Author Topic: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?  (Read 23501 times)

shotgunwilly

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #50 on: April 08, 2015, 12:42:00 PM »
I'm curious if you all are using models/algorithms/excel sheets that you found, paid for, or created from scratch on your own?  It seems like it would take hundreds of hours to create some of the tools I've seen used.  So when you say "my model" do you mean you actually created it, or you use someone else's that you tweak and add adjustments to?

What's some basic strategy as far as # of lineups and # of games?  Lots of lineups in a few games? Lots of lineups in alot of games? Few lineups in a lot of games?  I'm interested but trying to learn more before jumping in.


boarder42

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #51 on: April 08, 2015, 04:46:46 PM »
There are dozens of different strategies that people use its hard to isolate. We finally threw in the NBA towel. Just couldn't get our model consistently winning. On to the mlb.

theoverlook

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #52 on: April 09, 2015, 08:09:27 AM »
It all sounds like gambling to me, and the wildly varying results are, amazingly enough, what you would expect from gambling.  But, it's your money!  I do hope it works out for you.

boarder42

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #53 on: April 09, 2015, 08:22:27 AM »
in the act of developing a model and algorithm that works and wins consistently it is a gamble.  but luckily you can do it for free b/c you can make free lineups and then compare to the other lineups. 

Yeah just randomly picking people without a system is a gamble.  but there are people that consistently produce winning lineups day in and day out.  Meaning its not a gamble for them.  And in the NFL and MLB thats what our system does. 

Shotgun willy ... anyone selling you advice or that has a model online... it isnt a very good one or they would be keeping it a secret. 

Davids

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #54 on: April 09, 2015, 12:41:10 PM »
I have not tried draftkings or fanduel daily leagues but I am in a fantasy football and fantasy baseball league. Not a big money league but it provides lots of fun and trash talking.

Ronald

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #55 on: June 14, 2015, 08:01:32 AM »
Bloomberg ran a piece about Fan Duel and DraftKings - legal sites that let you set a fantasy lineup and compete against a pool of punters for cash prizes. The websites keep ten percent of the bets and pay out ninety percent. Of course the article quoted a bunch of guys who were able to quit their jobs because they were making so much money with fantasy sports betting. I am pretty good at fantasy baseball and was wondering if anyone out there has had any success with these sites or if I am better off with normal investments and LendingClub.

IMO anybody that regards this as an 'investing' avenue is off base. 

I guess I was kind of wondering what type of competition was out there online. I play fantasy baseball. My competitors are mixed - some good, some bad. I spend a lot of time on research (Fangraphs, Rotoworld) and as a result, I never finish outside the money (7 years running). If Fan Duel and DraftKings have a lot of duds - casual gamblers and/or people not into research and advanced statistics then it should be possible to consistently win money from these folks in the long run, much as my friend makes his living playing poker against weaker competitors. But if Fan Duel and DraftKings are filled with Fangraphs readers, quants and professional gamblers then success is a lot less likely.

I think there is enough weaker, just for fun type players to make some money. I do a healthy amount of research(enough to win sometimes, but still its a hobby only) in my games. Maybe when you do really high buyins, the competition gets rough, but in the $20 buy in range, theres enough fun players to win more often than not. If you are new to these games and want to try it, heres a little help for beginners: https://www.fantasysportsdaily.com/beginners-guide/

Insanity

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #56 on: June 14, 2015, 10:13:44 AM »
Do a few friends leagues for small dollars.  Am one of the ones who loses more than wins.  The group has done most sports for over a decade with multiple leagues.  The number interested has fallen and some leagues have fallen apart.  The time that I can put in is lower and I am just losing interest. 

Pooplips

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #57 on: September 01, 2015, 07:06:35 AM »
I love DFS. With football season coming up I'm always interested in people's thoughts. Posting to follow.

boarder42

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #58 on: September 01, 2015, 10:47:43 AM »
Football is by far the easiest b/c of the amount of Dead Money available.  Everyone and their brother plays fantasy football in local/family/work/friend leagues.  So if i can beat my fraternity bros why cant i beat the Pros on DFS.  The money is in the GPPs only sharp money is in 50/50s so unless you're a baller and running out of real estate in the GPPs then thats where the money is to be made.  50/50s and GPPs typically have the same placing point for total points.  so we stock up there.

boarder42

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #59 on: September 01, 2015, 10:52:25 AM »
My partner and I have targeted May 2017 as our official go/no go on quitting our day jobs.  we'll have 2.5 NASCAR seasons under our belt, 2 baseball season, and 2.5 football seasons.  that should give us a large enough sample to see if we can sustain our lives on it.

Pooplips

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #60 on: September 02, 2015, 05:29:47 AM »
My partner and I have targeted May 2017 as our official go/no go on quitting our day jobs.  we'll have 2.5 NASCAR seasons under our belt, 2 baseball season, and 2.5 football seasons.  that should give us a large enough sample to see if we can sustain our lives on it.

