It’s time to set your daily fantasy baseball lineups for Opening Day. And now there’s one other solution to do it.
DraftKings is rolling out its single-game daily fantasy sportsbook product — Showdown — for Main League Baseball. FanDuel additionally launched single-game contests for the primary day of the season.
The video games are a twist on related merchandise at DraftKings and FanDuel for NFL and NBA; they’re fantasy contests primarily based on single real-world video games. Showdown at DraftKings attracted 1.4 million entries for the Tremendous Bowl, in response to the corporate.
Showdown for MLB
The gameplay for Showdown pretty easy: It’s a salary-cap contest, very similar to DraftKings has run all through its existence. However it’s just for particular person video games all through the season.
The primary one will likely be primarily based on Thursday’s sport between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers that begins at 7:10 p.m. Japanese. FanDuel can also be doing a contest primarily based on that sport.
DraftKings is placing much more inventory within the product early on. FanDuel’s greatest contest is USD15,000 assured. DraftKings, in the meantime, has two contests guaranteeing USD30,000 every and 7 guaranteeing a minimum of USD15,000.
For Showdown, entrants choose a lineup of six “flex” gamers (hitters and pitchers) from that sport primarily based on preset salaries for these gamers. At FanDuel, you choose 5 gamers: an MVP (that participant’s factors depend 1.5x regular scoring) an infielder, an outfielder, after which any two hitters.
Showdown will likely be out there for many Sunday Night time Baseball matchups and different key video games all through the season.
Showdown idea labored for DraftKings with NFL
DraftKings started the Showdown concept through the NFL playoffs this 12 months, and FanDuel has additionally been doing single-game contests ever since.
The idea for NFL works in the same method at DraftKings: Every entry should embrace one offensive participant from each groups. Lineups consist of 4 offensive gamers and two defensive gamers who rack up factors for touchdowns, tackles and rather more.
There is also a daily fantasy basketball model of the sport on the two websites functioning with related guidelines.
Showdown’s single-game idea seems to stroll as much as the authorized line on efficiency not being primarily based on the outcomes for a person athlete or crew. It narrows the main focus to at least one sport whereas together with a number of groups and athletes.
Whereas quite a lot of state-level DFS legal guidelines make clear the legality of those contests, the federal Illegal Web Playing Enforcement Act maintains that fantasy contests should include “a number of real-world sporting or different occasions.” At this level, it’s clear that DFS operators now consider the “occasions” the UIGEA is referring to can come inside single video games.