Welcome to The Fake Sharp newsletter- a newsletter about sports betting, DFS, and Best Ball in 1,000 words or less.

Here is what we’re serving up today:

• The Future of Best Ball

• Debunking Best Ball Myths

• Plays + Fades

The Future of Best Ball

Takeaways:

• Mega Growth. Best Ball Mania launched by Underdog started with a contest with a million dollar prize pool with a top prize of $200,000. Now we have a The Big Board with the same prize pool and structure that is going to fill before the NFL Draft.

• Best Ball is still in the early stages. There will be a lot of change. Tools like SpikeWeek are still improving and contests will evolve. When people are talking about fantasy, most sites are now quoting direct ADPs from Underdog Fantasy.

• The format is GREAT. The tournament component and groupings in playoff rounds deliver a great sweat for the users drafting teams. Even without the playoff format, cumulative scoring sites like Drafters make for a great alternative to season long leagues. Best Ball highlights the best parts of fantasy - “Drafting your teams, sweating them out, and hopefully winning money.” You don’t have to deal with waiver wires and lame trade offers, or deciding who to sit and start on a weekly basis.

• More upside than your season long league. You can draft a $5 team and win $100,000- $1,000,000. You can win money in your home league, but your upside is capped.

• Contest sizing will be something to keep an eye on. In some of the playoff rounds, you feel like your team is a dead going against a lot of other teams. We might see more contest offerings like single entry, three entry max, and high-stakes tournaments that might offer smaller and more fun playoff rounds. This may lead to improvements in payout structures.

• The potential customer base and user segment is way higher for Best Ball than DFS. Not as many want to deal with salaries and optimizers. Most people are already familiar with snake drafts. Erik is bullish on Best Ball but bearish on battle royals and daily draft contests.

• The impact of creators and influencers. Content producers and tools are providing a great boost to the ecosystem. Live streaming drafts are more interesting than talking through DFS slates. The tools are still really early. Building smart tools and content will be huge for the space.

• The variance is off the charts. It is incredibly difficult to project or simulate an entire NFL season. It’s much easier to simulate player performance for single or weekly games.

Sam’s thread on Debunking Best Ball Myths

Key Takeaways:

Myth #1: You should treat the FLEX position essentially like your WR4 spot - it's optimal to fill the FLEX with a WR.

Fact #1: RB/WRs each "fill" the FLEX roughly equally, with RBs actually filling the FLEX more often than WRs (46% vs. 38%).

Myth #2: WRs are inherently more volatile than the RB position - you see more frequent massive spike weeks from WRs.

Fact #2: RB/WRs have ~equal numbers of major spikes; RBs are more likely to give you major spikes because less are drafted on average.

Myth #3: Huge WR scores are more predictable - you should take WRs early because it's much easier to find spikes from RBs late.

Fact #3: Top 12 RBs by ADP make up a higher % of spikes than do Top 12 WRs; RB2s and WR2s are ~equal in delivering spikes.

Best ball tourneys are a weekly game. You should build teams that give you the highest weekly ceiling in half-PPR Let's look at the data and be honest about it - early RBs are at least equivalent (probably slightly better!) than early WRs in offering tournament winning upside.

The Best Place to Find Sports Betting Jobs

BettingRoles.com is the industry’s largest job board and includes some of the best companies like Underdog Fantasy, Fanduel, and Draftkings.

They have plenty of tools to help you get your search started. Some cool features include:

• New Job Alerts

• Apply Directly

• Easy-to-access list of favorite jobs

That’s a wrap for today. If you enjoyed today’s newsletter be sure to share it and follow us on our socials for more info.