We often get asked the question from first-time readers, how to play Moneyball daily fantasy contests?
Once you’ve created your Moneyball account it’s time to head to the contest lobby and find the event that’s right for you.
The Moneyball lobby (see below) is where you can filter through sports and contest types that are on offer. You can see below that we’ve decided to select ‘NBA’ and ‘All Contests’.
From this screen you can see the prize pools on offer, what the entry fee is and how many spots are left in the contest.
You can click on the contest you are interested in to get more information such as what games it covers, when it starts, rules, prize money and the scoring system that will apply. See below for an example.
For arguments sake, we’ll go ahead and select the NBA $5,000 Thursday Monster which is a featured contest where the prize money will go to only those towards the top of the leaderboard.
There are some events you can filter for that are what they call ‘Double-Ups’ whereby you are essentially playing to double your money. The top 45% on the leaderboard double their money, while the rest lose their cash.
Let’s go ahead and take a look at how we put together our NBA tournament lineup.
Here’s where we get to select our NBA players.
We’ve got 9 open roster spots that you can see on the right of screen above. You can also see that the starting salary is $60,000.
So we’ve got approximately $6,600 to spend on each player.
You’ll notice that above there are a lot of players at the Power Forward position priced above $6,600. If you want to play those guys it will mean we also need to find some cheaper players ($6,600 and below) to balance out the roster and fit under the salary cap.
You can add a player to your roster by simply clicking the + symbol to the right of their name.
You can also click on each player to bring up statistics and news that will help you decide who to play (see below).
Now it is time for you to build out your roster. Select the players you think represent the best value on that given day of games. Remember, this is DAILY fantasy sports. You draft a new squad every single day and only need to project player performance for one game.
You can see below that the sample squad we’ve put together fits under the salary cap and we have just $300 remaining. We recommend using as much of your salary cap as you can. Generally speaking, the higher priced players are priced that way for a reason, they will score the most points!
Once you are happy with your lineup then it’s time to hit the green ‘ENTER’ button below your lineup.
The contests close (no more changes) shortly before the start of the first game of the contest.
If you can, check back in before the start of your contest to make sure there are no late lineup changes.
You can see in the image above some players have a red O next to their name which means they are not playing.
You’ll also notice that confirmed starters have a green S next to their names to make it easy to know who’s going to play.
Once the contest begins you can check how your lineup is going by clicking the ‘LIVE’ button in your Moneyball menu bar (see above).
With some luck (and plenty of skill) you’ll soar up the leaderboard and win yourself some cash.
There are lots of different types of Moneyball contests covering a variety of Sports. Over the next few weeks we will cover each type in more detail.
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