’t pass the ball well and play very ball control. I played under 52. Made it 48 and would be around 49.5 with Rutgers CB’s active. I made it -16.5 but again have not adjusted Michigan. This would be a spot where I’d be concerned with taking Rutgers to be honest. I don’t have anything I like on the offense besides Milton and how many touches does he get?

413 NEW MEXICO 
414 UTEP -1, 54

Walls: A game after my heart. I love these types. I think we have seen from UNM coach Danny Gonzales and DC Rocky Long that they want to play ball control and lean on what should be an improved D. But that got away from them vs New Mexico State, who they tried to run up a score on. UTEP coach Dana Dimel is all about running the ball and playing D at all costs. Even when he has a talented QB, which he does. Their D has improved. I missed the 3s with UNM which I find hard to believe lasted more than a moment. I did play under for something at 54.5. I think you have two coaches with similar expectations and philosophies and finally UNM will play someone with similar size on both lines of scrimmage. 

415 CALIFORNIA
416 WASHINGTON -7.5, 46.5

Walls: I must first say that I’m lost on both teams’ totals. I felt Washington would be improved some on offense and before last week there was no evidence of that. Cal should be great on defense and with Justin Wilcox as coach you expect a great defense. But they also have been mediocre on that side of the ball. The Cal offense is much improved, specifically in the pass game. I like Cal here and at +7.5 or better. I don’t find much to love about Washington. Never understood why they were ranked top 15 in preseason polls. They have zero offensive identity and lost their best pass rusher to a torn ACL in preseason. I made this line Washington -4.5 and the strength and weaknesses are pretty comparable here. Cal played TCU incredibly well and I feel that’s a good sign. Also I love Wilcox as a dog.

Q&A /

Peter Schoenke, RotoWire president and FSTA chair, discusses DFS industry, self regulation

Awash in a flood of advertising and with new legal skirmishes popping up regularly, it’s easy to forget that these are exciting times for those involved in the fantasy sports industry. The numbers of both daily and traditional season-long fantasy users increase every year and have created the need for a variety of accompanying services.

As the chairman of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association and the president of RotoWire, Peter Schoenke has had a front-row seat and is well-acquainted with these facts. Schoenke spoke to DailyFantasyTalk this week about the effect daily fantasy has had on the industry, the push toward self-regulation and new products in RotoWire’s pipeline.

As we head into the busiest time of the year, what’s the biggest question hanging over the DFS industry?

Daily is going awesome, and everything is great. The $600 million question is with all the money they’ve raised, they’ve spent a lot on marketing, and will the users be there? Will they retain those users?

That’s a big question, not only for FanDuel and DraftKings and the other companies that are spending lots of marketing money, but for the industry as a whole. The rest of the industry is doing well with all of the ancillary services that the DFS format is helping create—whether that be news, information, podcasts or TV shows. There’s the software that you can use to track your teams. There’s a whole ecosystem that’s being developed around daily fantasy, and like I said, the big question is, is it going to live up to the expectations? Are they going to get the users this fall and are they going to retain them next year?

I’m optimistic. For each of the last three years you could’ve asked almost the exact same question and then when the numbers have come in it’s been even bigger and better. But obviously, the scale and the advertising is notched up a level that was far beyond my imagination, so we’ll see how it does.

Earlier this week FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles talked about the desire for self-regulation in the fantasy industry. Is there anything on that front you can share with us?

We have the paid-entry contest operator charter for the FSTA. That’s currently what we’re operating under if you’re a member of the FSTA. Basically, it’s just best business practices. We’re constantly talking about how to improve that and when and if we have to change it, we’ll announce that, but behind the scenes we’re trying to figure out how to beef it up, make it better, improve it. Because, yeah, Nigel’s gist is correct. We want to self-regulate as much as possible. We think that’s the best way to go for our industry.

What sort of enforcement policies is there for companies that step beyond the bounds of that charter?

I think the main thing is that if somebody isn’t following all the standards and aren’t following good business practices, we wouldn’t want them to be in the FSTA. We want businesses that are with the FSTA to be good companies to do business with, and I think we have that reputation. So that’s the enforcement mechanism that we have right now, and we continue to have that debate, whether we should make that more robust. Maybe there will be some evolution on that, I’m not real sure. For now, that’s the main thing we do, and I think that (the chance to be associated with FSTA) is still reason enough for a lot of these companies to follow the best business practices.

You mentioned the ecosystem that’s sprung up around daily fantasy, and RotoWire is a big part of that. What’s next for you guys?

We’re just going to do the same things for new sports we do for the other sports. We have the lineup optimizer for college football, and we’ll have it for college basketball, and we’re going to keep doing enhancements to our tools. We’ve rolled out some enhancements that give you more data, added more sites other than FanDuel and DraftKings. We added a feature with RT Sports where you can submit your lineup directly from the optimizer, which saves a ton of time. I know I end up playing a lot more on RT Sports because it’s just so convenient. We’re going to have a mobile app with a lot of the same tools—optimizer, value report, all that—but you’ll be able to do it on the fly. We’ll have that for iOS hopefully in the next two weeks.

