Saturday, January 22, 2011

Why Fanduel Is Better Than Snapdraft

I realize that you probably came here looking for information on Snapdraft. While we'll continue to provide that here, you should be aware of something...there are much better daily fantasy sites out there than Snapdraft. The best of these is Fanduel. Here's why...

1. Lower commissions. Fanduel's commissions are generally 10%, compared to the 20% that Snapdraft charges for most contests. That makes a huge difference how far your money will go, and whether you'll be able to be a long term winner in these games.

2. Active user community. While Snapdraft contest chat rooms rarely have any discussion, Fanduel's public chat room provides a great social atmosphere, with strategy discussions, trash talking, and easy access to ask other players and Fanduel staff questions.

3. Accurate player pricing. While Snapdraft only updates player prices a few times per season (at best), Fanduel prices are updated on a daily basis.

4. Superior support. Not only will Fanduel staff respond to your issues promptly, but when there are problems, Fanduel has a long history of resolving any issues in a way that is favorable to players...even when that costs the site substantial amounts of money in refunds or payouts.

5. Prompt withdrawals by Paypal. No more 3-4 week wait for your money. Fanduel processes withdrawals via Paypal within 24 hours.

6. Large field, large prize pool tournaments. Fanduel runs the $3,000 guaranteed NBA Slam every Wednesday, the $2,500 guaranteed NBA Dunk every Friday, and the $1,000 guaranteed NHL Shootout every Saturday. The Slam and Shootout are only $10 per entry and the Dunk is $25. You can enter any of these multiple times, and the number of total entrants is capped to ensure no worse than 10% commission. Better yet, these are guaranteed contests...they will be run with full prize pools no matter how few people enter!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Is Snapdraft Shutting Down?

At this point, nobody really knows. Fanball (the operator of Snapdraft) has announced that it is shutting down as of June 30th, and has announced the end of many of its games. However, Snapdraft was among the games that was not specifically mentioned in the original announcement. Another of the games not mentioned was the NFBC high stakes contests, and news has now leaked out that those will run in 2011 and beyond. It hasn't yet been announced who will be taking them over, but it seems very unlikely that Snapdraft will be going along with them. With Snapdraft also partially owned by NBC Sports, one thing that seems unlikely is that money in Snapdraft accounts would be at risk...although with the site apparently running more or less on autopilot their already slow withdrawal process is likely to become even worse.

If you don't want to deal with the uncertainty, now is a great time to try one of the competing sites...many of which provide a superior overall experience to Snapdraft. The current market leader in terms of overall traffic and tournaments with large prize pools is Fanduel.