FanDuel

Game Offerings

FanDuel has been one of the Daily Fantasy Sports industry leader for as long as one could be. FanDuel is a customer-friendly Mecca for daily fantasy sports players, offering a variety of game offerings and a community experience not found at other sites. FanDuel offers daily games for all the sports you want: NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and more. For game types, not only does Fan Duel offer Heads Up contests, 5 Player contests and 10 Player contests regularly, but you’ll also find a variety of customizable, Private contests floating around the chat box, and buy-ins ranging from $1 to $25,000. All of those offerings are great, but on top of that, FanDuel gets a big boost in their review for the amazing Large-Field Contests (GPPs) they offer! On any given day you will find a ton of Large-Field contests offered, all with large guaranteed prizepools (up to $1,000,000, sometimes more), with many Large-Field offered each and every day! From the standpoint of size of userbase, FanDuel and Draftkings are ahead of the competition, and this review has lots of good things to say about the site. The Fanduel community is vast. There are a ton of users actively logged into FanDuel’s Chat Box that appears on every page of the site!

Software and Interface

Absolutley awesome! The website is very simple, clean, and easy to navigate – and it is packed full of features that have helped shape the industry. Newer players love the site because it is so easy to pick-up and and accustomed to, while experienced players love the site because of how well it attracts new players (and because of the excellent scoring interface)! The draft room is simple and functions rapidly and smoothly. You can quickly create a lineup, and port it to as many leagues as you’d like. Your My Account screen then makes it easy to track all of those leagues at once, all while chatting with the large and loyal community in the sidebar. This ability to track, play and discuss games so easily and fluidly in a friendly environment, gives FanDuel that huge intangible benefit that you will struggle to find elsewhere.

As FanDuel grows, so do their features. In addition to the FanDuel community, there’s also a Forums section and competitive Leaderboards to check out how you stack up against the competition. These add to the fun and interactive experience that most sites don’t offer.

Excellent Mobile experience. If you have a smart phone, you can ‘grind’ on the go. No site is able to earn a 10 in Software/Interface without a quality mobile offering, and that FanDuel has.

Roster, Rules, and Scoring

Fanduel has an odd salary value for players, which makes for a roster generally filled with players of a variety of skill levels, but with some overlap. The salaries don’t update quickly enough. I actually view this as a good thing and don’t understand why it bothers others.

The Rules of FanDuel are very simple. It is far too simple for sports like MLB where there are only 4 categories that count towards pitching but other than that, they are solid.

Customer Service

I’ll keep this simple. Fanduel has one of the best customer service departments in the industry. You’ll see what i mean.

Rake

Fanduel charges a consistent 10% Rake up to their $50 games. For games of $100 and higher the rake is slightly lower. Take a look at the chart below. This is by far the biggest issue we take in this review of FanDuel, with an otherwise extraordinary site. It’s hard to fault them, as they are currently the industry leader, but it would be nice to see them take a step towards ensuring the long-term profitability of the users on their site. Below is a table with their Buy-In to Prizepool ratio:

H2H Rakes

FanDuel H2HTotal Buy-InsTotal PrizesRake %
$1$2$1.8010.0%
$2$4$3.6010.0%
$5$10$910.0%
$10$20$1810.0%
$25$50$4510.0%
$50$100$9010.0%
$109$218$2008.3%
$270$540$5007.4%
$535$1,070$1,0006.5%

10-Man League Rakes

FanDuel 10-ManTotal Buy-InsTotal PrizesRake %
$1$10$910.0%
$2$20$1810.0%
$5$50$4510.0%
$10$100$9010.0%
$25$250$22510.0%
$50$500$45010.0%
$109$1,090$1,0008.3%
$270$2,700$2,5007.4%

GPP Rakes

Note: These are based on NFL 2012 GPPs

FanDuel GPPsTotal Buy-InsTotal PrizesRake %
$1$2,790$2,50010.4%
$2$5,580$5,00010.4%
$5$11,175$10,00010.5%
$10$22,350$20,00010.5%
$25$55,750$50,00010.3%
$100$22,000$20,0009.1%
$270$10,800$10,0007.4%
$535$21,400$20,0006.5%