We’ve got a good base of tools and good relationships with the fantasy sites, we just need to continue to improve those features, because they’re very popular. We’ve had a lot of success. We generate over 25,000 unique lineups per night, per sport and that’s probably an old number. So it’s getting a lot of interest. These tools just save you a lot of time, and a lot of it isn’t even that dissimilar to the growth of season-long fantasy sports. It’s just with season-long, the growth of it was years, not months as it is in daily fantasy sports.

It’s just part of the ecosystem—somebody comes in with a great game, then somebody else comes along and creates the tools that makes it easier to play that game, like depth charts and projections and those things. That just speeds up your ability to make decisions so that you don’t have to do all the grunt work. I think that was one of the keys for DFS taking off. There was us and RotoGrinders and all the others out there fueling the whole ecosystem in a good, symbiotic way, and I think we’ll continue to figure out to do that.

How much of an uptick have you seen at RotoWire that can be attributed to the rise of DFS?

It used to be there was more a seasonal pattern, where once each season started, that was kind of the end of people hunting and pecking for content and they were kind of locked in for the season.

Daily has kind of changed that flow. People will get into daily basketball or baseball in midseason. Or maybe they start playing daily at the beginning of the season, but after a few weeks they realize they need more resources or better resources and they’ll find us.

It’s been a big benefit to our business, not only with the new tools that we’ve built, but also all the existing content that we have, which helps for daily and season-long. I think for all of us content sites, all the advertising the daily fantasy guys are doing is creating more fantasy users in general, and that’s good for content sites. The daily fantasy fans are going to consume more products like ours, which are for real diehards and really let you drill down.

Q&A /

FantasyDraft’s Grant Yoder hopes to give the ‘average guy’ a better chance in DFS

Roughly eight months after its launch, DFS operator FantasyDraft is preparing for its inaugural football season. And the Charlotte-based company is expecting big things.

They made a splash by securing endorsement deals with Clayton Kershaw and Drew Brees, among others, and sent a message regarding the seriousness of their intentions with a $50,000 NFL preaseason freeroll. CEO Grant Yoder says he’s trying to draw attention to the company’s “player first” focus, which includes larger payout zones, occasional rake free games and limited entries in tournaments.

Yoder spoke with DailyFantasyTalk last week to tell us more about his company.

Start off by telling us about your background and how you ended up in DFS.

My experience is with building online commerce experiences. Most of my team came from that background. We were building online storefronts for retailers and had pretty extensive experience with online customer transactions from start to finish, very focused on the customer experience. We did work for WalMart and Target, and their customer comes first, so we had to make sure that experience was optimal.

And I’ve always been a sports fan. I’ve played sports all my life, and combined with the 15 years of online experience, we took that and brought it into daily fantasy. Our goal is to provide an optimal experience, and that’s kind of our “Players First” mantra. We want to do everything with the player in mind.

We’ve been live since December and working on this now for almost a year and a half. I’ve learned a ton, but it’s basically applying the same principles of a fantastic e-commerce experience to the contest experience. It is an experience, and if you don’t have fun doing it, you’re not going to keep coming back. So our goal is to create the best possible experience and put our players first in every possible way. Whether it’s larger payout zones, or limiting max entries on our featured contests, we’re always looking to put our players first.

You guys have been running some pretty substantial freerolls during the NFL preseason. What kind of reaction are you getting there and how did you decide on that strategy?

We have a lot of folks that are coming in and playing our freerolls and our Players First [no rake] contests. And those Players First contests that we’re putting up—we put those up at different times throughout the day, so they’re not always at three o’clock or four o’clock, so people are constantly coming back and checking. Both of those tools are great for acquiring new customers, and then a good chunk of those customers are playing in our pay games, so they’ve been great tools for us.

And we’ve been growing our customer base not only through email and social, but also through our endorsers. We’re not advertising obviously as much as DraftKings or FanDuel—I’m not sure you could—but we’re leveraging our 12 endorsement deals, whether it be Drew Brees or Clayton Kershaw, leveraging their social media outlets to get to new customers in the industry. So we believe we’re helping to grow the daily fantasy industry, which I believe is very important for us to continue to prosper.

The daily fantasy space is pretty crowded right now and every company is looking for a way to stand out. What made you guys decide to pursue athlete endorsements?

We believe that it’s fun for people to play against people that they see on TV or that they used to watch or idolize. For example, if you have played in our NFL freerolls this preseason, you could’ve played against London Fletcher, Shannon Sharpe, Jimmy Johnson, Boomer Esiason. So again, it’s giving our players something that’s fun, something new. Ultimately, we want it to be an entertaining and fun experience so that you keep coming back. And if you get the chance to play against one of your idols or one of the best quarterbacks to play in the league, we think that’s a fun and entertaining experience, and that gives our players an added benefit for playing on our site.

And obviously, if one of those endorsers has a great social media following, especially a guy like Chris Bosh, there’s a potential for us to acquire new customers from their base of followers and they help us market and promote our services.

