Frequently Asked Questions

An option first made available in 2013 is to run your league using what we're dubbing Poker Features.

Normal leagues use the concept of 'Profit' to rank players where the Profit is calculated based on the player's bankroll minus their initial entry (and any subsequent rebuys). For instance, a league with an initial bankroll of $25,000, every player has an initial profit of $0 and uses the $25,000 to try and build the biggest profit over the course of the season. If they go bust, they'll have a profit of -$25,000. Say this player is then allowed a rebuy of $25,000. The Profit is still -$25,000, but now they have $25,000 they can use to try and dig themselves out of the hole and if they get back to even, they'll now have $50,000 to play with. This is the more realistic option of running a league... but now we have an alternative...

With Poker Features, you don't compete based on Profit; instead, the goal is simply to amass the biggest bankroll, period. If you start with $25,000 and lose it all, and your Commissioner allows rebuys, you simply add that rebuy amount to your bankroll and continue on. Turning this feature on provides a less realistic type of league, but opens up some exciting scenarios. For instance, a Commissioner may decide that 'rebuys' are allowed through the first third of the season and then allow for a one-time 'add-on' at the end of the rebuy period. Alternatively, the Commissioner may decide on not allowing ANY rebuys, but still use this non-profit based type of ranking.

Another Commissioner setting, this one allows for a Maximum Bet amount to be set (as a percentage of bankroll). This setting can be applied to both Traditional and Continuous leagues and a setting of 20% is quite common although there's nothing stopping a Commissioner from setting it at 100% and letting the players go hog wild! After each bet is made, the maximum wager amount is re-calculated based on the percentage figure.

In both leagues, a floor is always set on the Maximum Bet equal to the lesser of the actual available bankroll and the initial maximum bet at the beginning of the season. For example, in a league where the maximum bet is set at 20% of the balance and everyone starts with $25,000, the lowest the maximum bet will fall to for any player is $5,000 (unless they don't have $5,000!) The only reason for this last bit of math is so that folks who lose a good portion of their bankroll, can still bet reasonable amounts to try and rise up the standings again.

Instead of betting on a particular team, Totals bets allow you to bet on whether you think the total points scored in a game will be above a set figure or below it. A typical 'totals' line will look something like this:

 

So if you think that this will be a bit of a defensive battle and that the scores will be low, then you might want to bet the 'Under' on the game. Say you did that and the final score of the game ended up 23-20 (doesn't matter who wins), then the total points scored is 43. So even though it wasn't quite the defensive slug-fest you expected, you still hit the 'Under' and will get paid off. If the Total hits the number exactly (say, 26-20 for a total of 46), then the bet is a 'Push' and your stake money is returned. Of course, you can bet on the 'Over' too in the hope of a shootout, in which case you need the total points scored to be greater than 46 to win your bet.

So you hate it when your team wins but fails to 'cover' the spread because they give up a cheap backdoor touchdown at the end of theg game? Well, Moneylines are probably where you need to be at! When you make a Moneyline (ML) bet, all you want to happen is for the team your betting on to win... that's it... just win, baby! Moneylines don't pay off as well as spread bets when backing a favorite (and in some instances if the spread is really large, there might not even BE a moneyline to bet on), but can be quite rewarding if you like to back underdogs and you can consistently pick the dogs that end up winners.

 

In this instance, if you back the Miami ML and the Dolphins pick up the victory, you'd get paid off at a rate of -150 (for every $150 you wagered, you'd win $100). However, if you like the Jets to take the "W", you'd get $130 back for every $100 you wagered. In the case of a tie, all stakes are returned to the participants.

Teasers are special types of parlays in which you adjust the Spread or Total of each individual play in your favor. For instance, a 6 point teaser allows you to adjust the Spread or a Total of a game 6 points (e.g. dropping the number of points a favorite has to win by, or increasing the number of points an underdog cannot lose by). However, with the move in the spread or the total, a lower payoff is given for winning Teasers. As with Parlays, a tie in a teaser reduces the number of bets used in calculating the payoff. For example, if a four-bet teaser has two ties, it becomes a two-bet teaser and the payout is recalculated based on the new number of plays. A two-bet teaser with one tie reduces to a straight bet that pays off at the reduced teaser rate. In cases in which a teaser is reduced to zero bets, the entire wager is cancelled and the bet amount is refunded. If any proposition loses, the entire teaser is considered a loss. In addition, although you can include Moneyline bets in parlays, you cannot include them in Teasers as there are no points to move in your favor.