Daily Fantasy Sports Contest Strategy: Controlling Bankroll Variance (9/30/10)
Sep 30, 2010 Blog
Earlier this week, I posted about the Kelly Criterion Calculator and how it should be a starting point when sizing your bets for daily fantasy contests at FantasySportsLive.com and Fanduel.com. Today I’m going to throw another idea out there for spreading your bets around and reducing variance in your bankroll: Playing on multiple sites.
Everyone who chooses to play daily fantasy contests should have at least two different sites where they feel comfortable playing. I like FSL and FD because of the similarity in stats and rosters, you guys may find other sites better suited to your tastes. Go ahead and split your bankroll in half between two sites. This accomplishes two things: 1) it allows you to play different opponents which spreads risk and 2) if the two sites are structured just a little differently it will allow you to select different fantasy players and create different rosters on each site. If you choose to only play on a single site, there’s usually a clear single best roster for that site’s game structure. However, if you spread your bets across multiple sites, the correct roster on one site may be different from another site. Spread the risk – reduce the bankroll variance.
So how does this work between FD and FSL for me? Because the pricing system of the players is just a little different on each site. FSL uses an average season fantasy score, while FD uses a weighted dollar salary amount. The two different player pricing methods often make a fantasy player a good choice on one site, but not such a good choice on the other site. Many times you will have different rosters on each site, but both will be the optimum roster for that particular sites pricing mechanism. So, if LeBron James pulls up with a tweaked hammy in the first three minutes of the game, you might get killed on one site, but your games on the other site will still be in good shape because you decided Kevin Durant was a better SF choice under that sites particular pricing system.
While this won’t always save your day, it does help reduce risk and control huge swings in your bankroll. I’ve got a few other strategies to control variance and I’ll try to get them up before games tip off on October 5th. Good luck.
Tags: daily fantasy contests