Limiting entries in tournaments is something that a lot of the intermediate-level players say they want, but it can be limiting for the site operator. Talk about the philosophy to be player friendly in a way that a lot of new players aren’t going to realize is even to their benefit.

I don’t think new players do realize that players are going to drop in 500 lineups in a very large contest until they actually get in the contest and they see the same user ID listed 100 times in the standings. From our standpoint, we felt like, yes, we need some multiple entries to get the contests high, but not to that magnitude.

Again, it’s putting players first and letting them have a good experience. If you’re going to end up playing against Condia and he puts in 100 lineups and you put in one and you finish one point behind him, how fun was that for you?

We’re going to keep the limits low. We have some guidelines that we’ll use based on the number of entries that we have. And while we may not have those massive contests, we’re going to have over $500,000 guaranteed in Week 1. That’s obviously not as big as the big guys, but it’s still pretty sizeable. And the chance that the average guy can win some of that prize pool is probably greater on our site than any.

Do you have specific numbers in mind as far as entry limits?

We have some guidelines that we’re playing with right now. We haven’t publicized them yet. Our contest (last) weekend had no more than 20. We felt like 20 was a good number. Obviously if we put it at 50 we’d have more people dropping in more lineups and the prize pools could be greater, but that’s the risk/reward as far as the player we’re going after: we’re going to keep the cap low, and the reward is that our customer will have the best experience.

What about the larger payout zones you mentioned? What’s the specifics there?

Every contest that we have with a guaranteed prize pool will always have a quarter of the field getting paid out. Again, it comes back to the more folks that win, the more that have fun, the more that will come back, the more folks will keep playing. The idea is to put the prize pool back into as many customer accounts as possible, so low contest fees and larger payout zones help us do that. We won’t run a guaranteed contest that doesn’t pay out at least 25 percent of the field.

What do you see going forward as the primary hurdle that you’ll have to clear in order to be the company you want to be in five years?

I think it’s going to be meeting the high quality standards that our customers expect. That’s always going to be around. So as you grow and scale, and as the technology changes, it’s always going to be a challenge to provide the optimal experience whether it’s on phones, laptops, tablets and whatever else it becomes. So I think meeting that quality standard that our customers demand is going to always be a challenge, and it’s one that’s fun, because they’re pushing you to do better and improve your site and improve the experience. I think that’ll kind of be our biggest challenge, is constantly improving our overall strengths and just looking for more things that customers want and delivering them. Whether that be new features, more flexible lineups, referral programs—whatever those may be, just continuing to deliver on their high expectations.

DFS Q&A /

SportsLock CEO Todd Heyden on why he has ‘no fears’ of daily fantasy’s heavy hitters

Coming off a $5 million Series A fundraising round in June, SportsLock CEO Todd Heyden has reason to be excited about his product.

One of the latest comers to the fantasy space, SportsLock is among a growing field of operators offering variations of the daily game. Their angle: brackets. Heyden believes the ability to create and customize brackets will introduce a social element he believes is lacking from typical daily fantasy sports.

Heyden spoke with DailyFantasyTalk recently to tell us more about his company, what’s coming up, and why he believes there won’t be a third site on par with FanDuel and DraftKings.

Since you guys are doing something a little different, why don’t you start just by telling us about SportsLock from a broad perspective.

Broadest, 30,000-foot view: SportsLock in 2015 wants to be the best place to take action in sports. That’s exactly who we’re trying to be. The goal for 2015 and beyond: we really want to make this product the best place for friends to take action in sports.

Look, we’re consumers. I’ve been playing fantasy since I was 9. I’m 32 now. And when my co-founder and I got into this business, what was existing in the daily space, for us as consumers, wasn’t good enough. And when we looked at the traditional fantasy market, we were just getting very bored of playing the same way year in and year out, especially when that game is really built more for the football audience than it is for other sports—which again, is another problem in the space.

So we decided, as crazy as it may have seemed three years ago, that we could actually completely disrupt and revolutionize this space. And that’s really what we’re all about here at SportsLock. It’s about sports fans building products for sports people. It’s about figuring out a way to build the best place to take action. And if you’re a football fan, let’s deliver the best product for football fans. Or if you’re a basketball fan or a golf fan or a hockey fan, let’s not decide that the best solution is the one that works across all platforms, but instead, let’s actually build the best thing for those fans.

That was the overwhelming theme that what we felt as consumers that companies weren’t doing in the space, and that’s why we got into the market.

So you guys have a new app coming soon right? What’s new?

We launched this thing in March and have taken the last few months to now add another build to the app store, because the one that we (sent this week) is really a complete facelift.

The product that we’ve been doing for the last five months was basically another edition to daily. Look, the daily guys have done an incredible job. But as consumers, we are not the biggest fans of just one-day contests. We believe we have the best product, even in one-day, but as consumers, we believe that there’s something bigger that we could tackle. The first version was either one-day, two-day, or three-day contests, and you play those in either two-man, four-man or eight-man brackets. Now, with the new version,  we’re going to start extrapolating out those brackets, meaning that instead of having our biggest tournaments being just three days, there will be tournaments that are bigger. Meaning that instead of having just one roster format, we want to introduce unique game concepts, so it doesn’t have to be the same roster, which to us, just doing that the same way over and over, it gets a little stale. We want to make different game types more fun, and so we’re releasing new game types as well for the sports we offer.

