DFS research · Tournament simulator
Most tools project players.
We simulate the field.
Anyone can hand you projections. Winning a GPP is about what the other 150,000 entries do: who they roster, how often your lineup gets duplicated, and which builds turn into prize money most often in simulation. That's what our engine models, for NFL and college football today, on DraftKings and FanDuel.
Built on real 2025 DraftKings contest data. The key assumptions are checked against it, and we publish where the model still falls short.
How it works
Four things almost nobody models properly
One field, not a separate guess
We build a single universe of lineups and draw both your candidates and your opponents from it, with player ownership calibrated against real 2025 contest data. Our generated lineups do not yet match a real field on every measure: a 329-contest check found gaps in salary use and in how often low-owned players appear. We publish those gaps rather than claim they are closed.
Duplication that varies by contest
A $3 mega-field and a $150 single-entry duplicate at very different rates: five times different, measured. We estimate a lineup's duplicates for the contest type you pick. Our simulated field does not yet reproduce real duplication, and we say so here.
Correlation that emerges
Player outcomes are simulated inside the game, so a quarterback's big day lifts his receivers automatically and teammates competing for targets trade off. No bolted-on fudge factor.
Contest-aware ROI
Pick your field size, entry fee and payout structure. A flat 5%-to-first and a top-heavy 40%-to-first reward genuinely different lineups, and the ranking changes accordingly.
Comparison
What you actually get
| Capability | Typical optimizer | After The Timeout |
|---|---|---|
| Player projections | Yes | Yes |
| Ownership projection | Usually | Position-structured, fitted to real contests |
| Duplication estimate | Rare | Per contest type |
| Field simulated, not assumed | No | Yes |
| Per-player ceiling shape | No | Own floor and ceiling, not a position average |
| Game-script aware usage | No | Measured from play-by-play |
| Live injury adjustment | Sometimes | Weighted by real projected production |
Pricing
Three ways to pay, the same tools
Football Season Pass
Runs through the Super Bowl, February 2027. One payment, nothing renews.
Get the season passEvery plan opens the same tools: the DFS lineup builder and tournament simulator for NFL and college football on DraftKings and FanDuel (the exact formats are in the table below), the Best Ball Portfolio Manager for your Underdog teams, weekly scoreboards for every best ball team you drafted, NFL projections and props against the market, the college football moneyline sheet, and the odds board.
What works today, before you buy
NFL and college football on DraftKings and FanDuel today. College basketball and NBA are next, landing this season. Each row says when it was tested on a real file; table updated 3 October 2026. If your slate isn't marked as working, the simulator won't build it properly yet.
| Platform | Sport | Slate type | How it loads | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DraftKings | NFL | Classic, Sunday main slate | Loaded automatically each week, or upload the DraftKings salary CSV | Works. Lineups export with DraftKings player IDs. |
| DraftKings | NFL | Classic slates that add Thursday, Monday or night games (such as Thu–Mon) | Pick it from the DraftKings slate list (read live from the DraftKings lobby), or upload the salary CSV | Works. Every game with a market line is simulated; any game without one is named when the slate loads. |
| DraftKings | NFL | Classic early-only or afternoon-only slates | Pick it from the DraftKings slate list, or upload the salary CSV | Not yet tested on a real file. |
| DraftKings | NFL | Showdown (single game) | Pick the game from the DraftKings slate list, or upload the salary CSV | Works for building (16 September, a real DET@BUF file): captain at 1.5x, exports with DraftKings ids. Lineups are ranked by simulated return, as on Classic, but the ROI figure is not shown, because there are no showdown contest results to check it against yet. A kicker or defense goes at captain only if you lock one there. |
| FanDuel | NFL | Classic | Pick the slate from the FanDuel list (ATO loads the week’s slates, since FanDuel publishes no feed), or upload your contest’s player list CSV | Works. Built and simulated on a real Sunday main-slate file (20 September): $60,000 cap, FanDuel slots, lineups go into FanDuel through its entries file (how, below the table). |
| FanDuel | NFL | Single game | Pick it from the FanDuel list when loaded, or upload your contest’s player list CSV | Works for building (16 September): MVP at 1.5x, lineups go into FanDuel through its entries file. Same ranking and ROI note as DraftKings Showdown. |