Ill have to look into NASCAR. Ive never been a big fan but it does sounds like fun.

joeh

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #61 on: September 04, 2015, 09:34:57 AM »
I've been playing fantasy basketball with my buddies for awhile. Last year I built a tool to help me with the draft. I am working on updating it so I can use it for NBA DFS.

What does everyone else use to help them with DFS? It seems like there are a few layers you need to optimize around:

  • Bankroll Management
  • Choosing Matchups
  • Optimizing Lineups (with given salary/projections)
  • Projecting stats

Does everyone do all of those themselves? It seems like the first three are fairly straightforward while the last is pretty complex.

Anyone happen to know where to get DraftKings salary data for last season? I'd like to backtest my models a bit.

EDIT: Also, (specifically for NBA), do people prefer DraftKings or FanDuel? Why?
« Last Edit: September 04, 2015, 09:41:04 AM by joeh »

boarder42

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #62 on: September 08, 2015, 08:21:08 AM »
I started a journal if anyone is interested in following.

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/1-day-at-a-time-(fire-thru-daily-fantasy-sports-side-hustle)/

NBA is a pain in our ass we are gonna try and crack it again at DK ... but we may throw the towel in on it and take that sport off.  just too much to keep up with for us and players seem like they sometimes decide they dont care about playing that day.

milesdividendmd

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #63 on: September 08, 2015, 12:39:45 PM »
My partner and I have targeted May 2017 as our official go/no go on quitting our day jobs.  we'll have 2.5 NASCAR seasons under our belt, 2 baseball season, and 2.5 football seasons.  that should give us a large enough sample to see if we can sustain our lives on it.

Ill have to look into NASCAR. Ive never been a big fan but it does sounds like fun.

I have no trouble believing that this is an immature and inefficient market where smart types (like you?) can make money consistently.

But if the money is legit, it wont stay inefficient for long.  Smart money will come in and arbitrage away the opportunities.  A useful model might be on line poker in the early 2000s.

Either way, I'll follow your adventures with interest!  Could be a great opportunity for manufacturing spending if nothing else.

boarder42

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #64 on: September 09, 2015, 11:45:25 AM »
Yeah it's probably going to be arbitraged away. But I'll maximize my profits while its available. We're not just beating the fish though. We're winning contests. So we'll see how long it lasts.

Yankuba

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #65 on: September 09, 2015, 11:54:19 AM »
My partner and I have targeted May 2017 as our official go/no go on quitting our day jobs.  we'll have 2.5 NASCAR seasons under our belt, 2 baseball season, and 2.5 football seasons.  that should give us a large enough sample to see if we can sustain our lives on it.

Ill have to look into NASCAR. Ive never been a big fan but it does sounds like fun.

Reminds me of the old joke:
An economist and an Engl
I have no trouble believing that this is an immature and inefficient market where smart types (like you?) can make money consistently.

But if the money is legit, it wont stay inefficient for long.  Smart money will come in and arbitrage away the opportunities.  A useful model might be on line poker in the early 2000s.

Either way, I'll follow your adventures with interest!  Could be a great opportunity for manufacturing spending if nothing else.

Reminds me of the old joke:

An economist and a scientist are walking down the street. The scientist sees a $100 bill and picks it up. He tells the economist that lunch is on him. The economist replies - there was no $100 bill - if there was one, somebody would have picked it up.

milesdividendmd

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #66 on: September 09, 2015, 01:44:57 PM »

My partner and I have targeted May 2017 as our official go/no go on quitting our day jobs.  we'll have 2.5 NASCAR seasons under our belt, 2 baseball season, and 2.5 football seasons.  that should give us a large enough sample to see if we can sustain our lives on it.

Ill have to look into NASCAR. Ive never been a big fan but it does sounds like fun.

Reminds me of the old joke:
An economist and an Engl
I have no trouble believing that this is an immature and inefficient market where smart types (like you?) can make money consistently.

But if the money is legit, it wont stay inefficient for long.  Smart money will come in and arbitrage away the opportunities.  A useful model might be on line poker in the early 2000s.

Either way, I'll follow your adventures with interest!  Could be a great opportunity for manufacturing spending if nothing else.

Reminds me of the old joke:

An economist and a scientist are walking down the street. The scientist sees a $100 bill and picks it up. He tells the economist that lunch is on him. The economist replies - there was no $100 bill - if there was one, somebody would have picked it up.

