This article is part of our The Daily Duel series.
Once all of your baseball drafts are set for the upcoming season, fantasy players often look to find a new team or action throughout the season. This is where daily fantasy baseball games comes into play. This season Rotowire.com is partnering up with Fanduel.com to bring you a weekly column discussing the world of daily fantasy sports. Each week I'll be discussing the different aspects of daily fantasy games from the different types of games to the different strategies involved. The various players and potential values to use in your lineup will be analyzed and some unique tournaments will be offered to Rotowire subscribers on Fanduel for those wanting to see what all of the excitement is about. Fanduel offers other games as well throughout the season include hockey, basketball, football and college sports. Let's take a look at the basics of playing daily fantasy baseball on Fanduel.
Signing Up
Signing up for an account on daily fantasy sites is usually a pain-free process. For example, on Fanduel you'll need to sign up for a free account on their site. This is an easy process that should take less than five minutes. Basic information such as your name, email and creating a username with a password is required before you start playing. To add funds all you need is a credit card or Paypal account to link up to your account. A Paypal account is necessary to receive payouts from most sites. Once money is deposited, you're ready to get started playing.
The Game Itself
The way each game is played consists of selecting your own fantasy team from the players actually playing in that day's games. Each player will be assigned a salary for that day and you'll have to fill a whole team while staying under the required salary cap limit. As you might suspect, the better players at each position that generally earn more fantasy points cost more while weaker players will cost less. The players accrue points for your team based upon what they do statistically during their game that day. The scoring can be found on the site and is similar to the general scoring system in head-to-head leagues. Typically the most important player on your team will be your pitcher, as he has the upside to score the most points for your team. The breakdown of pitching scoring is also available on the website. The key to your team is to find a nice balance of players who are considered good bargains based on their price and match them with studs that may be much more expensive but produce the fantasy points to match their lofty salary. Different ways of selecting players include looking at what matchups each player has and what ballpark they'll be playing in. Strategy on selecting lineups including those factors will be discussed in more detail as the weeks go on.
The Different Types of Games
Fanduel offers a variety of different games at different costs and potential prizes to the owner. You can try out the contests and enter for free to see how you do. The rest of the prizes involve money but start as low as $1 and go up as high as several hundred. There are several different types of games available to the fantasy owner. First, you can start off playing another player head-to-head with only one winner. There are daily tournaments run by the site with different entry costs that pay out to a fraction of the entrants at a high rate for those looking for a high risk/high reward type of game. Smaller tournaments can be entered with the winner taking all out of the group or a few of the top entrants getting paid out. 50/50 tournaments describe just that; half of the entrants in the tournament will win while the other half are out of luck. Each game will give out a very specific description as to how many participants there are, the cost to enter, the payouts and how many people will win with each game. As a player gets more experienced they usually figure out which cup of tea is for them. That may not also be limited to one cup of tea either, often players will engage in head-to-head while entering tournaments as well. There is no limit on the amount of contests you can enter.
Payment
On to the key element of all of this: money. As already mentioned you can deposit money into you account through a major credit card or Paypal. Once credited to your account the money can be used to enter the site's different fantasy games. When you decide to withdraw money from your account, which happen within 48 hours, it is sent back to your Paypal account for use. In case you're wondering, Fanduel is completely legal and is not considered gambling since it is considered a game of skill just as any other fantasy league you participate in.
For Subscribers
Going forward we're looking for plenty of feedback from you, the subscriber about the new partnership and what you're looking for out of this column. That could be anything from discussing specific strategy, types of games, and of course, the players. We're going to offer a lot of specials on Fanduel throughout the season and would love to hear any type of games or tournaments you would like to see run as promotions. Please feel free to use the comments section below.
Promotions
With the partnership we've formed with Fanduel there will be the opportunity for Rotowire subscribers to participate in contests either at a reduced cost or for free. As those contests approach more details about said contests will be mentioned in this column. The biggest promotion Fanduel will run during the season will be the DFBC – Daily Fantasy Baseball Championship. For only a $10 entry you can enter a team that has a chance to win a trip to Las Vegas and compete for $100,000. This contest will take place weekly over the first 15 weeks with 15 total winners. Again, more details are available on the site.
In the meantime, our friends at FanDuel are offering all Rotowire users the opportunity to try out their site for free with the chance to win a share of a cool $500.
Title – RotoWire.com $500 Free Contest
Date - 05/04/2012
Buyin - $0
Prizepool - $500
1. Simply CLICK HERE to sign up for an account at FanDuel.
2. Pick your team within the $35k salary cap. Consisting of P, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS and three OFs.
3. Watch the live scoring on FanDuel during the games and see how your picks perform.
The contest is live and is open for registration today. CLICK HERE to sign up for your account and register for the freeroll now. Turn your FREE ENTRY into a lot more.
So how is FanDuel different from your regular fantasy baseball league?
-- These are salary cap leagues that last only one day
-- You get instant cash payouts every day
-- You don't have to rely on your buddies – you can pick new opponents every day
-- You can play for free, but playing for real money – for up to $10,000 in prizes per game – takes the fantasy baseball excitement off the charts!
CLICK HERE to sign up for your account and register for this $500 freeroll on FanDuel.com.
Good Luck!
p.s. FanDuel is 100% legal in the US and Canada, based in New York, and if you want to play with real money you can deposit and withdraw using PayPal and all major credit cards.
