Getting Started with Fantasy Sports in 2024
With sports events returning to the airwaves, it’s the perfect time to get involved in fantasy sports betting. A favourite of sports fans for giving them the chance to get involved in the action, keep up with sports, and to make their own decisions as if they were a team manager, and most importantly – win prizes and bets over the course of the series. But how’s the best way to leverage this for betting at online casinos and at home? We’ve taken a dive into the world of fantasy sports to advise you on how to make the most of it.
Getting Started
We suggest that you get started by picking your favourite sport – or if you feel like a challenge, try out another kind of sport that you aren’t as familiar with to get into it! The most important thing is that you know the basics of how that sport works, including the season and tournament format, the major teams/players, and who’s going to be playing who like the competition goes on. This lets you make your picks of players to assemble your all-star winning team.
You can select all sorts of different fantasy sports, including from the MLB, the NHL, NFL, PGA, and even NASCAR and esports. What's important is that you pick a sport you can keep up with, either for the entire season or in shorter bursts, like for a few games.
Some of the best fantasy sports sites will offer you fantasy sports bonuses - some of these are in the form of deposit bonuses, and some of them even offer free cash. This is super helpful when starting to play, as it can increase your stake and your potential wins! Just be sure to always read the terms and conditions before you opt into a promotion like this.
Building Your Team
It’s pretty basic to get started, even if you’re not super familiar with sports or the sport in question! Once you’ve picked one you’d like to play on, you just have to register at a good online fantasy sports casino. When you’ve finished this, pick your team, and start selecting your player roster by drafting players in.
This will give you your starting team. This team will carry you through the season – so pick wisely, based on their salary and performance! You will usually start off with a salary cap of a certain amount, and this is your "budget" for drafting players. Keep an eye on it, and compare it with your knowledge of the players and the sport!
Playing Fantasy Sports
So, you’ve registered, made a team…now what? As the players of your team progress through the corresponding real-life sports tournament, your team will begin to earn points. These points will push you through the competition as you compete with other players on the website or app.
Much like in real sports, get the most points and you will win. Not bad! The basis on which you can win back money is usually on a percentage. So you will need to be in the top X% of players to win back an amount of the total prize pool. This changes depending on which sport or which casino is reviewed, so be sure to read the terms and conditions before you play.
Do I Have to Follow the Whole Season?
Not necessarily! Many fantasy sports sites offer the option for daily fantasy sports. These involve making a team or using your existing one, to see how they fare over the course of a single game or multiples. It doesn’t need to extend to the entire season. It’s best to shop around and see which site offers you this option.
How do I Win at Fantasy Sports?
In fantasy sports, if your team or players win – you win too! You can buy into a cash season following your local US gambling laws, and if your players get in the payout zone, then you will receive cash winnings. This means that your players have to earn enough points to push you into the upper percentage of competing players.
There are also tournaments and Guaranteed Prize Pool formats, whereby a player gets a percentage of the prize pool no matter where they score (so long as they hit the payout zone threshold), and it’s proportionally divided depending on how they scored. In GPP formats, this is always a minimum amount, only increasing as more players join. This offers the best return to players, overall.
Sounds good? We think so! With the return of sporting events and all of your favourite leagues, we’d recommend that you check out the available selections to get started.
Fact-checked by Julia Attard
Senior Author & Online Casino Expert
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