New FanDuel DFS Contests: Upgrades Ahead of NFL Season

FanDuel has introduced several new features aimed at casual and serious players alike ahead of the busy season for daily fantasy sports. As the 2018 NFL season approaches, FanDuel customers returning from last year will notice a few changes since last year.

This year, FanDuel Daily Fantasy Sports is bringing customers new tools for building lineups and finding suitable contests as well as introducing a couple of season-long promotions that give customers a free shot at winning serious payouts. On top of that, FanDuel has introduced single-game NFL contests and beat-the-score contests since last season.

Much of the news surrounding FanDuel lately may revolve around sports betting, but we see the company hasn’t forgotten about its many daily fantasy customers across the country. Here’s what we have to look forward in the run-up to the 2018 NFL season.

FanDuel Guru for Lineup Assistance

Whether you’re new to daily fantasy or just need a little assistance, FanDuel Guru has your back. This new feature can be activated at any point while building your lineup to offer lineups suggestions and basic strategy tips.

Each time you activate FanDuel Guru, it’ll give you three suggestions and a rationale for why those suggestions were made. If you’re not impressed with the first round of recommendations, you can hit the “give me new players” button for a set of fresh faces.

For example, you might pick Ben Roethlisberger as your QB and then draw a blank when it comes to your wide receiver. So, you activate FanDuel Guru and it might suggest stacking Big Ben with JuJu Smith-Schuster so you can double down when Roethlisberger and Smith-Schuster connect.

The picks are designed to be smart in that they use basic strategy and salary considerations to make recommendations, but it is unclear how smart the Guru is. Still, it’s a nice touch even if all you need is a little inspiration.

FanDuel Guru is only available on the iOS and Android apps right now, but FanDuel says they’ll be launching it on the desktop website soon.

Here are a few screenshots showing FanDuel Guru in action:

Discover Tab Added to FanDuel

Mobile and desktop users can use the new Discover function to quickly find featured contests, promotions and useful content. As FanDuel itself put it, “the sheer number of contests available in the lobby can be a bit overwhelming.” So now, players can use the Discover tab to find contests and other features quickly.

Mobile users can tap the “Discover” tab at the top of the FanDuel home screen. If you’re on a desktop, just scroll down to see the Discover features.

Contest recommendations are catered to individual users based on each user’s experience level and playing habits. If you’re a newer player, for example, FanDuel might recommend a selection of beginner-only contests with inexpensive buyins. Each recommendation is displayed in an easy-to-read style showing the contest name, number of players, entry fee and other basic info.

Scroll down a bit further on the Discover tab for other features such as beginner tips for new players, recent promotions, listings of contests with large prizes and more – again, all of this is based on each user’s habits on FanDuel.

Free Predictions Contests

FanDuel has also debuted two season-long prediction contests that break away from the traditional model. Rather than picking individual players, each of these simply has you pick winning teams for a chance at winning weekly and season-long prizes. Most importantly, both contests are absolutely free to play.

FanDuel Survivor

FanDuel Survivor lasts the entire season and the goal, as the name suggests, is to outlive the competition. Each week, FanDuel will ask you to pick just one NFL team out of all teams playing that week to win. Sounds easy, right?

Well, the catch is that you can only pick each team once all season. You might find it easy to pick the strongest teams early in the season, but your options will quickly dwindle as the season progresses. If you pick the Patriots to win their first game, you won’t be able to pick them again all season.

Here’s where some strategy comes into play. Do you want to save the top teams for later in the season so you’ll have an easier time later or do you want to make the easiest choices early on? Contestants are eliminated each week when they make the wrong pick. The last FanDuel customer standing at the end of the season wins a cool $250,000.

• Cost to play: absolutely nothing

Gridiron Pick’em

Gridiron Pick’em lasts all season long, but every week is a new contest. Each week, you’ll attempt to pick the winners of every Sunday game. Get them all right and you’ll split that week’s $10,000 prize pool with other winners.

If nobody picks every game correctly, the current prize pool will carry over to the following week. Prizes carry over every week to grow the prize pool until someone gets every pick correct. Correctly predicting all of Sunday’s games is a tall order, but it’s completely free to try and you get a new shot every week.

• Cost to play: absolutely nothing

New Game Types Introduced for the 2018 NFL Season

FanDuel has introduced a couple of new contest formats since last season. You may have seen some of these now since they’ve been around for a few months, but this will all be new if the last time you logged in was to play fantasy football last year.

• Beat the Score Contests: Beat the Score contests play just like normal DFS contests in which you draft lineups and score points. However, the goal isn’t to beat the other players; it’s to beat a points scoring total set by FanDuel. Everyone who beats the score gets a share of the prize pool. If nobody or everybody beats the score, all players receive a refund.
• Single Game Contests: FanDuel introduced single-game contests just in time for last season’s Super Bowl, but now you’ll have the option all season long. Just like the name says, these are contests that involve a single game. Scoring rules are the same, but lineups are changed to include five “AnyFLEX” positions that let you pick any combination of offensive players you want.