Comment by swanson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by swanson | Hacker News Reader

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It's been interesting to see the migration of online poker players over to daily fantasy sports (DFS). It definitely feels like the early days of online poker - tons of new sites popping up, heavy TV advertising, lots of new money coming into the "sport". I just started playing DFS this season and it's pretty addictive. Obviously, I don't think I'll be getting rich off it (the "I turned $5 into $50k" stories are just lottery winners essentially), but it's been fun (and a bit scary...) to get into the world of gambling without having to "know a guy". I've always played fantasy football for "fun" so it's been exciting to have a bit of cash on the line.

Daily fantasy is a whole new beast - it's at the intersection of data science, predictive modeling, quants, poker players, sports guys, Vegas, startups (FanDuel and DraftKings are killing it), bootstrapped entrepreneurs (RotoViz). You can make some serious money, put down $5 to make your Sunday afternoon more exciting, or play around with a new data modeling library on some interesting data.

There's a whole industry built around fantasy sports if you look just past the surface of ESPN Fantasy leagues. There are subscriptions sites offering premium content, people willing to sell you their Baynesian prediction models, ebooks about strategy, weekly video shows talking about the best plays. I read somewhere that fantasy football was actually worth more as industry than the NFL!

PS: If you want to try it out, here's a shameful affiliate link because I'm turning into a gamling degenerate: https://www.fanduel.com/?invitedby=swan3788&cnl=da

I was thinking about this the other day and I decided that fantasy football is the most significant contributing factor in the crazy market share the NFL currently enjoys compared to the other major sports. If not for fantasy football, I don't think the NFL would be as overwhelmingly popular compared to the other sports as it is today. Because of fantasy football, nearly every game on television is watchable, because nearly every game has implications to the fantasy-viewer.

Of course, a lot of what makes fantasy football compelling to play is derived in part from what makes football compelling as a fan. 16 game seasons mean every game means something. One game a week, all on Sunday (until this dumb Thursday night football BS started), means there is a low overhead to team management. Multiple skill positions and multiple (interesting) ways to score (fantasy) points allows for varying strategies. Add all of those together and you end up with a game that is accessible to the masses, yet engaging and deep enough for those that choose to compete.

This is what ultimately holds back the other major fantasy leagues (NHL, NBA, MLB). Daily fantasy sports are a huge win for gaining back some of that market share, so it will be interesting how that affects actual viewership numbers in the future. Personally, I think the NBA is going to gain back some of the ground it has lost since the 90s.

I've said the same thing about the early days of online poker to people putting money in those sites. Have fun and all but watch out for the regulatory hammer.

The online poker sites operated offshore, through high-risk credit card processors.

Fantasy sports markets, otoh, have Yahoo and CBS as operators (both take ~30% rake). FanDuel is processing a few hundred million through PayPal. Presumably, these companies are all paying taxes, so this time everybody's in on it.

Here's one thing I've been curious about for fantasy football.

Stats are obviously important, but I'm not sure they can ever replicate simply watching film. For instance, two weeks ago, Odell Beckham Jr of the NY Giants caught 5 catches for 44 yds and a TD. What the stat line doesn't tell you is that he actually smoked his defender a few times, was open in the endzone on a play, and if Eli had chucked it up to him or seen him in the endzone, ODB would have definitely had a couple more TDs, at least.

I don't know enough about fantasy basketball/baseball to say whether film is as powerful for those sports, but it seems like the best fantasy football analysts give heavy credence to film because it protects against overreacting to good/bad performances.

Another example - last year there was some player that saw a significant drop in touchdowns (I can't remember off the top of my head who it was). But after looking at film, it became apparent this player unfortunately kept getting tackled at the 1 yard line. Clearly, an anomaly.

Watching games/film definitely will show you stuff that the boxscore doesn't. Another recent example was a game in which Percy Harvin had 3 TDs called back on penalties. His stats didn't look great, but anyone watching the game knew that he busted out several big plays.

PS. Calvin Johnson is the player who was tackled at the 1.

That's right! I thought it was CJ but I thought I remembered hearing that about a running QB also (Cam maybe) so wasn't sure. And yes, agree about Harvin also.

Honestly, I've found /r/fantasyfootball has been a great resource.

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