Except no one is advocating to not pick up the bill. The observation was more along the lines of "think twice before quitting your job just because you found $100 on the street once."

boarder42

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #67 on: September 12, 2015, 07:04:14 AM »
We didn't find 100 on the street once. By may 2017 keeping current projections we will have made 1.5MM. To which keeping our current jobs is only a hindrance. Just BC you can't replicate what we're doing doesn't mean we aren't doing it. It just means you don't have the capacity to replicate it. Lost 600 on 1500 bet on mlb last night FYI. It's not all winning. Sometimes you lose.

milesdividendmd

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #68 on: September 12, 2015, 11:09:58 AM »

We didn't find 100 on the street once. By may 2017 keeping current projections we will have made 1.5MM. To which keeping our current jobs is only a hindrance. Just BC you can't replicate what we're doing doesn't mean we aren't doing it. It just means you don't have the capacity to replicate it. Lost 600 on 1500 bet on mlb last night FYI. It's not all winning. Sometimes you lose.

Boarder,

I'm excited for you. I sincerely want you succeed at this.

I even think it's possible you will. This is surely an inefficient market. The only point I was making was that easily exploitable inefficiencies will get arbitraged away eventually. You must know this to be true.

The $100 comment was simply to point out the limits of the analogy about the economist not picking up bills.




aspiringnomad

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #69 on: September 12, 2015, 11:23:52 AM »
Posting to follow.

MustardTiger

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #70 on: September 13, 2015, 01:57:04 PM »
Month #3 of Fantasy Sports has been an upward time for me.  Here's the new updated progress:

Start of December - $1500
End of December - $1500
End of January - $1000
End of February - $5400
End of March (well, March 29) - $30,200

DFS has become the main source of income for me so far in 2015.  My plan is to start shoving as much of my teaching salary into 403B, 457, and Roth IRA as possible to keep income down for tax purposes, and live off the DFS winnings, which cannot be sheltered anyway.  With my wife and both working as teachers, and I also coaching two varsity teams, this is giving us a variety of ways to bring in money.  Looking forward to really working on the Stash in 2015. 

In a few weeks, I will have to pay quarterly taxes, something I've never done before, since taxes are always deducted from my employer for as a teacher/tennis coach. 

My wife going to be induced to have our second child on Tuesday, so I could see April being a light month for playing Fantasy Sports.  Plus, I have to acknowledge that I ran pretty well this Month. My ROI was about 30%, which is unsustainable.  Matching March's success could be unrealistic.  The advantage I have in April is a much larger bankroll, so I may be able to pull in equal or greater total winnings with a lower ROI, simply through the ability for increased bet sizes. 

Regardless, life is good and these are fun times.  I found this website in November, and it has changed my outlook on everything.  Very excited to make this year and the ones to come rock!!!!

Not true.  I file as a professional poker player with a full time job and have an individual 401k.

tvan

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #71 on: September 13, 2015, 02:13:18 PM »
When I was just out of undergrad school I started using quantitative analysis (what some people today call Data Science lol)  to make pics. I would post them on forums. Eventually I gained a large following enough so that I became a tout.

A tout for those that don't know is just someone that sells picks. I made pretty decent money and at one point I had a streak of 19-2 in NBA games. My clients were calling me and telling me how much they were winning but it was insane how much people trusted me. It became so stressful on me that one day I just pulled the plug entirely. The pressure knowing guys were using your picks and putting shitloads of money on them was scary.

Having said all that to this day some of the things I was doing with sports stats have helped me greatly in my career (data science). So I guess I took something away from it.


meatgrinder

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #72 on: September 19, 2018, 10:08:18 PM »
We didn't find 100 on the street once. By may 2017 keeping current projections we will have made 1.5MM. To which keeping our current jobs is only a hindrance. Just BC you can't replicate what we're doing doesn't mean we aren't doing it. It just means you don't have the capacity to replicate it. Lost 600 on 1500 bet on mlb last night FYI. It's not all winning. Sometimes you lose.

Are you making millions yet?

boarder42

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #73 on: September 20, 2018, 04:19:15 AM »
We didn't find 100 on the street once. By may 2017 keeping current projections we will have made 1.5MM. To which keeping our current jobs is only a hindrance. Just BC you can't replicate what we're doing doesn't mean we aren't doing it. It just means you don't have the capacity to replicate it. Lost 600 on 1500 bet on mlb last night FYI. It's not all winning. Sometimes you lose.

Are you making millions yet?

Market got saturated. Pros started selling their systems. We quit while we were still way ahead. I think we each ended up around 40k over 2 years.  You're welcome to go dig up my old hournal.

meatgrinder

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #74 on: September 20, 2018, 11:30:08 PM »
Nice work...its a shame how productive side hustles always seem to dry up.  Its a matter of time for tradelines

boarder42

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Re: Anybody play fantasy sports for money?
« Reply #75 on: September 21, 2018, 05:56:04 AM »
Nice work...its a shame how productive side hustles always seem to dry up.  Its a matter of time for tradelines

Yeah

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!