One of the most important but under-discussed aspects of being a winning daily fantasy sports player is maximizing the amount of “free money” that sites are willing to pay you to play. Free money? Yes, there is actually quite a bit of it available if you know what you are doing.
ETR is uniquely positioned to provide insight as its founders include professional DFS players and former DFS site employees. We tried to make this advice as evergreen as possible, since specifics of what to say or ask for can change. The important thing is to learn why and when sites are willing to give players deals, and use our general tips to ask for them.
Background: DFS is a business driven by high-volume players. Roughly 1% of DFS customers contribute at least 30% of the revenue of the entire industry. DFS sites understand this, and if you are a customer who plays any serious volume, they’re generally happy to provide you incentives to continue to do so and are likely already doing this. But sites also know that they need more casual players, too.
How Deposit Bonuses Work: Typically a deposit bonus will offer you something around 20-40% of your site fees rebated to you in each contest you play. For example, if you play a $10 contest where $1.00 goes to the site, a deposit bonus would result in between 20 to 40 cents returned to you after the contest starts. Often it is in the form of rewards points or some other currency so it’s not always exactly clear how much it is worth. But make no mistake, this is a HUGE deal. Over the course of a year someone playing $5,000 in contests will pay very roughly $500 in site fees. If you had a bonus the entire year (which is typically not possible), you could earn $100-$200 or a 2-4% ROI just by breaking even in all of your contests. While 4% over the whole year may not be attainable, 1%+ certainly is.
Free Money from DFS Sites: Why and When
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