DFS glossary
The words DFS players use, explained in plain English.
- ADP
- Average draft position: where a player is typically drafted across many drafts. In best ball, ADP tells you when a player is likely to be available and where value sits. Best ball tools
- Bankroll
- The money you set aside only for DFS. Sound bankroll management keeps any single day's entries to a small share of it so a cold streak doesn't end your season. Bankroll and results trackers
- Best ball
- A draft-only format: you draft a full roster once, never set lineups, and your highest-scoring players count automatically each week. Large best ball tournaments pay out based on season-long and playoff-week scores. Best ball tools
- Boom/bust
- How often a player scores far above or far below his projection. High-boom players suit tournaments; steady players suit cash games.
- Bring-back
- In an NFL stack, a player from the opposing team added to your quarterback and his receivers, betting on a high-scoring game on both sides.
- Captain
- The boosted slot in single-game contests. On DraftKings the Captain scores 1.5 times the points at 1.5 times the salary; FanDuel's MVP slot also boosts scoring, with multipliers that vary by sport.
- Cash game
- A contest where roughly half the field wins a fixed prize, such as 50/50s, double-ups and head-to-heads. Cash games reward consistency over upside.
- Ceiling
- A player's realistic best-case score, often the 85th or 90th percentile outcome. Tournament lineups are built for ceilings. Projections
- Chalk
- The most popular players on a slate. Playing chalk is fine in cash games; in tournaments, too much chalk makes your lineup look like everyone else's. Ownership projections
- Contrarian
- Choosing low-owned players or unusual builds so that if they hit, few opponents share your result.
- Correlation
- When players' scores rise and fall together, like a quarterback and his receivers. Correlated lineups have higher variance, which helps in tournaments. Simulators
- Double-up
- A cash game where about 45% of entries double their entry fee.
- Exposure
- The percentage of your lineups that include a given player. Multi-entry players cap exposure to manage risk. Lineup management tools
- Fade
- Deliberately leaving a popular player out of your lineups.
- Fifty-fifty (50/50)
- A cash game where nearly half the field wins about 1.8 times the entry fee.
- Flex play
- A pick'em entry that still pays something when one or two picks miss, at lower multipliers than a power play.
- Floor
- A player's realistic worst-case score. High-floor players are the backbone of cash-game lineups. Projections
- Game stack
- Several players from the same game, usually both teams, to capture a shootout.
- GPP
- Guaranteed prize pool: a tournament with a fixed prize pool regardless of entries, top-heavy payouts and typically about 20% of the field cashing.
- Head-to-head (H2H)
- A one-on-one contest against a single opponent; the higher score wins.
- Hedge
- Placing other entries or bets that offset an existing position to reduce risk.
- Implied team total
- The number of points sportsbooks expect a team to score, derived from the spread and over/under. A quick way to find offenses in good spots.
- Late swap
- Changing players in your lineup whose games haven't started yet after earlier games lock. Essential when news breaks late. Lineup management tools
- Leverage
- How much a player's chance of a big game exceeds his ownership. Positive leverage players help you separate from the field in tournaments. Ownership projections
- Lineup optimizer
- Software that builds the highest-projected lineups under a salary cap from your projections and rules, often hundreds at once. Lineup optimizers
- Lock
- The moment a game starts and its players can no longer be changed in your lineup.
- Max entry
- The maximum number of lineups one person can enter in a contest, such as 150 in large GPPs.
- Min-cash
- Finishing just inside the paying positions of a tournament, usually returning about double the entry fee.
- Multi-entry
- Entering many lineups into the same contest. Large-field players typically spread exposure across 20 to 150 lineups.
- No-vig odds
- Sportsbook odds with the bookmaker's margin removed, giving a fair estimate of each side's probability. Pick'em players compare these to fixed pick'em payouts. Odds screens and +EV tools
- Ownership
- The percentage of lineups in a contest that roster a player. Projected ownership is estimated before lock; actual ownership is published after. Ownership projections
- Peer-to-peer pick'em
- Pick'em where entries compete against other players' entries and the prize pool comes from entry fees, instead of a fixed payout table against the house. Many operators moved to this format in 2025 for regulatory reasons.
- Pick'em
- A fantasy format where you pick more or less on player stat projections and win a multiple of your entry if enough picks hit.
- Pivot
- Swapping a popular player for a similarly priced, less popular one with comparable upside.
- Points per dollar
- Projected fantasy points per $1,000 of salary, the standard measure of value in salary-cap DFS.
- Power play
- A pick'em entry that pays only if every pick hits, at the highest multiplier.
- Prediction market
- An exchange where you buy yes/no contracts on outcomes, including sports results and player stats. Sports prediction markets are federally regulated by the CFTC and contested by several states.
- Projection
- An estimate of a player's fantasy points on a given slate, the starting input for lineup decisions. Projections
- Punt
- A very cheap player used to free salary for stars elsewhere in the lineup.
- Rake
- The share of entry fees the operator keeps. A contest with $100,000 in entries and $87,000 in prizes has a 13% rake.
- Salary cap
- The total budget for a lineup. Each player has a salary, and the lineup must fit under the cap.
- Showdown
- A single-game contest with a Captain or MVP slot, run by DraftKings and FanDuel for most NFL, NBA and other primetime games.
- Simulation
- Playing a slate out thousands of times with correlated random outcomes to estimate how lineups perform against a field. Simulators
- Slate
- The set of games included in a contest, such as the main Sunday NFL slate.
- Stack
- Multiple players from the same team, most often a quarterback with his pass catchers, so their scores rise together.
- Value
- A player who scores well relative to salary, usually measured as points per $1,000. Also used for cheap players expected to exceed their price.
- Variance
- How widely results swing around the average. Tournament play accepts high variance; cash games try to reduce it.