What is Daily Fantasy Sports?
Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) is a new way to play traditional Fantasy Sports contests. The concept is simple – instead of playing fantasy sports pools over the course of an entire season, with Daily Fantasy Sports you play in just one day or over a week. So just as the name suggests, you can draft a new team each and every day and when all the games are settled that night a winner is declared. Winners are then paid out and the process repeats the next day. This concept was first introduced in 2010, and since then, the popularity of Daily Fantasy Sports has blown up & is one of fastest growing segments in the industry. It is the belief by many that DFS will one day be the most popular way to play fantasy sports surpassing the traditional season-long leagues.
Advantages to DFS over Season Long
- Instant results & payouts the same day or weekend
- You’re not stuck with the same team you drafted on day 1, every day is a chance to draft a winning team
- No more season ending injuries that cripple most fantasy sports teams
- Skill & numbers become much more relevant when picking players day to day
- It’s quick, season long drafts can last hours & hours. You can draft a DFS lineup in under 2 minutes.
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Is DFS Legal?
Yes. The quick answer is that the federal government carved out a special exemption that makes DFS legal. You can read more details about legality in our Daily Fantasy Sports Legal article.
What Sports Can be played Daily Fantasy Style?
Right now the sky seems to be the limit as almost all major sports have been giving the daily fantasy twist. By far, much like season long, football is the most popular DFS sport being played but followed closely by basketball & baseball respectively. Each sport has their own rules & point systems that have been specifically made up for the daily fantasy world. You will find that the scoring systems don’t stray too far from what you may be used to if you are coming from a traditional season long pool world. The following list is the current sports you can play daily fantasy style:
- Football (NFL, NCAA & CFL)
- Basketball (NBA & NCAA)
- Baseball (MLB)
- Hockey (NHL)
- Golf (PGA)
- Soccer (MLS, EPL, UCL, World Cup)
- MMA (UFC)
- Racing (Nascar)
- Cricket
As you can see no matter what sport you are into there is a DFS site for it.
Who is offering Daily Fantasy Sports?
At the time of this writing, there are two sites that hold a duopoly in the industry, Fanduel.com & Draftkings.com our top partner sites. However, the daily sites that have emerged in the past year alone are mind boggling. Everyone wants a piece of this DFS pie & the choices you have as a player is endless so you might have to test a few out, read our reviews & then pick a couple sites that you spend most of your time playing at. Fanduel was the first big daily fantasy site & widely became the most popular to play at rather quickly. Draftkings has now stepped up & challenged them for popularity & players and they continue to battle it out in 2015 giving away millions & millions of cash prizes every month. We suspect that they will soon face some new competition for their duopoly from some rather big players with rumors swirling that the likes of Yahoo & ESPN have their eyes on entering the daily fantasy sports scene. In conclusion, Daily fantasy sports is leading the way in innovation for fantasy sports fans & quickly replacing the rather dinosaur like season-long leagues. It’s only getting more popular & with a new generation being introduced to it as the only way to play you can expect DFS is here to stay.