California DFS Apps: Best Promos, Strategies, and More to Kick Off Football Season

Today is an excellent day for California sports fans to prepare their daily fantasy sports (DFS) lineups and claim the bonuses at top California DFS apps.

College football kicked off with an awesome Week 1 slate of games. And in the NFL, the Los Angeles Rams open their title defense against the Bills on opening night. Why not place Heisman hopeful Caleb Williams in a FanDuel DFS lineup? Or maybe you prefer stacking Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford with wide receiver Cooper Kupp to take advantage of the full point-per-reception scoring at DraftKings DFS.

That’s a lot of information to take in, and we’re going to cover it in more detail throughout our California DFS primer. First things first though. Claim your bonuses at California’s top DFS platforms and play for free.

California DFS Apps: Top Promos and Bonuses

FanDuel DFS

FanDuel DFS offers one free sports entry on sign-up and will match your deposit up to $10. It is one of the industry’s best thanks to its diverse selection of sports, clean and easy-to-navigate interface, and top-notch customer service. Click here to claim your FanDuel DFS promo.

DraftKings DFS

DraftKings DFS offers a bonus that’s sure to catch Californians’ attention. The DFS app is offering a 20% match up to $500 plus $20 free upon deposit. With perhaps the deepest selection of sports — Bundesliga or Europa League tournaments, anyone? — and full point-per-reception football scoring, the action is non-stop. Click here to pad your DraftKings DFS bankroll.

Monkey Knife Fight

Monkey Knife Fight is an up-and-coming DFS platform available in California. Claim Monkey Knife Fight’s DFS bonus before you submit your lineups. It’s a 100% deposit match up to $100 plus $5 free on sign up. Monkey Knife Fight has a wide selection of sports and games, including contests for esports.

Jock MKT

Jock MKT provides new users with a quality welcome bonus, a 100% deposit match up to $100. Use promo code SHARP to claim your bonus. It’s that easy to start your Jock MKT account with $200. Jock MKT’s gameplay, as you might have guessed, incorporates elements of the stock market, so players can buy low, sell high, and turn a profit.

Already a member of any of these apps?

Don’t sweat it. DFS sites don’t neglect the regular users of their respective platforms. Returning players collect points that can be used to enter contests and free entries to large tournaments through the sports calendar.

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How to Play DFS NFL: The Basics

At its core, DFS NFL is very similar to traditional, season-long fantasy football. You’re just not married to the same group of players for the full season. So if your Week 1 DFS NFL lineup fumbles, you can start with a completely new set of players in Week 2. If you’ve played in leagues with your friends and family, you’ll be on your way to understanding DFS in no time.

The aim of the game is the same as season-long fantasy football: Outscore your opponent(s). Players fill a lineup of starters while remaining under budget.

Different apps and different games may offer different settings, but players will typically fill a lineup consisting of one QB, two RBs, two WRs, one TE, one FLEX, and one DEF/ST.

The flex position on DraftKings and FanDuel can be filled with a running back, wide receiver, or tight end. On platforms that include a “superflex,” quarterbacks can also be included in that position.

From head-to-head matchups to large-field tournaments, DFS players can choose their degree of risk.

DFS scoring varies per app. Differences may seem slight, but they’re significant. For instance, a player who catches a pass earns a full point (point-per-reception or “PPR”) on DraftKings. That same player only records half a point (half PPR) on FanDuel. Additionally, DraftKings grants bonuses for hitting 300 yards passing, 100 yards rushing, and 100 yards receiving.

Perhaps you want to prioritize wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase or Justin Jefferson in your DraftKings lineup. Or maybe you prefer Aaron Jones to Keenan Allen in FanDuel’s half PPR format.

Pay attention to these details when filling your lineups in order to maximize your lineups’ scoring potential.

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DFS Cash Games vs. Tournaments

There are two primary types of contests in DFS: cash games and tournaments. Both offer cash prizes, but there are differences to consider.

Generally speaking, cash games are contests in which a large percentage of the field, often as many as half, split the prize pool evenly. This is a good place to begin and get your feet wet.

