What Is Daily Fantasy Football? Classic vs. Showdown Explained

Daily fantasy sports (DFS) takes the idea of season-long fantasy football and compresses it into a single slate of games. Instead of drafting a team in August and managing it for four months, you build a new lineup for each slate, and your score is based only on how those players perform in those games.

This guide covers the basics: how a contest is structured, the two main NFL formats, and the contest types you will run into. If you are brand new, start here before reading the strategy articles.

How a DFS contest works

Every DFS lineup is built under a salary cap. Each player has a salary set by the site, and the total salary of your lineup cannot exceed the cap. Better and more reliable players cost more, so the core skill is deciding where to spend and where to save.

Players earn fantasy points for real statistics: passing, rushing and receiving yards, touchdowns, receptions, and so on. Defenses earn points for sacks, turnovers, touchdowns and holding opponents to low scores. When the games finish, your lineup's total is compared with every other lineup in the contest, and prizes are paid according to that contest's payout table.

A slate is the set of games a contest covers. The Sunday main slate usually includes every early and late afternoon game. Smaller slates cover just the night games or a single game.

The classic format

Classic is the standard multi-game format. On both DraftKings and FanDuel, a classic NFL lineup has nine roster spots: one quarterback, two running backs, three wide receivers, one tight end, one FLEX (a running back, wide receiver or tight end) and one team defense.

DraftKings uses a $50,000 salary cap for classic NFL, and FanDuel uses $60,000. The cap is not directly comparable between sites, because salaries are scaled to each site's own cap. What matters is the relative cost of players within a single slate.

Because a main slate can include ten or more games, classic contests offer a huge number of possible lineups. That variety is a big part of why large tournaments are hard to win: thousands of entrants can build thousands of different lineups.

The showdown format

Showdown contests use a single game. On DraftKings, a showdown lineup has six spots: one Captain and five FLEX players. Any position can go in any spot, including kickers and team defenses. The Captain scores 1.5 times their fantasy points but also costs 1.5 times their normal salary. Your lineup must include players from both teams.

FanDuel's single-game format works on a similar idea with an MVP slot that scores 1.5 times its fantasy points. Rules and roster sizes change from time to time, so always read the contest rules on the site before you enter.

With only one game to pick from, showdown lineups overlap far more than classic lineups. The decisions that matter most are who you choose as Captain or MVP and how you think the game will play out. We cover that in our showdown strategy guide.

Contest types at a glance

• Tournaments (GPPs): large fields with top-heavy payouts. A small share of entries earn most of the prize pool.
• Cash games: 50/50s and double-ups, where roughly the top half of the field is paid the same amount, and head-to-head contests against one opponent.
• Single-entry and limited-entry: each person can enter once, or a small number of times (for example 3 or 20).
• Max-entry: contests that allow up to 150 entries per person, where building a varied set of lineups becomes its own skill.

Where DFS is available

Paid daily fantasy contests are not legal in every state, and the rules change. Minimum age also varies: 18 in many states and higher in others. DraftKings and FanDuel check your location before letting you enter paid contests. Check the laws where you live, and the operator's own eligibility rules, before you play.

Where a lineup optimizer fits in

Building one lineup by hand is manageable. Building twenty or a hundred and fifty, while keeping track of salaries, stacks and how often each player appears, is not. A lineup optimizer takes your projections and rules and does the combinatorial work, so you can spend your time on the decisions: which games you expect to score, which players you are higher or lower on than the field, and how much risk you want to take.

An optimizer does not remove the uncertainty of football. Injuries, weather and a single long touchdown can change a slate. Use any tool as a way to put your own views into practice faster and more consistently, not as a promise of results.