When looking at sports betting we want to remove the idea of gambling and change it into investing.
Let’s start with the coveted ‘millionaire maker’ contest. The price of admission into this rollercoaster of emotions is $20 and dreams of winning first place. To win, you must pick the perfect lineup and compete against the world’s best sports betters who buy 150 tickets (a value of $3,000) and spend hundreds of dollars on lineup optimizers and projection tools. Oh, and they put in enough hours a week to equal a full-time job.
Most people you will face are scrambling to pick a lineup on the toilet a couple of hours before the contest starts. They mainly select players that are household names, personal favorites, some that are on their season-long fantasy team (hoping they perform well for them there too), or from their favorite team. No real fan wants to root against their players or team! Now that we have come to reality and understand our competition, how do we find our niche? I break it down into three sections.
1. Consider your return on investment
I start with how much money I am going to bet and match it in ‘double ups’ winnings potential. Whatever dollar amount you bet per week you want to find the safest way to win that back.
Double-ups are the perfect strategy and a lot of them are single entries. This means even the best betters in the world can only put one lineup in and that means a fair game for all involved. You want to make a couple of lineups per week so that if one busts, you aren’t over-exposed. Spread your lineups into various dollar-amount games.
2. Target small fields of play and limited entries
This is a similar principle to the first section. I look for single, three, or 20 max entry contests. If you finish in the top 40% and you are doubling your investment.
The benefit here is the upside after reaching the minimum threshold. Depending on the field of play (the number of people playing in the contest) you can win a lot more than your initial investment. This could be anywhere from $500 – $100,000 based on the contest size you entered.
3. Go big or go home!
“If you’re not gonna go ALL the way, why go at ALL?” – Joe Namath.
Coming full circle now and back to that lottery ticket, the ‘millionaire maker.’ This is buying $20 tickets and having fruitful conversations with your friends about what you’re going to spend your winnings on. Somebody must win, why can’t it be you? Finish in the top 40% and you win $30, above and beyond is even more!
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” – Abraham Lincoln
Before we make player selections, we must look at the data. This is the most difficult part of fantasy football projections. Understanding game flow, what’s the over/under, is the team on the road or at home, playing on an outdoor field or in a dome, the weather, injuries, run or pass-heavy team, and how aggressive is the defense? This is where we sharpen the ax and go for that debt-free scenario. So sit back, relax and keep checking in on my selections, which I’ll be making all season long here at 5th Down Fantasy.