And then it’s about the Android. Right now we’re iOS only, but by this football season and not too long from now, we will have a product that’s available to the Android users as well.

And when will the new iOS version be available?

Our estimate, after Apple does its job behind the scenes, is that (next) week we will be going live with our 2.0 to the world.

The daily fantasy space is obviously very crowded right now and you guys are competing in that market. How do you see yourself separating from the pack?

Our goal as operators is to not just directly, but also indirectly create new things in the space. We want to build a third market within fantasy—your daily, your traditional and then us. Whether you call it short duration or whatever, there shouldn’t just be two markets, and the third one, the way we look at it, is going to be massive.

And the other thing is the interpretation of the UIGEA law has just been replicated so many times by people trying to be another FanDuel or another DraftKings. Those guys do what they do great, and personally, I really don’t believe that even in that size of a market with a few million people, that there’s going to be a third player. I really don’t.

You’ve got to be very different in the space, and that’s what SportsLock’s trying to be. Look, if someone wants to win in one day playing against a whole bunch of people in a salary cap, they’re never going to find that at SportsLock. That’s for sure. We will never do that. I believe somewhere down the road we’ll find that one of those guys (FanDuel or DraftKings) is better—the technology is better, the interface is better—and we’ll promote those guys and vice versa. It seems like we’re competing against daily, but the fun part for us is that we’re really trying to build something brand new in the industry.

So if we removed any restrictions, what would you most like to do within the space?

As you look at the gaming industry, you’ve got e-gaming, you’ve got fantasy gaming, you’ve got casino gaming. I think really for us, since we love the market we’re in, the goal for us would be how can we internationally change the game when it comes to fantasy once we’ve made a big splash here in the United States. So as opposed to saying ‘hey, I want the restrictions to be looser,’ I think it’s about improving on a space that’s very exciting to us, that essentially allowed me, my dad and my grandfather when I was nine years old to connect with each other. And that all comes down to what our most important message is, which is the ‘why’ of fantasy sports and the social element.

And in the case of a company like ours, an innovative, younger business, we want to think differently and change things up and mix up the pot in order to progress this market. CBS wasn’t doing it. Yahoo wasn’t doing it. Look at what Yahoo just did. They launched their daily app and they copied what already existed. It’s almost disappointing, but that again is why we are excited about what we build.

In 2016 we’re going to roll out a couple of things the fantasy market has never seen before and will be really, really different. So we don’t really focus about what’s going to change with the laws. For us, it’s really about UIGEA staying put and not changing, because we feel like we know how to build the biggest company in fantasy within those laws.

What’s the biggest hurdle that might prevent that from happening?

The hurdle would be the technology, right? I mean, we’re a tech-sports company, not vice versa. We’re a technology company first. So you want to add more features, but as you become a deeper product, you’ve still got to keep it very simple. And so the hurdles for us are internal.

The hurdle for me is not, ‘oh my God, we’ve got two daily companies who are going to spend $700 million in advertising across every single sports network.’ That’s not our hurdle. The hurdles for us are more can we continuously get the right team and add the right technologists and keep building with the new technology that’s coming out which therefore reduces our cost when we want to build up our servers in order to coordinate real-time drafting between hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people at a time. Those are the things that no one’s ever done before.

We feel like we’re in a good spot. No fears on our end.

Q&A /

SidePrize CEO Adam Wexler: Bringing ‘daily’ excitement to season-long fantasy leagues

One of the big winners at this summer’s Fantasy Sports Trade Association conference was SidePrize. The Atlanta-based start-up quickly made a name for itself by taking home the Shark Tank, Elevator Pitch and Hackathon awards.

Helmed by Adam Wexler, SidePrize’s angle is to allow team managers in existing season-long leagues to compete against their league mates in one-off competitions for cash prizes.

Wexler spoke with DailyFantasyTalk recently about where the idea for the company was born and what’s next for SidePrize.

You won a handful of awards at the most recent FSTA conference in June. One of those was for the best elevator pitch. What is the elevator pitch for SidePrize?

SidePrize brings the daily element and excitement to your season-long fantasy league.

Short and sweet, and it seems to work. You’ve already built a relationship with RotoWire. Can you tell us about that and how it works? And do you have any others in the works you can talk about?

Fantasy players on Rotowire’s MLB Commissioner platform can see a SidePrize section in the left panel of every page, and this section includes the ability to place challenges or make deposits and withdrawals. In terms of this football season, there’s certain partnership integration announcements that will come out when the time is right, but I’ll make the first mention of one formal partner for this fall here at Daily Fantasy Talk: Head2Head.com. We’re excited about working with them as their typical demographic of fantasy players is a great match with our sweet spot: veteran fantasy players who tend to have more money than time.

How and when did you get the idea for SidePrize, and how were you able to get it off the ground?

