Three Reasons You Should Be Playing DFS in 2015

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If you’ve been trying to avoid the Daily Fantasy Sports bug you may want to reconsider. The DFS industry saw massive growth over the course of 2014, and with the industry poised to break into the mainstream in 2015, there has never been a better time to dive in and signup at a DFS site.

Here are three reasons 2015 could be a very profitable year for players willing to invest some time and energy in learning to play DFS contests.

DFS Sites Are Investing Heavily Into Customer Acquisition

After recent announcements indicating another injection of investment capital is on the way, DFS sites are going to be putting a ton of money into player acquisition efforts – perhaps even more than they did in 2014.

This infusion of investment money into the DFS ecosystem will likely trickle straight down to the players and lead to one of the most customer-friendly periods in online betting since the heyday of the Poker Boom when sites were literally giving away money to new customers.

DFS sites will be trying to tempt new players and keep their current players loyal, with terrific deposit bonuses and promotions, and as each site tries to outdo its competitors the beneficiaries will almost certainly be the players.

On top of their promotions and bonuses, I also expect DFS sites to really push the envelope (in a perpetual game of “anything you can do I can better and bigger”) with ever-increasing guarantees for major DFS contests; many of which will likely lead to significant overlays for players.

We saw this last year when DraftKings found itself with five and six-figure overlays some weekends.

Reason #1 to play DFS: With yet another round of investment capital being raised we are in a buyer’s market.

There Is A Lot Of Dead Money In DFS Contests

Dead money is a poker term referring to a player who has paid his tournament buy-in and has zero chance of winning the event.

The surge in DFS’s popularity thanks to the massive marketing campaigns throughout 2014 has brought in a lot of new players; players, who like the legions of poker enthusiasts before them are likely overestimating their ability.

Zero chance to win is of course an overstatement, but there are plenty of DFS players who think their sports knowledge translates into DFS knowledge. These players don’t take the time to properly research and set their rosters and have little chance of cashing.

For the hardened DFS players (the players who devote the necessary time and energy to put together strong rosters) this influx of “dead money” will likely continue in 2015, but as poker players will tell you, it won’t last forever.

Eventually these players do one of two things: They either quit or get better.

Like poker tournaments during the Poker Boom, DFS contests in 2015 are chock full of players who have almost zero chance of winning, and it’s going to take them some time (and money) to realize this.

Reason #2 to play DFS: You want to get in on the action before the poor players quit, or wise up and start improving.

DFS Is Rapidly Expanding Into New Sports Markets

In addition to the number of companies like Amaya/PokerStars expressing interest in the DFS industry, the current crop of DFS providers are also expanding into some new and untapped markets (from soccer to MMA) which should help alleviate one of DFS’s current issues of having too many sharks and not enough fish.

The expansion into new sports like MMA and Soccer should not only people to new demographics and fans of these sports, but it should also allow diehard fans of these sports to have some type of an edge over the players who treat DFS like a job and use research and data to set their rosters.

Basically, the more DFS contest options there are, and the more varied the sports they offer, the less likely the top-tier DFS players will be able to excel across every sport.

This should spread out the winning players and help the DFS ecosystem.

At the very least it will take the pro DFS players time to learn the intricacies of these new offerings; a learning curve if you will.

There simply won’t be enough hours in the day to keep track of NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and now soccer and MMA contests. So what we may see is the rise of specialists, DFS players who focus solely on one or two sports, which should (to some extent) make it easier for the average Joe to win a DFS contest here and there.

The best DFS players will likely stick with the bigger sports like NFL, which might make MMA and soccer DFS contests the better value.

Reason #3 to play DFS: Expansion into new sports, will lead to specialization and more opportunities for a larger segment of DFS players.