so UK residents have a choice of fanteam or draft kings and both have their merits and downsides. i personally play both and see no issues with that.
so breaking it down. helpdesks or as i call them unhelpful desks, not going to post a full explanation here but fanteam the worst i have ever seen and draft kings a bit below average.
issues re locations. currently there is a double taxation treaty with the USA whereby you can elect to pay here (where of course gambling winnings are not taxed). whilst the helpdesk may be clueless over this you can contact @Chris_H4rt on twitter who represents them in the UK. its a case of filling in a simple form, who knows if anything will change. with fanteam issues of the past seem largely sorted, although some won't realise that. there were issues where they used a 0.9 rounded exchange rate on the way in but discovered on the way out that this was not beneficial so used a precise exchange rate to take a few £££ more, there were also hefty bank charges on transaction with them, withdrawing winnings would have cost me the best part of £500 (via bank charges) over time. whilst it isn't publicised i believe withdrawing back to card now avoids all these fees now.
re the organisations you never know if gambling based businesses will still be there next year, ask any football index members. i suspect and hope fanteam will be around for a while and there is no reason to expect a successful business such as Draft Kings will fold. the difference between the two is that draft kings is profitable.
re profits DK is harder as it is more established, contests fill with their rake and there is hardly ever any overlay unlike fanteam, which on balance sees most contest run at a minimal profit for them on paper.
re the timings of games, in some instances fanteam has a clear advantage here. i prefer a cut off team done and that's it off to the pub or watch the games unfold with nothing further to do. fanteam provides this small edge but it becomes far more important on the likes of USA based sports such as NHL where playing DK you might need to be up till 3.30 to play efficiently, whereas it's generally midnight for fanteam. re epl it's just personal preference with me.
re game design, both have a wide range of games, so whats the basic difference? i'll just look at soccer/football here as it's what most will play. in large slates such as the 'monster' with fanteam i would give them the edge over the classic 8-player DK game. there is no reason to select less than XI players in these slates and i feel DK have simply got this wrong leaving fanteam the better game. what about small slates say 3-game? DK hold the clear edge here with their 8-player classic game vs a rather pointless 6-player pursuit game from fanteam. showdowns play what you like for fun!
expanding on the above, what's pursuit? well without going into detail it was a method cleverly created to give each player a score adjustment thus effectively giving unique scores to players in small slates to avoid too many ties. unfortunately it has been mindlessly extended to some 11-player slates where there is no need for it and it has spoiled those games in my view. so what is the basic difference in scoring? fanteam is largely FPL scoring with impact points that are the worst thing in their games, fortunately reduced from 1.0 to 0.3 to reduce the nonsense. if possible scrapping it would have been better in my view or failing that reduce to 0.1. adding in draft kings scoring includes a few other bits n bobs besides CS/assists/goals for instance crosses is still big, basically it favours wide players and set piece takers.
regarding range of games typically there is one format for each fanteam soccer slate and two for each DK slate. both have a tournament option, in fanteam largely a couple of big entries with different stake levels. in DK there are differences in both stake and field sizes. additionally there is 'cash' rather than GPP (tournament play) where the objective is typically to finish in the top 10 of 22 say in order to 'double your money'.
re the free tickets, with DK they just offer a reward scheme largely based upon turnover, nothing else much goes on. so you know who you are playing against has paid a fair entry fee, with fanteam you haven't got a clue who has paid to enter and who is free. personally i don't really want to be competing with a load of entries that have put £nil in the pot.
i'll edit in anything i've forgotten to include, happy to help anyone other than giving them a load of tips
if they have any questions over any of the content.personally i play both, there is some factual stuff above and some opinion. on the whole i favour fanteam as a game but there would be more concern over them surviving long term and you have the situation re the free tickets issues. currently i'll probably play more fanteam than DK but can see that could easily change in future.
