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Does anyone on here make serious money off Fantasy? (1 Viewer)

E

Eminence

Footballguy
After winning my first championship for money last-year, I couldn't help but wonder how much money one could make off Fantasy Football?

Surely if I built 100 teams in the same mold as the championship team I had last year, my Championship success could have been replicated? My $50 buy-in turned into $350.

Surely my championship hit rate is at least 1 in 7, right?

Theoretically, if I had '7' $50 leagues and at least won '1' of them, I would profit.

$350 buy-in.

$350 return

But who's to say I couldn't have won two-Championships last-year?

$350 buy-in.

$700 return.

But you can stretch this out even further. Let's say you were in '50' $50 leagues.

Initial Investment: $2,500

0% Win Rate (0 out of 50): $2,500-

10% Win Rate (5 out of 50): $500-

20% Win Rate (10 out of 50): $1,000+

30% Win Rate (15 out of 50): $2,750+

40% Win Rate (20 out of 50): $4,500+

50% Win Rate (25 out of 50): $6,250+

If you win '1 in 5' of your leagues, you're guaranteed a profit. What is a realistic win percentage? I'd assume if given 50 drafts I could probably win 10 Championships.

Does anyone have any insight on this?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
You do realize that ANY winnings that total $600 or more per season is a taxable event...........

What benefit is there in sharing this kind of information on a public forum "If said type of winnings did actually exist"

 
Stewyfootballhead said:
You do realize that ANY winnings that total $600 or more per season is a taxable event...........

What benefit is there in sharing this kind of information on a public forum "If said type of winnings did actually exist"
Click to expand...
Maybe some people actually report their winnings to the IRS?

 
Eminence said:
After winning my first championship for money last-year, I couldn't help but wonder how much money one could make off Fantasy Football?

Surely if I built 100 teams in the same mold as the championship team I had last year, my Championship success could have been replicated? My $50 buy-in turned into $350.

Surely my championship hit rate is at least 1 in 7, right?

Theoretically, if I had '7' $50 leagues and at least won '1' of them, I would profit.

$350 buy-in.

$350 return

But who's to say I couldn't have won two-Championships last-year?

$350 buy-in.

$700 return.

But you can stretch this out even further. Let's say you were in '50' $50 leagues.

Initial Investment: $2,500

0% Win Rate (0 out of 50): $2,500-

10% Win Rate (5 out of 50): $500-

20% Win Rate (10 out of 50): $1,000+

30% Win Rate (15 out of 50): $2,750+

40% Win Rate (20 out of 50): $4,500+

50% Win Rate (25 out of 50): $6,250+

If you win '1 in 5' of your leagues, you're guaranteed a profit. What is a realistic win percentage? I'd assume if given 50 drafts I could probably win 10 Championships.

Does anyone have any insight on this?
Click to expand...
you can make the playoffs in fantasy on skill alone but it takes a lot of little lucky breaks to win it all

 
Eminence said:
What is a realistic win percentage? I'd assume if given 50 drafts I could probably win 10 Championships.
Click to expand...
I highly doubt that. Maybe once every few years.

If you spread your teams out, so you don't target similar players you are looking at a pretty standard 1 in 12 (or 10) chance. If you do target a lot of the same players, you are bound to get burned on a couple of them, ruining a lot of your teams. Once in a while you'll hit on most of them and win more than your share for that year, but it'll come close to balancing out. I would guess that even the best of FF'ers only make about 50% profit.

As pantherclub said earlier, there is a lot of luck involved, too.

 
You also have to take into account the competition. If you are on a FanDuel (for example) and join 10 leagues at $50 a pop, you chances of success are much worse than joining 10 work/neighborhood leagues for $50 each. While everyone is running to online contests, the truth is, they really attract the sharks. If you want to make money in this, you are best off hustling (like The Color of Money) a bunch of local/work/friend leagues as your odds of success are much greater when you are facing 1-2 sharks in a league versus 7-8. Don't get me wrong, I like playing against the best competition, but if you want to make $$, that is the way to do it.

In 1999, I was at a consulting firm, where the partners sponsored a high-stakes FF league ($1500 buy-in) and let the staff run their teams. Staff would get a good cut, and in the one year I was there (and ran a team) we won (unfortunately I left before I could collect the winnings). The Partner I played for won 10k and gave the guy who took over the last two games for me 2k of it...THAT is how you make money in this.

 
Just thinking about it logically, there are 2 ways one could make "serious" money playing traditional fantasy football (aside from the daily fantasy gambling websites).

