Edition 12: How To Get Your "Degen" On For Football Season (*responsibly*)
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!
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Welcome to the greatest time of year. There are only three more sleeps until we have real NFL football on T.V., none of that preseason garbage or watching Alabama hang 70 points against Wisconsin Technical College or whatever opponent in the opening weeks of non-conference play. What can we expect from Week 1? Well, for starters, there will inevitably be around 30 social media posts of Scott Hanson and Andrew Siciliano as the Red Zone Channel clocks hit zero and football is officially back. We are incredibly excited, both to watch and to gamble. With that in mind, we wanted to share some of our favorite ways to get some action down this football season. These may involve spending money casually, with a licensed gambling operator, or other providers of fantasy football offers. With that, let’s start with a few of the classics.
Fantasy Football (Year-long, Traditional League)
Gambler EV: 0%
This could best be described as a beer league. You probably are in at least one or two with various friend groups, maybe even some colleagues at work. The league costs money in all likelihood, and that’s why it’s included in our list. It is the all-time classic and is the first experience wagering money on sports that most people have. In most cases, these leagues are a great investment and provide the immeasurable return of a rooting interest in almost every game on Sunday. You spend whatever money the league buy-in is, and have the same chance as everyone else to win. Obviously, there are some caveats to the expected value here (you’re in a league that lives and dies with fantasy football), but for the most part, because everyone puts in the same investment, everyone puts in the same amount of effort. After all, no one can predict an injury to a first-round fantasy pick. The randomness and banter with buddies are most of the fun here, as many leagues serve as a long-term connection for old friends around the world to stay in touch over a common love: football. A few things to note: don’t trade with that one guy who tries to offer you some BS every week, but also be wary of your more analytically inclined buddies who have their whole team on the block and pick off a few clear wins from the unengaged guy each year. Be diligent with waivers, don’t forget to set your line up each week, and you’ll likely avoid a last-place Sacko punishment. Whether your league is an auction or snake draft, starts fresh or is a dynasty league, or enforces points-per-reception or not, fantasy football is one of the premier sweat and enjoyment providers football season provides.
Daily Fantasy Sports
Gambler EV: - Rake %, but probably much lower
Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) is how Draftkings and Fanduel got their foot in the door. The premise behind DFS is simple, each participant in a contest has the same salary cap and each player has a salary number assigned to them depending on how much they are projected to score. Players can build their lineup in any number of ways, and the pay-out structure varies by specific contest. Generally, DFS is populated by “whales” and “sharks”. The whales are those who spend a lot of money and are generally long-term losers. They see DFS as “fun”. On the other hand, sharks use lineup optimizers to maximize correlations between players and look to get on the right side of variance. The power of sharks makes DFS far more difficult for the Average Joe to succeed in and gives a significantly lower EV than other options.
Best Ball
Gambler EV: - Rake
Best ball is a beautiful innovation in the fantasy sports world, being pioneered by our friends at Underdog Fantasy. Underdog allows players to draft a season-long team without the hassle of worrying about waivers, lineups, or injuries. They handle it all for you. Essentially, Best Ball takes all the stress of setting a lineup out of fantasy for a season. You draft your squad, and the set of players who score the highest are the players that count. Buy-ins and league sizes vary, with Underdog offering high-stakes contests such as Best Ball Mania II ($3.5 million in prizes, $1 million to first place) as well as a platform for you to mock draft your Home Leagues. Best Ball is one of those new innovations that we at The Handle are exceptionally excited to be involved with this year.
Single Game Betting
Gambler EV: -4.54%
Single-game betting is the most basic form that is finally legal in an increasing number of states. It is the holy grail, the basis for all other formal types of gambling. It really needs no further explanation. Pick the locks and hope for the best.
Multi-Leg Betting
Gambler EV: Bad, to very bad (looking at you, 5-leg parlay guy)
Multi-leg bets can be either parlays or teasers, or even more complex options that we aren’t going to get into. These are the fun ones, where you are tuning into the Sunday Night game with just one leg left on your parlay. These bets have far more variance and are accompanied by a higher hold percentage. Don’t get us wrong, we love a great parlay. It’s just not a great way to maximize gambling bankroll in week 1 of the season. Here is Action Network’s hedging calculator for your internal debate and hopeful external utility.
Player Props
Gambler EV: > -4.54%
Another innovation that has come with legalized sports betting is a wide array of various player props, as books look to differentiate themselves in crowded states. The wider the menu, the more likely the bettor is to find something they want to wager on, so the logic goes. Player props are incredibly fun and for more serious football fans, allow you to bet your opinion more specifically than on just a single game side or total. Unfortunately, player props often run into two small problems. The first is increased hold %s, especially at offshore and PPH sites. More often than not, these are priced at -115, or even -120 to account for the difficulty in ensuring accuracy in lines across player props. The second is that the limits are often far lower. A second receiver being out may not have a large impact on the full game side or total, but it will drastically change the accurate receiving prop for the first and third receivers. As a result, a method for books trying to decrease their liability is by offering lower limits on player props which could be a problem for our high rolling readers.
Microbetting
Gambler EV: TBD
Microbetting is a recent innovation that we will cover in further detail in the coming weeks, but we wanted to get it on everyone’s radar now. Oftentimes, microbetting is exchange-based, meaning that the straddle is quite minimal. If the bet is not exchange-based, expect to see relatively higher hold percentages, especially before the market is fully mature. Microbetting is simply betting on smaller outcomes than a half or full game result. For example, a microbet could be “will this play result in a first down” or a longshot “will this play be a touchdown”. This one likely will not be widely available this year, but we are excited to see where it goes and how we can get involved in the future. JPMorgan estimates the micro betting market will be worth $9.25 billion by 2025, and we are keeping an eye on a few emerging tech products in the space.
Overall, we are thrilled that football is back, and looking forward to seeing the continued maturation in the market as new products come out to increase fan engagement. Best of luck this season!
Miscellaneous Recent Consumption
Miscellaneous Recent Consumption:
Press
Better Collective (Acq. The Action Network, May-21) has overtaken Catena Media as the world’s largest online gambling affiliate company on a rolling 12 month basis.
h/t Daniel Stone of GamblingCompliance for the data viz.
A coalition of sportsbooks announced an initiative to bring mobile sports betting to California. The initiative is titled the “California Solutions to Homelessness and Mental Health Support Act”, coming from the coalition which includes FanDuel, DraftKings, and 5 other sportsbooks. There is supposedly going to be at least $100 million spent to win the legislative battle. Brad Allen of Legal Sports Report has more here.
Caesars has moved on from longtime Las Vegas bookmaker Nick Bogdanovich four months after its $4 billion acquisition of William Hill. Las Vegas Review-Journal has more here.
Facebook has announced their foray into fantasy sports with a partnership with Whistle Sports to introduce games and engage fans across sports and entertainment, including events ranging from Survivor to MLB games. Interesting note -- Facebook sports media and league partnerships director Rob Shaw told Sportico the company has “no aspiration to make this into a betting product” and no intent to “put payments attached to this.” (h/t Front Office Sports). Read the press release here.
Twitter
Pods
The Ringer has announced the launch of their new home for all things NFL Gambling this week. Hosts included analysts Warren Sharp, Chris Vernon, Ben Solak, and Joe House. Did someone say superteam?
Danny Miranda hosted Peter Jennings on this week’s episode of his podcast. Great listen, check it out as per usual.