The origin of SidePrize dates back to a prior business concept that we called Virtual Commissioner. The original premise for Virtual Commissioner centered around making the commissioner’s life easier. When we dug deeper and discovered great existing solutions like LeagueSafe, we decided to go down a different path. I thought about personal experiences of playing fantasy. Too often fantasy players exhaust great amounts of energy over the course of the season for minimal financial gain. The common refrain amongst friends on their weekly matchups is ‘put your money where your mouth is.’ SidePrize brings that concept to life. As we say, winners get paid, and friendships get saved.

How would you answer those who say the SidePrize concept is pushing legal boundaries?

Before we went too far down the path, we wanted to get clarity as well. We hired some great folks from the renowned Dentons Law Firm to explore potential legality concerns. When they came back with their legal opinion, we felt reassured the niche that SidePrize is paving has great potential. This notion was validated when we won the only two awards handed out from our industry peers at this summer’s Fantasy Sports Trade Association conference.

You’re off to a fast start as a company. What’s next for SidePrize, and what do you expect for the coming football season?

We’re gearing up for a big fall. We suspect there’s a lot of season-long players that are intrigued by the daily concept, but believe it’s too time intensive or intimidating as Eilers Research confirmed. We’re bringing daily to them and chopping up the long pro sport seasons.

DFS Q&A /

SportsTradex CEO Benjamin Lipson: ‘DFS players want more types of contest offerings’

Finding ways to stand out from the crowd is increasingly important for daily fantasy sports operators. Most agree its pointless for a start-up to try to take on well-funded industry leaders FanDuel and DraftKings on their own turf, so more sites are seeking ways to gain valuable differentiation. But as the field grows more crowded, that becomes difficult.

SportsTradex was one of the first sites to break from the traditional salary-cap model for roster building in DFS and its combination of contests remain some of the most unique in the space.

CEO Benjamin Lipson took some time recently to chat with DailyFantasyTalk and tell us more about his company and what he sees for the future of daily fantasy sports.

You guys offer some pretty innovative contest types; can you briefly describe some of the contests you offer and why you decided to stray from the typical salary cap format?

At SportsTradex, we strive to offer fun, unique and innovative fantasy sports contests. Our most popular game is the tiered draft format, which consists of four tiers of players from which to draft your fantasy team. There are also different available options for fantasy team size. Users may draft a larger team with fewer top-tier picks and more middle- or bottom-tier players, or they can draft a smaller team with more top tier-picks and fewer middle- or bottom-tier picks. These features create a focus on strategy and skill that makes the contests more engaging, competitive and exciting.

We also offer a Pick’em, game where players pick from head-to-head fantasy matchups and the person with the most correct picks wins. While quick and easy to play, Pick’em contests offer a unique competitive challenge. SportsTradex is leading the market in alternative game formats and our user feedback encourages us to continue to provide unique, exciting experiences to fans.

When did you guys launch and how did the company form? 

SportsTradex launched at the Super Bowl in New Orleans in 2013. Super agent Leigh Steinberg and Warren Moon hosted our Super Bowl party. SportsTradex formed to deliver short-term, fun fantasy games to sports fans seeking more engagement with their favorite teams and players.

What about your site are you most excited about?

We are most excited about the ability for our site to revolutionize the way fans experience fantasy sports. SportsTradex is positioned to shape the future of the fantasy sports industry by being the leader in non-traditional, innovative contests that give fantasy players the diversity and excitement they want. We are excited to raise our profile and our prizes in the industry through the addition of better features for our users. We are planning to make several announcements and upgrades during football season.

In what ways do you think the industry will be different in the future, and how do you see SportsTradex fitting in to that future?

Daily fantasy sports is in the middle of a meteoric rise that is causing us to rethink the future of sports. The growth of DFS opens the possibility for many future trends that will augment this rise, revolutionize the fan experience, and drive new waves of business opportunity, and SportsTradex is uniquely positioned to capitalize on these trends.

A large part of the future of fantasy sports will be focused on an immersive fantasy sports experience for all sports fans. This includes live fantasy events that create exciting social environments that promote and encourage a more lively and interactive fantasy experience. Fantasy sports is an opportunity for new categories of business—casinos, stadiums, bars and TV providers—to capitalize on its popularity. Casinos stand to gain immensely by creating rooms and events centered around catering to fantasy sports fans. Stadiums, like the Levi’s Stadium Fantasy Sports Lounge, fosters a fantasy sports friendly environment with phones chargers and high speed Wi-Fi.

Other sports teams, like the Washington Capitals, are beginning to sponsor their own live contests for fans to enjoy. Live fantasy sports—contests that are based on live performances and where participants can alter their fantasy teams during the game—is a new type of fantasy contest that SportsTradex is developing.

TV providers stand to gain by making the sports-watching experience more interactive and immersive by providing fantasy contests through their programming. There is also an opportunity for sports bars to capitalize on the rise of fantasy sports by partnering with fantasy companies to host live fantasy events. SportsTradex frequently partners with popular sports bars, and will continue to sponsor innovative and unique live events.

