Overview: DraftDay has established itself as one of the leading fantasy-sports sites in less than three years, surpassing many of its lesser competitors in the process. While not the size of market leaders FanDuel or DraftStreet, DraftDay’s growing presence and unique promotions and gaming concepts mark it as company on the move. The site’s player base and major-event guarantees continue to grow as well, moving it into the category of major fantasy-sports offerings.

Site Trust: Top marks. This well-financed site has invested in internet infrastructure and developed a slick user interface. Add in rapid cashouts and deposits and little or no complaints about the site and the total package is a keeper for new players. Given its owners’ awareness of problems that have affected other online gaming fields, DraftDay rigorous promotes the segregation of player balances from the site’s other operational funds.

Reputation: Solid and growing. DraftDay has captured the interest of the fantasy-sports world by offering a wide range of formats and player options, and the site’s willingness to try new concepts keeps sports fans’ interest high. DraftDay’s detailed FAQ launch page is one of the industry’s best and most detailed, with rules, knowledge and general information readily accessible to newbies and veterans

History: DraftDay was founded by a bevy of veteran poker professionals who parlayed their knowledge of sports and online gambling into a very workable and slick fantasy-sports franchise. Several of the site’s founding investors are also associated with online-poker strategy site CardRunners, and the sharp-eyed DraftDay player might even notice the CardRunners logo appearing among the dozens of user-selectable avatars available on the site. Given DraftDay’s poker-centric background, it’s no surprise that some of the innovative formats found on DraftDay have a bit of a gaming touch not found on other sites, such as the unique Rapid Fire and Perfect Lineup offerings.

Opening a DraftDay Account:

Signup Guide: Opening a DraftDay account is an easy process,and yes, DraftDay offers free-play tourneys that allow the curious to familiarize themselves with the site before making a deposit. Once a real-money account is set up (below), DraftDay allows a wide range of initial deposit amounts, anywhere from $10 to $1,000.

Signup Bonuses: Our current best offer for new DraftDay players: [insert offer specifics here]. Using our special signup code qualifies you for the immediate bonus, which is paid in increments into your DraftDay account as you participate in daily tournaments.

Payment Options: DraftDay accepts deposits via PayPal or with these three major credit-card families: Visa, MasterCard and American Express.

Promotions: DraftDay offers a steady rotation of promotions depending on the sport and season. Some of the promotions are for serious money, such as the summer of 2014’s $250,000 “Big League Blast Championship.” Other promotions are added-value extras designed to draw traffic to new concepts and special events, such as the “Happy Hour” promotions offering bonuses for signing up for live-draft events during prime hours of play.

Promo Codes: Use our code ___________ both when signing up for a new account at DraftDay and making your first deposit!

States Where DraftDay is Not Available: Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Vermont and Washington.

Using the Site:

Lobby: DraftDay’s oversized main lobby might not make the best use of the available space, but it’s colorful, eye-grabbing, and gets the job done. Players are offered only the in-season sports, and can filter down to a single sport if desired. The offered sports:

• Baseball

• Football

• Basketball

• Hockey

• College Football

• PGA Golf

Besides selecting the sport, DraftDay’s main lobby offers five other primary filters, each of which helps reduce the otherwise overwhelming number of available formats. User can filter the lobby based on number of players, buy-in (free to $1050), game or contest type, payout formats, and starting time.

Contest Types: DraftDay offers four major contest types, without regard to size of field:

• Salary: Traditional salary-cap online fantasy-sports leagues.

• Pick ‘em: One of the relatively unique formats offered on DraftDay, in which participants select
their lineups from a sequence of menus offering a handful of players all priced approximately
the same.

• Brackets (small field): Smaller tournament-style events featuring head-to-head matches in which the winner moves on to the next round.

• Live Draft – Allows players to choose their lineups on the fly from a limited pool of available
players (pool varies in size based on number of participating contestants). Participants make
their draft picks in rotation, with a limited time in which to make their picks.

Salary Caps: Set to $100,000 for all salary-cap events on DraftDay, regardless of sport.

Buyins: Ranges from free (called freerolls), to a wide range of real-money buy-ins: $1 to $1050. Weekly and 1-day events are offered.

Prizes: Varies according to the format, from a couple of dollars in freerolls or small-fee double-ups (and triple-ups, another unique DraftDay offering) to thousands of dollars in the largest events.

Fees/Juice: Each real-money event buy-in also carries an expense fee, which goes to the site as
operational expense and profit. On DraftDay, as on most other sites, the “juice” (the expense fee) is included in the entry fee. Fees range from 11% for the smallest events to as little as 5% for the largest tourneys, with buy-ins of several hundred dollars or more. In mid-range events, the juice tends to slightly undercut other major sites.

Competition: Wide-ranging and growing, with enough variations that virtually any player who studies his or her stats and lineups ought to be able to find a comfortable and competitive niche. The highest-buying tournaments on DraftDay feature the toughest competition and many of the same toughest players as found as other site, but the lower-buyin events are softer than on some other sites.

Loyalty/Rewards Program: DraftDay players can qualify for monthly freerolls if they participate in enough tournaments, but the true bonus rewards are given to the site’s most dedicated players, who can receive 20% or $25% of their paid juice back if they reach gold or platinum status. This is similar to the “rakeback” payment process often offered to high-volume players in the online poker world.

Bonuses: DraftDay pays a bonus on new signups and deposits, which is deposited right back into your DraftDay account as you earn the bonus via play on the site. (For our best DraftDay bonus offer, click here.) As with other sites, DraftDay also offers occasional reload bonuses.

Site and Playing Specifics: Player Salary Cap: DraftDay uses a $100,000 salary cap across all offered sports and leagues.

Draft Process: Varies according to the format:

• Salary Cap: Users build a lineup based on player contract values predetermined by the site, with relative worth of each draftable player projected based on previous performances. Players can pre-register a lineup a soon as an event is listed, select an initial lineup, then go back and make changes until the official start time of the event.

• Pick ‘em Leagues: Players select a starting lineup from a menu of players who, according to
DraftDay, all have approximately the same potential value for that day’s game. No salary cap.

• Bracket Tournaments: Employ the $100,000 salary cap as above, but players select new lineups each day they advance. Similar in concept to “Survivor” tourneys.

• Live-Draft: DraftDay’s version of a lottery-style, position draft; participants take turns selecting
players shortly after a given event reaches player capacity.

Scoring Systems: DraftDay’s scoring systems are available within the site’s catch-all FAQ Page, and the same scoring system applies to all contests offered for a given sport.

Player News: DraftDay offers a steadily flowing selection of blogs and strategy columns, many of which are penned by the site’s dedicated player-owners themselves. The content is available via DraftDay’s Blogs page.

Leaderboards: Less than on other major sites, but it’s not a point of emphasis here. DraftDay focuses primarily on single-day events and related special promotions, and less so on the month-long, leaderboard-driven contests and rankings common to other sites.

Unique Features: DraftDay has more unique features and offerings than any other major site. Two deserving of special mention are the Rapid Fire and Perfect Lineup games. In Rapid Fire, participants simply choose which of five pairs of players will outperform the other player in that game’s play. Pick 3 out of 5 correct, and you join the pool of winners. A high-test version called Rapid Fire Max, in which you need to get all five right, is also available. Perfect lineup is a special football-season promotion that awards cash prizes to participants that can choose the best overall single team; it’s essentially a giant freeroll for all players on the site.