1. Play in 50+ smaller money leagues ($50-$100 buy in or less) against mediocre competition. I could see this working but it would just be a ton of work to manage this many teams with waivers, setting lineups, fielding trade offers, etc. Just doesn't seem like a fun option and might not be all that realistic as it would be really hard to be even an average manager of your teams.

2. Play in a few big money leagues. The problem here is that you end up against really good competition and I suspect these leagues are really hard to win with any consistency.

 
Best way to make a profit in fantasy is to not play at all. Guaranteed to win the entry fee in every league.

Seriously though, to take fantasy football and make it strictly about gambling would ruin everything about it for me.

 
bengalbuck said:
Just thinking about it logically, there are 2 ways one could make "serious" money playing traditional fantasy football (aside from the daily fantasy gambling websites).

1. Play in 50+ smaller money leagues ($50-$100 buy in or less) against mediocre competition. I could see this working but it would just be a ton of work to manage this many teams with waivers, setting lineups, fielding trade offers, etc. Just doesn't seem like a fun option and might not be all that realistic as it would be really hard to be even an average manager of your teams.
Click to expand...
Fantasy football's tough because of the small number of weeks and the playoffs, which tend to randomize the final results. Rotisserie baseball, on the other hand, is far more consistent. I used to play in a number of the small-money public CBS leagues (so, against guppies) and would consistently win at least 2 out of 3 leagues. I did the same thing in FF, always made the playoffs but never actually won a league. I'd always lose one of my playoff games (and only the league winner gets paid in those leagues).

 
I've found that I make much more by consulting other owners. They pay me for my expert advice on line-up, add drops, etc.

 
Stewyfootballhead said:
You do realize that ANY winnings that total $600 or more per season is a taxable event...........

What benefit is there in sharing this kind of information on a public forum "If said type of winnings did actually exist"
Click to expand...
Umm, yeah, what he said. I definitely did not win over $600 in a league last year, and it certainly was not my third time to do so in 4 years.

 
Fantasy football is much harder and time consuming to win money with consistantly. There are of course ways to do it, but your best bet is going to be high stakes leagues against really good competition. Especially ones like the FFPC main event, where its all about taking chances. One high finish equals a typical decades worth of winnings.

If you're going to spend the time doing it though, baseball is a much more consistant money maker, especially auction roto leagues. They are far less prone to weekly production spikes and more dependent on accurate player projections and knowing the finer points of the minor leagues. Having a good draft strategy is so much more important than in football. It does need more attention during the year though

 
Stewyfootballhead said:
You do realize that ANY winnings that total $600 or more per season is a taxable event...........

What benefit is there in sharing this kind of information on a public forum "If said type of winnings did actually exist"
Click to expand...
:lmao:

 
i only play 2 leagues, but i never think about anything other than the winners trophy (not kidding). both are long time competive leagues that I would say most others involved would agree its all about being the champ :cool:

 
Sweet Love said:
You also have to take into account the competition. If you are on a FanDuel (for example) and join 10 leagues at $50 a pop, you chances of success are much worse than joining 10 work/neighborhood leagues for $50 each. While everyone is running to online contests, the truth is, they really attract the sharks. If you want to make money in this, you are best off hustling (like The Color of Money) a bunch of local/work/friend leagues as your odds of success are much greater when you are facing 1-2 sharks in a league versus 7-8. Don't get me wrong, I like playing against the best competition, but if you want to make $$, that is the way to do it.

In 1999, I was at a consulting firm, where the partners sponsored a high-stakes FF league ($1500 buy-in) and let the staff run their teams. Staff would get a good cut, and in the one year I was there (and ran a team) we won (unfortunately I left before I could collect the winnings). The Partner I played for won 10k and gave the guy who took over the last two games for me 2k of it...THAT is how you make money in this.
Click to expand...
For the last three years, I've been at about 54-55% when picking games against the spread. It's not enough to win money in Vegas, but it was more than enough for me to win my work pick 'em league three years running. :)

 
Dont forget that as you add multiple leagues, the time you can spend focusing on each one diminishes. Each league is different, so it becomes much harder to know who is on waivers or what trades you might be able to make as your number of league increases. Your overall success rate will take a hit as you increase your number of leagues. For your plan, its probably better to focus on a smaller number of big money leagues.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I had three glory years, where a Wall Street guy brought me in to co-manage his teams. He was in four leagues, each with a buy-in of three grand plus. He had never finished in the money, and was getting unmercifully teased about it. He couldn't have cared less about the money, and paid all fees, and split any winnings. We won at least one of the leagues every year, and I averaged 10 grand in compensation.

