How To Consistently Win on Fanduel and DraftKings

Over the course of the last two weeks, I've finished in the top 15% of various types of cash games and GPP tournaments. I wasn't consistently placing in the top 15% on Fanduel until a couple weeks ago and obviously this streak of luck will end soon. But in an effort to improve consistency I'm going to document my trials and errors here in this article. I'll talk about how to analyze your past results in order to improve your win percentage on Fanduel, DraftKings and other DFS sites. Hopefully this analysis will encourage you to do the same thing at the end of each week. We will also discuss the fantasy football related statistics I pay attention to  the most when creating winning lineups. Finally, I'll give you some simple tricks I use to unearth players and filter out the poor analysis that bleeds into the massive amount of information found online.

3 Tips That Improved my Consistency

1. Weekly analysis of the contest played, the winning lineups and the types of players I've competed against.
2. Improved stats in the optimal lineup tool due to a larger sample size of the current NFL season. That larger sample size improves the reliability of the statistics, period.
3. Increased research in areas such as snaps counts and targets.

4 Tips Straight From Fanduel

1. Pick a QB and WR from the same team: Lineups that had a QB-WR from the same team were twice as successful last year.
2. Invest in high-priced WRs: Lineups that had a WR with a top 3 salary had a 16.67% higher win rate.
3. QBs feast on bad defenses: QBs scored an average 3.35 more fantasy points against bottom 10 defenses than top 10 defenses.
4. Pick Kickers and Defenses on teams favored (Vegas Spread) to win the game: Kickers and Defenses scored 2.52 more fantasy points when their team was favored to win the game.

Historical Contest Analysis

So let's tackle item number 1 listed above first, which is mandatory if you plan on winning consistently on Fanduel and Draftkings. Here's the key performance indicators I look at when analyzing past performance and my wagering habits.

1. Categorize by type of contest entered: cash games, head to head, 50/50 matchups, single entry, leagues and guaranteed prize pool (GPP) tournaments.
2. Make note of the number of entries and where you're finishing (percentile) based on pool size.
3. Take a look at the top winning lineups and the history of the players beating you, most notably the contest types they're playing.
4. And obviously the amount of cash you're earning per contest type.

Let's look at your most recent contest and use that to improve your consistency.

First you'll need to export your FanDuel history. Login to FanDuel and export your game history. Now that you have your history in a spreadsheet you should categorize each contest by game type and contest size. You can then use Excel to figure out your win percentages and how much you've won overall. Looks like I'll need to make a tool for the website that will create reports on our behalf, so be on the look out for that in the near future.

 

Here's some things to ask yourself when reviewing your results.

1. What are the types of contest I'm winning?
2. What type of contest am I losing?
3. Review why you're winning and losing by comparing your lineups to the winners lineups.
4. Make sure you're following these tips for winning on Fanduel.

Let's look at my most recent contest and use that as a baseline for your future analysis.

 

Date	Title	Score	Position	Entries	Percentile	Entry ($)	Win ($)
10/25/2015	triple up	154.9	22	204	0.11	5	15
10/25/2015	triple up	152	36	204	0.18	5	15
10/25/2015	triple up	141	77	204	0.38	5	0
10/25/2015	triple up	136.6	104	204	0.51	5	0
					TOTALS	20	30
					Win	10
Date	Title	Score	Position	Entries	Percentile	Entry ($)	Win ($)
10/25/2015	Single Entry T	163.5	1876	34483	0.05	5	15
10/25/2015	Single Entry T	152.6	6421	57471	0.11	2	5
10/18/2015	Single Entry T	152.4	13624	224286	0.06	1	3
10/25/2015	Single Entry T	141	37757	172413	0.22	1	0
					TOTALS	9	23
					Win	14
Date	Title	Score	Position	Entries	Percentile	Entry ($)	Win ($)
10/25/2015	h2h	159.5	1	2		5	9
10/25/2015	h2h	138.2	1	2		1	1.8
10/25/2015	h2h	138.2	2	2		1	0
10/25/2015	h2h	138.2	2	2		1	0
10/25/2015	h2h	138.2	2	2		1	0
					TOTALS	9	10.8
					Win	1.8
Date	Title	Score	Position	Entries	Percentile	Entry ($)	Win ($)
10/22/2015	GPP	159.58	1573	46135	0.03	2	2
10/25/2015	GPP	170.12	1276	63285	0.02	0	0
10/18/2015	GPP	111.28	295319	459770	0.64	5	0
					TOTALS	7	2
					Win	-5
Date	Title	Score	Position	Entries	Percentile	Entry ($)	Win ($)
10/25/2015	League	153.5	17	77	0.22	0	0
10/18/2015	League	123.18	29	77	0.38	0	0
Date	Title	Score	Position	Entries	Percentile	Entry ($)	Win ($)
10/25/2015	double up	156.34	25	227	0.11	5	10
10/25/2015	double up	151.1	49	227	0.22	5	10
					TOTALS	10	20
					Win	10
Date	Title	Score	Position	Entries	Percentile	Entry ($)	Win ($)
10/25/2015	100-Player League	159.5	4	100	0.04	5	40
10/18/2015	100-Player League	122.04	47	100	0.47	2	0
10/18/2015	$5K Sun NFL Mini	137.08	42	229	0.18	25	50
					TOTALS	32	90
					Win	62

I've been doing well, but look at my poor head to head numbers. I took a peak at my opponents and yup, it's a bunch of sharks. Sharks love head to head contest and will typically make a truck load of them for you to join. If you're new to the game or doing poorly you certainly don't want to be in a H2H match-up against a shark. Click your opponents name and if it looks like the image below, turn and run.

Now don't just look at this and move on, take action and export your history so you can figure out whats working for you and what isn't.

Show Me The Numbers

My next trick to improve consistency is to put as much relevant information (data) into one place as possible. You can do this with a spreadsheet and acquire the data from multiple sources online. Or you can purchase a service like our optimal lineup tool and we do it for you. The important thing here is that no matter what, you're paying attention to the numbers that can help you make educated decisions about who to start and who to sit. Here's a few ideas to draw from:

1. Vegas O/U, spread and movement.
2. Offensive line versus defensive line advantage or disadvantage (NFL obviously).
3. Fantasy points allowed ranking.
4. I like to see who's the home team or away team.
5. You'll need a rating for the players floor, average and ceiling.
6. Projections are pretty darn important too...
7. A players value relative to their cost and projected points.

Increase Your Trend Research Or...

Next up for improving your consistency is trend research. If you think you can win by just looking at numbers guess again. In the NFL it's a week to week flow of changes due to coaching, matchups, injuries etc.. There's only so many recent weeks of data sets to pull from therefore present time news and trends are just as important (if not more important) as the previous weeks performances. MLB and NBA are much more different as the stats are a lot more predictive and trust worthy when you're wanting to grind out 50/50 contest.

So where do I do my research? ESPN Pick Center is an Insider only tool (coupon for you here) and I've been using that for years now. Also included in that ESPN Insider subscription is access to some solid Insider DFS articles. I also enjoy reading and pouring over the Team Defense stats at FantasyFootballOutsiders.com/TeamDef. This is very helpful when want to know which wide receiver will benefit most from a low ranked pass defense. During the NFL season I break down all the players that are hot based on my research. Worth a read and who knows, you might find me in a contest and use that information to beat me!