| DraftKings | College football | Classic main slate (QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, FLEX, S-FLEX) | Loaded automatically for the Saturday main slate | Works. Tested on the live engine with Saturday’s slate (19 September): legal lineups and a DraftKings upload file. College ownership has its own fit to real college tournaments, from a small sample so far; the rest of the simulated field uses the NFL settings. |
| DraftKings | College football | Other Classic slates (Thursday, Friday, later Saturday) | Pick it from the DraftKings slate list, or upload the salary CSV | Builds the games our college projections cover. Any game they do not cover is named and left out, which can leave a late Saturday slate short. |
| DraftKings | College football | Showdown (single game) | Pick it from the DraftKings slate list, or upload the salary CSV | Not yet tested on a real file. |
| FanDuel | College football | Classic (QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, Super FLEX) | Pick the slate from the FanDuel list when loaded, or upload your contest’s player list CSV | Works. Tested with a real Saturday player list (19 September): builds at the $60,000 cap; lineups go into FanDuel through its entries file (how, below the table). |
| FanDuel | College football | Single game | Pick it from the FanDuel list when loaded, or upload your contest’s player list CSV | Works for building (25 September, a real Friday single-game file): MVP at 1.5x plus five FLEX, on the college projections. Same ranking and ROI note as the other single-game rows. Single-game ownership comes from the NFL single-game model and has not been measured on a college game. |
| Any site | College basketball and NBA | — | — | In development, landing this season. |
| Any site | Other sports | — | — | Not supported. |
FanDuel works through its entries template. Here’s how:
- Player list (the download icon on FanDuel’s contest page) loads the slate here. FanDuel won’t take lineups from it.
- Entries file (on FanDuel: Upcoming, then CSV Edit, top right on the website or under the gear icon in the app, then download the template) is what the builder fills with your lineups.
- Upload the filled file on that same CSV Edit page. The builder’s “Upload to FanDuel” button walks you through it.
- See the whole flow with screenshots: building and uploading 150 lineups, step by step.
- Uploads find their own week from the game dates in the file. A file for a week we have not built yet gets a plain message instead of last week’s projections.
- Players without a projection, usually rookies with no history, are listed at salary only.
- Injury news after you build: if a player is ruled out or the depth chart moves, the builder says so and offers to re-run the sims or late swap the lineups on screen, keeping games that have started locked. Classic slates only, up to 150 lineups; not available for showdown yet. There is no general late swap for lineups you did not just build.
- Ownership estimates are fitted to DraftKings Classic main-slate tournaments from 2024 and 2025, with a separate fit for college. Other contest types have less testing behind them.
- Cash games: use the cash game optimizer. It builds the top lineups by projection (no forced stacks) and, for DraftKings NFL, estimates each lineup’s chance of cashing as a range. FanDuel and college football build lineups there without a cash estimate. The tournament builder no longer offers double-ups.
Questions
Straight answers
Will this guarantee I win money?
No, and anyone promising that is selling you something. DFS is a competitive market. What this does is model the field honestly so your decisions are better informed. Where our own testing shows we lack an edge, the tool says so instead of inventing confidence.
How is this different from a lineup optimizer?
An optimizer maximizes projected points. That produces the lineup thousands of other people also generated, which is how you get duplicated and split a prize. We rank by simulated tournament return against a realistic field, choosing lineups on one half of the simulation draws and reporting their return from the other half, which is a different objective entirely.
Where does the data come from?
Play-by-play and schedule data from nflverse going back to 2009, real 2024 and 2025 DraftKings contest results, live sportsbook odds, and live injury reports. Model constants are fitted to that data and documented.
How do I get my lineups onto FanDuel?
FanDuel works through its entries template, so it takes two files. The player list (the download icon on the contest page) loads the slate in the builder. The entries file (Upcoming, then CSV Edit, top right on the website or under the gear icon in the app, then download the template) is the one the builder fills with your lineups; upload the filled copy on that same CSV Edit page. The “Upload to FanDuel (step by step)” button in the builder walks you through it.
Can I cancel?
Any time, from your account. No contract, no phone call.
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