Future fantasy fans will want, and come to expect, more diversity in DFS contests. Right now, the majority of DFS players use more than one website because they want a large array of options to choose from. SportsTradex is positioned with this future trend in mind as we are the leader in non-traditional contests and are continually innovating the types of contests we provide. SportsTradex is positioned to capitalize on all these trends, and we are excited for the opportunities and potentials for growth that these future trends present.

Q&A /

Star Fantasy Leagues CEO Zach Stanley discusses NFL, DFS industry & site’s future

Launched in 2012 by Justin and Zach Stanley, Star Fantasy Leagues has earned a strong reputation from observers in the DFS industry due to its focus on technology and legal/regulatory compliance. This week, we asked Zach Stanley about the history and direction of the company and what they have planned for the upcoming NFL season.

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I understand you founded SFL with your brother. How did you guys get started in DFS and when did you launch SFL?

It is my belief that any great business starts with passion. Without passion, it’s a struggle to build a successful business because you’ll inevitably find yourself up against someone that lives and breathes theirs. It is your job, but it is their purpose. That alone is an incredible disadvantage.

Sports has always been a focal point of my life. Growing up I spent nearly all of my free time watching or playing one sport or another. Fantasy sports was a natural and exciting addition. As it is for all of us that play, fantasy boosted my fan engagement and my knowledge of the players/teams in the various leagues. It seems like a long time ago, but in the early-mid 2000s, the ability to play season-long fantasy online for cash was nearly impossible. Even when the daily sites began popping up several years later, I was still looking for real money season-long leagues—particularly for other sports than football. I was covering some expenses playing daily games in college, but building a site that brought daily and season-long together was nothing more than a pipe dream at this time.

In June of 2011, we lost our father to a lengthy battle with lung cancer. Anybody that has lost a parent at a relatively early age can tell you how difficult it can be picking up the pieces. Many of them would also tell you that such a challenge drives a certain kind of strength that can only come through that kind of tragedy. You become fearless. What can be worse than what you dealt with during that experience? I reflected on this speaking in front of hundreds at the 2013 FSTA Winter Conference. How did this happen? How did I go from being a young college student learning some of the worst news imaginable to giving my thoughts in front of this accomplished group of peers? Overcoming those events changed who I was and how I approached all of life’s challenges. Star Fantasy Leagues launched in September of 2012.

You received a significant boost in funding last year with an investment from IIU. Anything new on that front to report?

We utilized the funds from our capital investment to build out our team—we now have 10 developers—and position ourselves at the top tier of the industry from a technology perspective. On top of that, we wanted an investor that would give us a strategic boost on the B2B side of our business. We feel very lucky to have a partner so supportive of the strategy and direction of our company.

You mentioned season-long fantasy football. You launched that format in 2013 and will be offering it again this season, right?

We run season-long leagues for NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL. Our NFL season-long leagues were posted a few weeks ago and we have had some early drafts run in both our paid and free games, in which you can win Star Points towards real cash games. Due to a strategic pivot within our company, we haven’t dedicated a significant amount of capital to marketing, which makes the organic growth of these leagues all the more pleasing.

Last fall was a time of huge growth for the DFS sector. What are you expecting as we head into a new NFL season, and what are you most excited about as it relates to SFL?

Growth in DFS has no signs of slowing and we anticipate to see last year’s records absolutely crushed for NFL. The plethora of new investors dedicating eye-popping amounts of capital to this growth makes for a very exciting time for the industry as a whole. We’ve dedicated a significant amount of our resources to a turnkey business-to-business fantasy sports solution—allowing our partners to tap into our network and benefit from mutual liquidity. This influx of capital has only helped to garner interest from media and gaming companies (both US and abroad) for a value-add integration with our suite of offerings.

A lot of sites are starting to offer new sports. What is SFL’s take on that topic?

We’re ecstatic that the addition of new sports has been so well received by the consumer. We are a couple weeks away from launching our API for 2-3 week rapid integration with partners and we have both a mobile site and a mobile app slated for release before November. While our system is very flexible for adding new stats feeds in a timely fashion, we’ve placed new sports on the back burner in favor of priorities that have a more positive impact on our user experience and that of our partners.

And finally, what is it about your site that you believe will help you stand out among a crowded field of competitors?

As I mentioned earlier, we utilized our strong technology base to gain an upper hand on the B2B side of the industry. Our suite of products, a robust and flexible backend, and our focus on legal and regulatory compliance has pushed us to the top of the list for any company looking to add fantasy sports to their current offerings. Moreover, any new products we launch at Star Fantasy Leagues will become immediately available to our partners through our API. We firmly believe the best days for SFL lie ahead and we couldn’t be more excited about it.

Q&A /

FantasyAces co-founder Bryan Frisina: ‘We’re in the fold as No. 3 Daily Fantasy site’

For FantasyAces co-founders Bryan and Trent Frisina and their father Tom, gaming has always been a family affair. Twenty years ago, Tom was bringing advanced copies of John Madden football home from his job at Electronic Arts for his sons to game test. Recently, the focus has been on Daily Fantasy.

With Bryan and Trent overseeing day-to-day operations, the trio formed Fantasy Aces in 2012 and officially launched with the 2013 baseball season.

