Daily fantasy sports — or DFS — remains one of the most popular formats of fantasy sports competitions in the world. Even as legalized sports betting continues to rise in popularity, DFS has maintained a solid presence thanks to the continually innovating sites and apps within the industry.
Interested in joining the millions of people who play some form of daily fantasy each year? Well, first you need to understand what DFS is, the different kinds of daily fantasy contests, and how to play.
Let's dive into the world of daily fantasy sports, teach you the basics about playing each different format, and list the best apps and sites to play DFS.
What are daily fantasy sports?
At its core, daily fantasy sports are just fantasy sports but are conducted over a much shorter period than traditional season-long fantasy leagues.
The majority of DFS contests in basketball, baseball, and college sports are one-day contests. Many NFL DFS contests span a whole weekend, but the most popular ones tend to be Sunday afternoon contests or primetime showdowns.
Several disciplines of daily fantasy sports competitions exist, typically broken down into one of two categories: cash games or guaranteed prize pool (GPP). Cash games reward 1-3 winners atop the contest, much like season-long fantasy leagues. GPPs reward a larger percentage of the contest or tournament, usually diluting the top prizes a bit more.
DFS contests usually follow salary cap formats, in which players are allotted a maximum budget to spend on players for their team, represented as either play money or points. Each athlete comes at their own cost, with elite athletes yielding the pricier costs and lesser-known role players coming cheaper.
Other DFS formats don't include salary caps but rather snake drafts, tier systems, auctions, pick'em formats, or higher/lower and more/less props.
How to play daily Fantasy sports
To play daily fantasy sports, you will want to choose an app or site that you like and download it to your phone or simply join on your computer. You can then deposit money — typically with a first-time deposit bonus gifted by the site — and then pick a contest that feels like your speed and enter.
You will then typically draft and submit a lineup to compete against other DFS users' lineups in the contest. This is your roster, the team of players that you will have competing for you through their statistical production.
From there, you can track your team once the players in your lineup start playing in their scheduled games. You can follow your players' performances online, on your mobile app or the website, and/or on TV as you watch their games.
You can also check the standings in your tournament or contest. Then, when the final game within the contest has concluded, you can see how your team fared and whether or not you finished "in the money."
Different kinds of DFS
Salary cap
Salary cap contests, the OG format of DFS, allow users to assemble a team by drafting players through a salary system. The players are all assigned set values, and you must acquire a certain amount of players to field a team while staying under the salary cap allotment.
Snake drafts
Snake drafts follow the most popular version of season-long fantasy drafts. A group of DFS users will be randomly assigned a pick number, and the earliest to pick in the first round will be the latest to pick in the second round. At the end of every round, the draft "snakes" or "serpentines" back the same way it came from to ensure parity and fairness.
Multiplier mode
Draft any player you want for your team. But, the catch is that the star players yield low multiplier bonuses, while the average to below-average players yield high multipliers. This type of game is perfect for fans of sleepers and high-upside dark-horse players.
Multiplier prop contests
Multiplier prop contests involve picking whether a player or players will go over or under a set amount of a stat. With multiplier contests, the more props you pick, the larger your potential payout if and when you get them all right.
Just like with parlay betting, correctly guessing on a bunch of projected props is like cracking a massive numeric code. It's hard! Therefore, the larger prop parlays come with massive payout multipliers.
Champion mode, Captain mode, or MVP mode
This mode typically follows a salary cap or multiplier system, in which flex players cost their normal amount but champion, captains, or MVPs cost more but also yield a much higher level of production thanks to boosts, percentage increases, or higher multipliers.
Super 15
In this game mode on SuperDraft, users are given a set $15 budget to draft their lineups based on designated salaries attached to each player.
More/Less props
These are prop games that task users with picking whether a player will finish with MORE or LESS than a certain stat projection. If you pick every stat prop correctly, your payout will be multiplied by whichever multiplier pairs with the amount you guessed.
Matchup props
Some DFS prop contests involve matchups, in which you must pick which player out of the two finishes with more of a certain statistical category.
Combo props
Many DFS sites feature combo props, in which you must guess whether a grouping of 2-3 players will finish with more or less than a certain statistical amount.
Strategies for playing DFS
Balanced roster
Many DFS users swear by creating a balanced roster that will provide a solid production floor in various stat categories, especially in GPP contests that guarantee a prize to the top 50 percent of the contest pool.
Stars and scrubs
Some DFS users love spending up on high-priced stars and then filling in cheap sleepers at the bottom end of their roster. This is a high-risk but high-reward strategy that can be very exciting when it works but extremely frustrating when it fails miserably.
Punting or tanking certain stats
In some DFS draft formats, it can make sense to punt or tank certain stats so that you can dominate the vast majority of the other stats. The idea is to disregard one weakness to guarantee great strength in many other categories.
Best apps and where to play DFS
Here are the best and most popular DFS sites in 2024-25:
DraftKings
If you're looking for traditional salary cap DFS, DraftKings remains the undisputed heavyweight champion. DK offers the biggest prize pools and highest payouts in the industry, solid scoring systems, performance bonuses, and even a rewards system for users who play frequently.
On top of all that, DraftKings' site and app are both state-of-the-art in terms of aesthetics and usability. And the selection of formats continues to expand as interest continues to grow. DK now offers Best Ball, snake drafts, tiers, superflex, and survivor contests. It's the creme de la creme of the DFS world.
FanDuel
If DraftKings is Muhammed Ali, FanDuel is Joe Louis. One of the original DFS sites, FD remains a major power player of the industry. Anything you could want in terms of DFS and fantasy, FanDuel offers it. It has an attractive but functional site and app, a great selection of contests, and massive prize pools.
In many ways, FanDuel offers even more selection across even more sports than DraftKings. FD continues expanding its horizons and hitting the ball out of the proverbial DFS ballpark – and if not tied for best, it's arguably no lower than 1b to DK's 1a.
SuperDraft
A lesser-known rising star in the DFS universe, SuperDraft offers several unique twists to traditional daily fantasy contests. Its jackpot games offer large payouts but always guarantee a winner, and its DFS games don't involve a salary cap but instead feature varying multipliers or points boosts (pick everyone you want, every time!). For anyone maxed out on salary cap-style contests, SuperDraft is 100 percent worth checking out.
PrizePicks
Another untraditional site rising in popularity over the past few years, PrizePicks offers pick'em DFS games and countless "more or less" props across a vast number of sports and leagues. PrizePicks also offers various referral code bonuses, special promotions multiple times per week, and other user perks rarely found on other major sites.
Underdog Fantasy
Underdog would be even higher on this list if it was "best apps" instead of "best sites." Still, it's a top-five DFS site in the industry, and like PrizePicks it continues to rise in popularity for its unique spin on DFS offerings. Underdog serves as one of the most dominant sites for alternative DFS drafting like Best Ball, Battle Royale, and Pick 'em.
Sleeper Fantasy and Yahoo Sports
Sleeper and Yahoo have emerged as two of the premier names in fantasy, mostly for their season-long fantasy football. However, they have also proved to be strong presences in the DFS industry.
Sleeper pick'em contests offer payouts up to 100 times the entry fee, and its continually evolving site rivals many of the perennial powerhouses in terms of aesthetics and navigability. Yahoo offers more run-of-the-mill DFS contests, often at a higher volume thanks to the sheer size and history behind the Yahoo brand.