These leagues were not serious, just serious money. It wasn't worth it for these guys to do a hundred dollar league, which the level of player probably called for in a normal world. The drafts were held in steakhouses normally, starting with shots of Sambuca. When these guys draft this season, none of them will draft Sudfeld, and half of them will think Boldin is still with Baltimore. It's that kind of league.

Each league generally had one or maaaaybe two owners that I would think, 'this guy knows his stuff'. And if I had posted the rosters, everyone would have asked if I enjoyed playing with 10-year-olds.

Even with playing with soft competition, we barely won titles at a 33% clip, a percentage that would probably go down over time.

Last year, in one of my leagues, David Wilson and Moreno were the #4 and #5 RBs. If some team had rolled out Maclin, Lloyd and James Jone as their WRs, they would have killed it. The amount of luck needed to win three weeks in a row, against other playoff teams, just cannot be matched by having the best players.

Best chance to do something like this, IMO, is to get into 10-15 soft leagues with high entry fees, hopefully weekly payouts and payouts for total points leader at the end of the year. Problem is, soft and casual leagues don't like what they perceive as ringers, and you cannot guarantee that they don't boot you out,or improve themselves.

 
massraider said:
I had three glory years, where a Wall Street guy brought me in to co-manage his teams. He was in four leagues, each with a buy-in of three grand plus. He had never finished in the money, and was getting unmercifully teased about it. He couldn't have cared less about the money, and paid all fees, and split any winnings. We won at least one of the leagues every year, and I averaged 10 grand in compensation.

These leagues were not serious, just serious money. It wasn't worth it for these guys to do a hundred dollar league, which the level of player probably called for in a normal world. The drafts were held in steakhouses normally, starting with shots of Sambuca. When these guys draft this season, none of them will draft Sudfeld, and half of them will think Boldin is still with Baltimore. It's that kind of league.

Each league generally had one or maaaaybe two owners that I would think, 'this guy knows his stuff'. And if I had posted the rosters, everyone would have asked if I enjoyed playing with 10-year-olds.

Even with playing with soft competition, we barely won titles at a 33% clip, a percentage that would probably go down over time.

Last year, in one of my leagues, David Wilson and Moreno were the #4 and #5 RBs. If some team had rolled out Maclin, Lloyd and James Jone as their WRs, they would have killed it. The amount of luck needed to win three weeks in a row, against other playoff teams, just cannot be matched by having the best players.

Best chance to do something like this, IMO, is to get into 10-15 soft leagues with high entry fees, hopefully weekly payouts and payouts for total points leader at the end of the year. Problem is, soft and casual leagues don't like what they perceive as ringers, and you cannot guarantee that they don't boot you out,or improve themselves.
Click to expand...
Hmm... Maybe I need to start pimping myself out as a FF consultant...

 
Grigs Allmoon said:
massraider said:
I had three glory years, where a Wall Street guy brought me in to co-manage his teams. He was in four leagues, each with a buy-in of three grand plus. He had never finished in the money, and was getting unmercifully teased about it. He couldn't have cared less about the money, and paid all fees, and split any winnings. We won at least one of the leagues every year, and I averaged 10 grand in compensation.

These leagues were not serious, just serious money. It wasn't worth it for these guys to do a hundred dollar league, which the level of player probably called for in a normal world. The drafts were held in steakhouses normally, starting with shots of Sambuca. When these guys draft this season, none of them will draft Sudfeld, and half of them will think Boldin is still with Baltimore. It's that kind of league.

Each league generally had one or maaaaybe two owners that I would think, 'this guy knows his stuff'. And if I had posted the rosters, everyone would have asked if I enjoyed playing with 10-year-olds.

Even with playing with soft competition, we barely won titles at a 33% clip, a percentage that would probably go down over time.

Last year, in one of my leagues, David Wilson and Moreno were the #4 and #5 RBs. If some team had rolled out Maclin, Lloyd and James Jone as their WRs, they would have killed it. The amount of luck needed to win three weeks in a row, against other playoff teams, just cannot be matched by having the best players.

Best chance to do something like this, IMO, is to get into 10-15 soft leagues with high entry fees, hopefully weekly payouts and payouts for total points leader at the end of the year. Problem is, soft and casual leagues don't like what they perceive as ringers, and you cannot guarantee that they don't boot you out,or improve themselves.
Click to expand...
Hmm... Maybe I need to start pimping myself out as a FF consultant...
Click to expand...
Yeah, I wouldn't call myself a guru by any means. I would say in my leagues, I am usually a good bet to make the playoffs, that's all. I played in a league with Mr. Moneybags' brother, and that's how I was introduced. This guy didn't vet me, or check my credentials, it was, hey, I suck at this, co-manage my teams, and I will split the winnings, just to I can talk trash to these jerkys.

 
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