Platforms offer beginner contests in addition to low-stakes contests for still-inexperienced players who have exhausted their “rookie” status. Cash games lend themselves to more conservative lineup builds since it doesn’t matter if you finish first out of 100 or 50th out of 100. Since so much of the field cashes, the payouts are small. As in, win $1.80 on a $1 entry. There are higher stakes than $1 games, but that is simply an example to illustrate the type of yield these games deliver.

Tournaments, on the other hand, offer big payouts, but only to a select few who score at the very top of the board. And these are large tournaments with thousands, sometimes millions, of entries. Someone in a cash game might do just fine finishing 49th out of 100 in a cash contest, but there’s no sense in aiming for 49,000th out of 100,000. To finish tops in a tournament, you need to score a ton of points, so there’s no need to settle for “safe” player options.

As the industry continues to grow, DFS apps and platforms come up with new and exciting ways to engage their users. Poke around the apps available in California and see what games appeal to you.

Claim You California DFS App Bonus: DraftKings | FanDuel | Monkey Knife Fight | Jock MKT

How to Win Money in NFL DFS: 3 Advanced Strategies

There’s no single, all-encompassing blueprint for how to turn DFS into an additional stream of income. Like anything else in the realm of fantasy football, success takes time, patience, persistence, and a little bit of luck.

With that said, here are three strategies that new DFS players can implement as they get started.

1. Consider Proper Stacks and Roster Construction

A “stack” is when you include two players whose success is tied to one another in the same lineup. Take a Ja’Marr Chase and Joe Burrow stack for example. Chase is an appealing wide receiver choice in his own right, and he’s capable of exploding for a massive score. Naturally, if he does, he’ll be catching those passes and touchdowns from Burrow. If you’re confident in Chase delivering a big game, why not stack him with his quarterback?

An example of another stack is selecting a quarterback from one team and the wide receiver from the opposing team. This is great when a game turns into a shootout and both teams are producing offensive fireworks.

Be advised: Combining a running back with his wide receiver or tight end is not a stack. You don’t want your players to cannibalize one another’s opportunities. If stacking is something you want to explore, it’s best to keep it simple and pair your tight end or wide receiver with his quarterback.

2. Diversification in Tournaments

With so many entrants in large-field tournaments, it’s necessary to stand out in order to climb the board with any efficiency. If Christian McCaffrey delivers 45 points in Week 1 that’s fantastic, but if 74% of the field has him in its lineup, nobody is really separating from the pack.

Don’t go overboard here. It’s often tempting to lean on a sleeper or two who you think is primed for a surprise outburst; or maybe you think it’s a good idea to roll the dice on a low-priced field-stretcher because you think, “This is the week he catches a long touchdown.”

Diversification doesn’t have to be drastic. Is there a perceived tough defensive matchup that the public will want to shy away from? Is there a player coming off a bad week who the public will avoid? Sometimes it might be as simple as including a couple of players who are 10-15 % owned as opposed to 30-40%.

Diversification also occurs when you avoid a highly owned player. So don’t be afraid to pivot away from what you may perceive to be the most popular plays.

3. Less Is More

There are so many explosive, dynamic, and fun players in the NFL. It’s easy to want to fit them all into your lineups. Sometimes, however, it pays to pay a little bit less. Colts running back Jonathan Taylor is the most expensive option at his position, but he won’t necessarily outscore D’Andre Swift or Saquon Barkley this particular week. But he absolutely will tie up a large chunk of your budget that could be used to afford another stud elsewhere.

And speaking of your budget, there’s nothing wrong with leaving some money on the table. In a one-off contest, the best collection of players may not require your full budget. If you have the best team virtual money can buy, who cares if you still have a few hundred left over? In fact, leaving some unused budget is an easy way to differentiate lineups from those tinkering in order to milk every dollar.

We covered enough to get Californians off and running in their DFS conquests this season, but the best way to learn more about daily fantasy sports and the various apps is simply to play.