DFS Dictionary/Terms

BANKROLL
 Your bankroll is the amount of money you have either dedicated specifically for or have the ability to spend on your daily fantasy games.  I suggest you segregated your DFS (see below) funds from your general life funds, but it’s not absolutely necessary.  As long as you’re responsible with your spending, you’ll be fine.

CASH GAMES

Cash games refer both to smaller games than GPPs or tournaments, usually less than 10 players, and large field double-ups (sometimes called 50/50s) where roughly 50% of the field doubles their money.  It’s a term than has made its way over from poker.  In poker, a cash game is one played at a single table where the chips represent actual cash value, which differs from a tournament where entry fees are pooled, the games is played across one or multiple tables, and the chips do not represent actual value.  Given the high crossover percentage of poker and DFS (see below) players, cash games and tournaments/GPPs are just shorthand for respectively small and large player fields.

 CHALK

 Chalk refers to popular, conventional wisdom picks.  A chalk pick will be obvious and highly-owned.  It’s the opposite of “contrarian” (see below).

 CONTRARIAN

 A contrarian pick is one that runs contrary to public opinion.  It’s the opposite of “chalk” (see above).

DFS

 DFS is the abbreviation for Daily Fantasy Sports.  It’s used as shorthand for the games offered by sites like DraftKings and FanDuel, even if some events take place over the course of multiple days (like golf).

 DOUBLE-UPS (also known as 50/50s)

 A game type where winners will receive twice the entry fee.  Player fields can range anywhere two to well into the thousands.

 EXPOSURE (also SHARES)

 Refers to the number of lineups you have that feature or the amount of real money you have invested in a given player.

GPP (also referred to as a TOURNAMENT)

GPP stands for “Guaranteed Prize Pool,” and is often used in interchangeable fashion with the word “tournament” even though not all tournaments are GPPs.  A guaranteed prize pool tournament is one where the site guarantees a certain payout amount, regardless of whether or not that payout amount has been satisfied by registered player entry fees.  When a GPP does not reach its expected number of players, that leads to “overlay” (see below).

Tournament refers to a game with (usually) 10 or more players.  Tournaments have larger fields than cash games (see above).

HEAD-TO-HEADS (abbreviated as H2H)

 A game type where you face off against a single opponent, and the winner receives the loser’s entry fee.

 LEAGUE

 A game type somewhere on the spectrum in between cash games and tournaments.  Usually, these games will feature 3-10 players.  “League” and “tournament” can be used semi-interchangeably when discussing fields smaller than 100 but larger than two.

 OVERLAY

 Overlay occurs when a GPP does not reach its expected number of players, and therefore pays out more in prize money than it collected in player entry fees.  You should always look for overlay.  As overlay increases, so does your expected return on investment or ROI (see below).  Example: A GPP has a $100 guarantee paying out three places: $50 to first, $30 to second, and $20 to third.  It costs $10 to enter, and there are only four players registered seconds before roster lock (see below).  If you register for this tournament, and everyone is equally skilled, you should see an average return of +$10 on your investment or a 100% ROI.  Now, if you keep everything the same but change the number of players from five to 12, your expected value drops from +$10 to -$1.67.  As you can see, overlay greatly improves you chances of winning money, and it should be targeted aggressively.
Try our Overlay tool to cash in on unfilled contest.

QUALIFIER (also referred to as Q)

A qualifier or Q is a tournament where the prize is entry into another tournament.

ROI or RETURN ON INVESTMENT

ROI is a measure of your profitability, expressed by a percentage.  To calculate ROI, you use this formula:

(Gross Winnings – Amount Invested) / Amount Invested

Say you played a $10 GPP, and you happened to win $200 (nice work!).  Using that formula, we’d take $200, subtract $10, and then divide by $10.  That leaves us with an ROI of 190%.

A common misconception with ROI happens when considering losses.  The break-even point for ROI is 0%, not 100%.  A 100% ROI means you have doubled your investment.  A 0% ROI does not mean you lost everything, rather you have neither won nor lost.  A -100% ROI means you have lost every single dollar you have invested.  Try to avoid the -100% ROI.

 

ROSTER LOCK (also referred to as LOCK)

Roster lock is the time at which you are no longer able to edit your roster.  For our purposes, rosters lock when the first player is scheduled to tee off in the first round of a given event.  It’s the same across all the sites.  If you’re playing other sports, you need to pay attention to the nuances of the site you’re playing on.  For example, on FanDuel, your entire roster locks when the first game for the slate (schedule of games) gets underway, whereas on DraftKings, players individually lock as their games begin.  But this is a golf guide, and we don’t have to worry about lock as much as the other guys.

ROSTERED

Another way to say you picked a given golfer.  When you “rostered” a player, you used him in a lineup.