In the two years since, the site has become one of the most successful in the sector’s second tier. Bryan Frisina spoke with DailyFantasyTalk recently about trying to establish FantasyAces as the clear No. 3 site in DFS, some new product offerings, and what Yahoo’s recent entry to the space will mean for the industry.

Golf is one of the fastest growing sports in daily fantasy, and you guys recently started offering it on your site. How’s that going so far?

Golf and college basketball are the two sports we’re adding for this year, and golf’s been awesome. It’s great to have a new sport and we’ve also hired somebody who’s an expert in the industry, Jeff Collins, as our product director. He’s been with us for the last three to four months, and he’s spearheading that attack, and it’s been great. Obviously, it’s a little unique, having it only one time a week, and having only four majors where all the big golfers come out, but it’s great to have another sport, and obviously you can see what DraftKings has done, having Millionaire Makers for the PGA. The opportunity is there for PGA to explode and become maybe even a top three sport in DFS.

Has it been an immediate hit on your site or is it something that you’re hoping to bring along slowly? 

It’s a new sport and it takes time. Golf isn’t going to be performing like baseball, basketball or football by any means, right from the start. But once you educate your user base, you provide a great product and stable pricing and payouts and everything, they’ll come, they’ll be retained. And as you grow, more and more people will be like, ‘OK, we can go to Aces and play golf.’

Yahoo’s entry into the sector has created a lot of buzz. What do you think the presence of such a well-heeled competitor means for sites like yours and the industry as a whole? 

Knowing the sheer number of fantasy players out there and the small fraction that are playing daily, obviously Yahoo has been tracking this for quite some time and finally realized that it was time to get their foot in the water. So, they’re coming in and getting their foot in the water before the NFL season so they can iron out some of their kinks. But the bottom line is it’s more awareness. We feel it could be seen as a positive, in that you’re going to start educating all those seasonal players who have been playing the last 20 years or whatnot on Yahoo. Once they start playing daily, they realize, ‘Wow, there’s multiple sites out there.’ And the average player plays on three to five sites. Every site’s going to have their uniqueness, and if we can stay on the cutting edge with our product (we’re launching our mobile app in the football season and we’re excited about that), if we offer compelling sports, phenomenal customer service and a cutting-edge product, we see no reason why we can’t be in the fold with the top three, top four sites in the industry.

We have no choice but to embrace it. We’re not going to step down and go, ‘Oh my gosh, the sky is falling, Yahoo is in the game.’ We’ve seen Sports Illustrated come in, we’ve seen USA Today come in, and those aren’t fly-by-night companies. Those are legitimate companies and to be honest with you, we feel we’re light years ahead of those two right now. And so, we’ve always been in the fold as the No. 3 site in DFS and we’re going to continue to be in that talk.

DraftKings and FanDuel are spending loads on marketing and player acquisition. How does a site that can’t afford that type of strategy compete for players’ attention?

There is an education process for a lot of the people coming into the daily fantasy sports space. So once you create the brand, create the awareness like (FanDuel and DraftKings) are doing by spending millions of dollars on major advertising on television, radio, etc.—and we actually have some plays in radio, as well—but once the players get in and start to understand daily fantasy sports, they start to wonder what else is out there. And FantasyAces is right there positioned and looking to be the No. 3, if not considered the No. 3 currently. With our uniqueness and our roster setup and our salaries being really dialed in and user-friendly, we offer a lot of flexibility in your roster build, so you’re not going to be really restricted. We also have a game contest offering called Salary Pro that the casual user will really enjoy, because you’re not restricted by the salary cap. You can actually go over or under the cap and be rewarded or penalized depending.

And we’re going to do something new with Salary Pro, and this is kind of breaking news: We’ve had the same scoring for two years, and what we’ve found is that 80 or 90 percent of the people are just going to take the bargains and take the points. So what we’ve done now is kind of incentivize you to go after the heavy hitters; almost building an all-star lineup and not being so heavily penalized. Whereas previously, people were just taking the value. Now we feel like we have it much more dialed in for this coming NFL season and for all the sports moving forward with Salary Pro.

What else do you feel differentiates FantasyAces from your competitors?

When you look at the competitive aspect of the landscape, we want to be on the cutting edge with our user interface, and the app that we’re going to be rolling out in football season. We feel Salary Pro is a unique contest that differentiates us. We feel the more people come to our site, the more comfortable they’ll become with it and start to embrace it.

We also have live final championships. We did a live final for NFL that was very successful in Orange County. We had all of our players flown in, 13 players, stayed up in the Balboa Bay Resort, with $100,000 going to the winner of the grand prize. So we’re going to continue to push the envelope with our live finals. We’re going to do it again in the NFL season, and I think you’ll be hearing more about that soon.

As we head into a highly anticipated football season for DFS, what are you most excited about?

