Experts, Legends And Profitablility

I'm going to bounce around a little today as I've had a few things on my mind.

One of the most grating issues to me is the notion of a daily fantasy "expert". There is no criteria or certification of any kind to assign expert status to anyone. Two of the long time players, Tippy and Zoobird, have been designated experts in a previous article. Yet when you search their contest history, they play rarely (if at all) for large periods of time.

I will admit when they do play, they seem to put up good results.

Another user, Mitchdog, is a self-proclaimed "legend" via the Fan Duel chat box. He was previously selling "packages" of lineups for Fan Duel users. I don't begrudge him for that - as I have sold subscriptions to Daily Fantasy Projections.

What irks me is that Mitchdog doesn't play contests much at all, and when he does, they are very small buy-ins.

Whomever the experts really are, they should be crushing due to the highest level of daily fantasy traffic we've had in its short history.

Another item that strikes me odd is the continued re-hashing of the same topics over and over again on the forums.

-How much do you research before a contest?
-Is a diverse or lopsided lineup best for baseball contests?
-Is daily fantasy sports profitable long term?

One explanation for the redundancy is that some forums offer nominal cash prizes for quality strategy posts. Is it worth my time to make my opponents better for $25-$50 bucks?

Nope.

On to the profitability issue. Just like poker, DFS has variance. But most of the players have blinders on, they only usually see the short term results. Also, many players are not multi-sport skilled, they can rake at one sport and just dabble in others.

This is like a NLHE poker player that is lost at an 8-game table.

My point is you need YEARS of results to determine profitability. If you play all sports, that will help fight some variance but you will still experience some long losing streaks. I have, I readily admit that. However, I have maintained profitability for four straight years.

Because of that, I do think it is beatable long-term. (Tippy doesn't think the rake can be beat, so perhaps that's why he doesn't play much anymore.)

I do know what it takes to be profitable. So someone tell me, what does it takes to be an expert?

(IMO, legends are associated with mythology. Who wants to be a myth?)

Failure To Launch (On Many Levels)

My internet service has been intermittent at best during the past week. It's been difficult to do anything online for a few days.

I want to give a shout out to Dr. Pauly for sending me a bunch of traffic this week. Check out all of his great blogging, plus his new book "Jack Tripper Stole My Dog" is coming out any day now.

It just seems like this year has been a bunch of hiccups for me. Poker was shut down, sports betting was effectively shut down, fantasy sports has been hit or miss all year. Horse racing had a few shining moments followed by some cold streaks.

In other words, nothing has been easy... Not that it should be, right?

I need to rededicate my focus on the opportunities that are still available to me. There are more large field fantasy contests then ever. I should be taking advantage of the dead money wallowing in these every day.

I feel ready to break out this next month if I can just shake off the rust and put in the time.

The Superfecta Monologues

I've been re-focused on horse racing since my sports betting options became limited.

My previous horse betting endeavors have been very focused on the market. By searching for value bets, I would receive excellent payouts for my winners.

One drawback to this approach is its time consuming nature. Playing a pari-mutuel betting pool requires making your wagers at just the right moment, usually right at post time.

In other words, waiting around for 25 minutes between each race. Sometimes waiting just to end up not betting anything.

I decided to go in a different direction this week and play some exotic wagers. Now the exotics have a steeper takeout (25%), but offer some big payouts, as well as bigger rebates.

I started playing superfectas this weekend and I think I'm in love with this wager. (OK, maybe not "in love", but we may be going steady for awhile.)

First off, you can play a superfecta for as little as $.10. So you can box 4 selections for a whopping $2.40. Assuming a 10 race schedule, you could play the entire race card for only $24. Pretty much any punter can afford that.

Even for that small amount you can walk away with a very hefty payday.

Second, playing supers is all about handicapping, not markets (pools). It's impossible to predict payouts on 4 leg exotic bets. You're just shooting for winners.

Therefore, you can go ahead and place your wagers early in the day. This frees up all of that time I used to watch the pools build up before post time.

Now, playing supers is a high variance affair. You could easily go 100 wagers without hitting any winners. It reminds me of tournament poker - you might not cash for a long time, but it only takes one big winner to fund you for a long time.

Add in the rebate around 9% and it becomes a very attractive strategy. (For you math geeks, getting a 9% rebate on a 25% takeout would be the equivalent of 36% rakeback.)

So if I'm any good at handicapping, I might be blogging about horses more often.

100,000 Entries To Grace Land

So tonight starts the Fan Duel Baseball Championship. 17 weeks of qualifying events, each with unlimited entries.

The 20 finalists will have a shot at the $25,000 top prize. Bottom line - you'll need 2 PERFECT nights to even sniff any decent money. This contest was structured to remove as much skill as possible.

It's (uber)frustrating to me that the site with the weakest game & price structure gets so much play. Fan Duel runs great promotions, but if they ignore the customer service side of the business, they'll fall by the way side, just like Snapdraft.

Could This Be An Exotic Weekend?

As we've reached the first full weekend in May, it's time to talk a little horse racing. Derby day is upon us.

Since the poker shutdown pretty much killed my sports betting options, I've been concentrating on legal horse wagering. The weather has improved and more race cards are now available, which means more value betting for me.

I found a stellar rebate program (aka rakeback), which encourages me to make more exotic wagers. When a race comes along with multiple value horses, I pound it with various exacta, trifecta and/or superfecta combinations. These are the races that really make my ROI sparkle. Usually when I hit one of these, it's time to call it a day.

The Kentucky Derby is always a classic value race. The favorite has won only a few times in the last 30+ years. With 20 horses running (and no field betting options), it's almost certain to have a monster exotic payoff.

So sit back and enjoy the warmer weather. Pick your top 4 horses, and don't be afraid to box or wheel them as needed.