FanDuel Review

FanDuel.com Review

One of the oldest and most recognized of all fantasy-sports sites, FanDuel has been the preeminent destination for fantasy lovers since 2009. FanDuel boasts the industry’s largest selection of available daily and weekly leagues of any site, and with an emphasis on low-fee tourneys and easily understandable formats, is a destination of choice for newbies and veterans alike. FanDuel should be one of the first sites – if not THE first site of all – where a new player should open an account and begin. Here is our FanDuel Review…

Site Trust: A+. Complaints about FanDuel are few and far between. The site maintains protocols for what happens in case of unusual events, such as rainouts in baseball or storm cancellations in other sports. A complete reference guide to the site’s rules is available here.

Reputation: Solid. FanDuel has been the overall market leader virtually since its inception, and its wide range of offerings – okay, they don’t have golf… yet – means that novices and fantasy-sports pros alike can find a comfortable and affordable way to play. The site offers live chat support and an online FAQ area for help with customer questions and concerns.

History: FanDuel was launched as a spinoff from another large site, HubDub, and soon surpassed its predecessor in popularity. FanDuel was launched with the backing of more than $15 million in venture-capital investments in several rounds of funding, and currently employs over 80 people between its New York City and Edinburgh, Scotland offices.

Opening a FanDuel Account

Signup Guide: Once you’ve decided to open a FanDuel account, signing up and starting to play is a piece of cake. Simply click through to FanDuel’s account registration page using our easy signup link, then follow the instructions. FanDuel also maintains an easy, step-by-step guide (available here), which we recommend opening in a separate browser window.

  • FanDuel Promo Code: FREAK

Signup Bonuses: Make sure to use our FanDuel promo code, above.

Payment Options: FanDuel accepts deposits via PayPal or Visa credit card. Other credit-card brands can be used via an intermediary such as PayPal (user’s PayPal account required).

Promotions: FanDuel runs numerous promotions based on whatever sports are in-season, such as this summer’s “King of the Diamond” promotion, with $3,000,000 in cash prizes guaranteed, including a hefty $1,000,000 to the winner. Similar promotions will be available for the pro and college football seasons, and, a couple of months later, when the basketball and hockey seasons get underway. Other ongoing site promotions are listed on the Fanduel promo page.

States Where FanDuel Services Are Not Available:

  • Arizona
  • Iowa
  • Louisiana
  • Montana
  • Washington

Using FanDuel.com Website

Lobby: Fantastic and intuitive lobby for the six sports currently offered via contests at FanDuel:

  • • Baseball
  • • Football
  • • Basketball
  • • Hockey
  • • College Football
  • • College Basketball

While each sport is offered only in-season, filters allow the selection of one, some, or all available sports. Additional filters allow the user to select only certain types of contests (e.g: head-to-head) and the buy-in range (anywhere from free to $10,000). Other advanced filters are also available.

The lobby’s primary display area offers additional sorting options based on contest name and description, salary cap (below), current number of player entries, maximum field size, entry fee, total prize pool, and starting time. The best news is that in addition to all the great sorting options, the FanDuel lobby remains quick and responsive.

Fantasy Contests

FanDuel offers four major fantasy sports contest types:

• Head-to-Head: Just as it declares, it’s you versus another opponent. Some FanDuel tourneys take a “shootout”-style approach similar to poker tourneys, where the winner of a match moves on to the next round, and multiple wins are needed to make the money

• Leagues: Smaller tournament-style events featuring 3-100 entrants. Similar to sit-n-goes in online poker.

• 50/50s: Half the players who enter win double their entry fee, minus the juice. For instance, a $2 50/50 with 10 entrants would pay $3.60 to each of the top five finishers, and nothing to rest. Also referred to as double-or-nothing or “2x” events.

• Tournaments – Large-scale events with hundreds or even a couple of thousand entrants, with large prize pools. These tournaments often carry prize-pool guarantees, and include the largest payouts available on the site. Typically, one in nine or ten entrants will cash in a given event.

Salary Caps: Typically $35,000 (in virtual money, not real cash!), which a player uses to build his lineup. This is the “standard cap” as defined on FanDuel, and is the only option for most sports offered. In football, however, given its high popularity and once-a-week format, FanDuel also offers “beginner” and “expert” cap events.

Buyins: Ranges from free (called freerolls), to a wide range of real-money buy-ins: $1 to $10,000.

Occurrence: Weekly and 1-day events are offered.

Prizes: Varies according to the format, from a couple of dollars in freerolls or small-fee 50/50s to tens of thousands of dollars in the large, big-field 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 FanDuel, the “juice” (the expense fee) is included in the entry fee. Fees range from 11% for the smallest events to 6.5% for the very largest.

Competition: As tough as it gets in the highest buy-in events, but much softer in the small buy-in and small-prize tourneys. With a constant influx of new players who are just learning the ins and outs of fantasy sports, there’s plenty of edge to be had for the user willing to put time into mastering the game and putting together winning lineups.

Loyalty/Rewards Program: FanDuel players receive FanDuel Points (FDPs) based on entries into events. FDPs, in turn, can be used for more event entries. Dedicated players can also qualify for additional freerolls based on the number of FDPs they generate in a given month.

Bonuses: FanDuel pays a bonus on new signups and deposits, which is deposited right back into your FanDuel account as you earn the bonus via play on the site. (For a top-of-the-market bonus offer, click here.) FanDuel also offers occasional reload bonuses.

Playing Specifics

Player Salary Cap: Typically $35,000 in most daily or weekly events, which differs from many other sites that use a $100,000 cap.

Draft Process: 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 modify that lineup right up until the official start time of the event. The start time is usually timed to coincide with the earliest starting time of the block of games being used for an event.

Scoring Systems: FanDuel’s scoring systems are available on the site’s Rules Page, and the same scoring system applies to all contests offered for a given sport.

Player News: FanDuel offers its dedicated “FanDuel Insider” area, which doubles as a strategy area And an outlet for player and sports news, sometimes on events and sports not even offered as a fantasy game on the FanDuel site! There’s plenty of content to keep a user busy during a halftime break.

Leaderboards: Run in conjunction with the site’s ongoing promotions, leaderboards allow FanDuel players to track their progress against other participants.

Unique Features: FanDuel is among a select few sites that offer play, in season, on both college football and college basketball. FanDuel, along with a few other sites, also offers a mobile app for its users. FanDuel has also added quick-entry capabilities to its general event lobby, including a new lobby indicator that shows already-entered events.

[scg_html_weeklyfantasyfootball-fanduel]