We’re excited about our position. We’ve been grinding at this for the last 2 1/2 years and we’re real excited about where we are today. A lot of these companies think they can just come in, throw up a site, have a little bit of cash and go ‘It’s a no-brainer.’ Well, it’s not. This industry and any start-up takes a lot of determination, will power and persistence, and behind that you have to have the people and you have to have the product. Without the people and the product, you’re not going to be where you want to be. Well, fortunately, we launched a product that was successful. It was functional and stable, and people enjoyed it. We have the right people behind the product: myself, my brother and a nice staff that we’ve been building out for the last six to eight months and a few more hires that are coming on before the NFL season starts. We’re going to continue to push the envelope. Once this app gets launched, once our live finals start getting the glamour and awareness that we want, those are going to be cutting edge live finals that we’re really excited about.

Q&A /

Q&A: Jesse Merl, Major League Fantasy CEO/founder, discusses plans, DFS industry

The Daily Fantasy Sports landscape is awash these days in upstart operators fighting for a piece of the ever-expanding pie. Founded in 2012, Major League Fantasy is banking on the social aspects of its platform and its recent deal with Latitude 360 Inc. to help it stand out from the crowd.

MLF, which announced a partnership with the Golden State Warriors in March, entered into a letter of intent to be acquired by Latitude 360 for $8.5 million in cash and stock last month as the restaurant/entertainment venue announced plans to launch “fantasy sports books” in its on-site sports theatres for the coming NFL season.

MLF founder/CEO Jesse Merl spoke with DailyFantasyTalk recently about the acquisition, his plans for MLF, and what the industry might look like with the looming entry of Yahoo and others.

DFT: It’s obviously been an eventful year for MLF. Tell me a little about Major League Fantasy’s history.

Jesse Merl: I founded MLF with the vision of daily fantasy sports catering to the inherent social nature of traditional fantasy sports. This was and still is missing from the current DF offerings on the market today. We built a fully integrated social network for players to interact with while playing. What’s the point of playing against your buddy if you have no means of alerting the community that you beat them after you win?

mlf

What are your plans with Latitude360?

When I first met with Brent Brown, the CEO at Latitude, I recognized instantly that he is a visionary like me. We are dreamers and love building things that don’t exist. As our two organizations merge, we are pioneering the live fantasy experience for the same reason that we built the social networking component of the MLF site. For MLF, it’s always been about using fantasy to promote interaction and group fun and the Latitude360 brand has the same vision for their venue attractions.

What made the acquisition route more attractive than a big round of funding for Major League Fantasy?

If it were Latitude360 funding our round of funding rather than an acquisition then I wouldn’t have a clear answer, but absent it being Latitude funding the round, the answer is that launching this new vision is going to be an all-hands-on-deck project for the next six to 12 months for my entire team. We are making major enhancements to the product which will further separate our product on desktop, and the corresponding 360 Fantasy Live mobile application, which is a couple months away, is going to set a new standard of quality in the mobile fantasy product category. The initial product work is still only a few months of scope but the actual physical and procedural implementation of the game into the venues will be an all-encompassing job which needs to be my team’s only focus. In order to do this correctly, we can’t have any other competing interests or distractions.

How about your personal background? What did you do before moving into the DFS space?

My background is littered with companies I started and jobs I took which I could make sound really impressive if I wanted to, but nothing about my background matters because I never loved what I did before. The only thing that I thought mattered in my career was making money because I never thought you can make real money doing something that you love. I’m happy to report that I was firmly incorrect in that assumption, but if I made 30k a year doing what I do, I would take it over 400k doing something I don’t care about. When you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. I do nothing but work seven days a week and I don’t even notice because there is nothing I would rather be doing.

DFS is booming, but the field is crowded and competition for players’ attention must be fierce. What do you feel like differentiates Major League Fantasy?

We are doing this interview because we are launching the first live fantasy sports books after being the first DF company with a fully integrated social network. We also have the best-looking CEO in the industry…which is what really matters.

Ha! Nice. What innovation are you most excited about, just in case good looks alone don’t shake up the industry?

Of the things I can talk about publicly, it’s the launch of the live in-venue games. I know it’s going to be a home run.

What do you think is the fairest criticism of the industry right now?

Same as it has always been. It’s 100 percent about money and not about playing with your friends.

Where do you see the industry in five years? Is there room for a third major site?

FanDuel and DraftKings better hope so because Yahoo is coming in and they certainly won’t be No. 3 at the end of NFL season. Yahoo has always been the gold standard and the company I aspired to mimic in anything fantasy. In two years, the fifth most-successful DF company will be worth 300 million bucks or more. Most people look at a number like that and start thinking that being No. 5 would be great to aspire to. It’s never been about money for MLF. We want to be the No. 1 site in the industry and we’ve always known that shooting for the top spot for the right reasons will lead to the corresponding big valuation and/or acquisition. With Yahoo coming into the space, creating a new vertical like the live game is a mandatory part of the journey for a small DF site with the aspirations we have. Operating as a division of Latitude360 doesn’t change our goals. We are using this new way of playing to catapult our ascent toward the top spot.

Q&A /

Pro DFS player, to sports bettors: ‘If you’re considered sharp, you should be playing DFS’

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 Throwdown, StarStreet, FantasyFeud, DraftKings, FanDuel, Fantasy Elite and DraftStreet before it was just purchased by DraftKings). We play higher volume during the NBA season and way higher during football season.”

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.”