In Best Ball contests, participants draft a season-long lineup via a live snake draft. After the draft there are no trades or roster management. Each week of the contest, your highest scoring players are automatically your starting lineup for that week, and count toward your team’s overall fantasy point total (rosters and scoring summarized below).
New in 2024
- QB & TE Position Limits (max 5 each)
- Shifting On-The-Clock notification to be a new Up-In-Two-Picks notification for fast drafts
- Adding an additional two hours for slow draft picks between 10:00pm and 4:00am ET
- Player Exposure Feature continuing once contests go live in September
- Ability to customize position limits on the web pre-draft rankings page, just in case a user decides or needs to auto-draft
DraftKings 2024 Flagship Best Ball Contests
NFL BEST BALL $15M MILLIONAIRE [$1.5M TO 1ST]
Prize Payouts
Round 1:
1st – 2nd: NFL Best Ball $15M Millionaire Advance to R2
Round 2:
1st: NFL Best Ball $15M Millionaire Advance to R3
2nd – 3rd: $40
4th – 12th: $30
Round 3:
1st: NFL Best Ball $15M Millionaire Advance to R4
2nd – 3rd: $150
4th – 12th: $100
Round 4:
1st: $1,500,000
2nd: $1,000,000
3rd: $715,600
4th: $500,000
5th: $400,000
6th: $300,000
7th: $250,000
8th: $200,000
9th – 10th: $150,000
11th – 15th: $100,000
16th – 20th: $75,000
21st – 25th: $50,000
26th – 35th: $30,000
36th – 50th: $20,000
51st – 70th: $15,000
71st – 100th: $10,000
101st – 150th: $7,500
151st – 200th: $5,000
201st – 250th: $4,000
251st – 350th: $3,000
351st – 450th: $2,000
451st – 650th: $1,500
651st – 1,021st: $1,000
Related Content:
2024 Best Ball Rookie Rankings 1-20 (5/3)
2024 Best Ball QB Rankings 1-30 (5/15)
2024 Best Ball Cheat Sheet (5/20)
2024 Best Ball WR Rankings 1-30 (5/21)
2024 Best Ball WR Rankings 31-60 (6/6)
Scoring
NFL Best Ball Scoring
| Play | Score |
|---|---|
| Play | Score |
| Passing TD | 4 Pts |
| 25 Passing Yards | 1 Pt (+0.04 Pts/ Yards) |
| 300+ Yard Passing Game | 3 Pts |
| Interception | -1 Pt |
| Rushing TD | 6 Pts |
| 10 Rushing Yards | 1 Pt (+0.1 Pts/Yard) |
| 100+ Yard Rushing Game | 3 Pts |
| Receiving TD | 6 Pts |
| 10 Receiving Yards | 1 Pt (+0.1 Pts/Yard) |
| 100+ Receiving Yard Game | 3 Pts |
| Reception | 1 Pt |
| Punt/Kickoff/FG Return for TD | 6 Pts |
| Fumble Lost | -1 Pt |
| 2 Pt Conversion (Pass, Run, or Catch) | 2 Pts |
| Offensive Fumble Recovery TD | 6 Pts |
Lineup Requirements
Lineups will consist of 20 players and must include players from at least 2 different NFL teams. Each week you will have eight starting players and 12 bench players. The roster positions are:
- 1 QB
- 2 RB
- 3 WR
- 1 TE
- 1 FLEX (RB/WR/TE)
- 12 BENCH (QB/RB/WR/TE)
Each week your highest scoring players are automatically your starting lineup. Your non-starting players each week will make up your bench and their fantasy points will not count toward your team’s overall fantasy point total.
Draft Requirements
In order to be eligible for prizes in the Best Ball contests you must either edit the pre-draft rankings, add a player to your queue during the draft, or make a manual draft pick during the draft. Failure to take at least one of the prior three actions will result in an invalid entry and you will not be eligible for prizes and your entry fee will be forfeited.
Pick Clock
Best Ball drafts will either have fast or slow draft settings.
Fast Drafts:
You will have up to 30 seconds to make each pick. Fast drafts typically take a few minutes to a few hours to complete.
Slow Drafts:
You will have up to 8 hours to make each pick. Slow drafts typically take a few days to complete. During slow drafts, users who go on the clock between 10:00pm ET and 4:00am ET will have 10 hours to make a selection. This only applies to picks when the selection time begins after 10:00pm ET. The slow draft timer will also update on the following schedule:
- Monday 9/2 at 10am ET – the slow draft pick clock will move to 1 hour per pick. The pick clock will revert to 8 hours per pick between the hours of 10pm ET to 10am ET.
- Tuesday 9/3 at 10am ET – the slow draft pick clock will move to 10 minutes per pick. The pick clock will revert to 8 hours per pick between the hours of 10pm ET to 10am ET.
- Wednesday 9/4 at 7:30pm ET – the slow draft pick clock will move to 2 minutes per pick. There will be no overnight period after this change.
Tournaments
Tournaments are Best Ball drafts that are played out over multiple rounds of contests. Our season-long tournaments are played out over four rounds.
Round 1: NFL Weeks 1 – 14
Round 2: NFL Week 15
Round 3: NFL Week 16
Round 4: NFL Week 17
At the end of each round, a specified number of entrants from each contest advances to the next round based on their placement in the contest standings. Each tournament will have specified contest sizes for each round, number of advancing entries per contest for each round, and maximum number of round 1 contests you can enter.
Advancing entries are randomly matched up against other advancing entries in rounds 2 through 4. If you have multiple entries advancing in a Tournament, we will avoid matching you up against yourself, whenever possible.
Advancing entries keep the same lineup they drafted during round 1. There is no redrafting between any rounds.
If there are not enough advancing entries to fill future round contests, there will be wild card entries that advance. Wild card entries are the entries that scored the highest fantasy points among the non-automatically advancing entries.
Example: There is a tournament with a maximum of 12,000 12-man round 1 contests, where the top finisher in each contest advances to round 2. Round 2 is made up of 1,000 12-man contests (12,000 total entries). If only 11,000 round 1 contests were to fill, only 11,000 entries would automatically advance. We would make up the additional 1,000 entries with wild card spots.
If there is a tie for an advancing entry or wild card spot, the advancing entry/wild card spot will be the one with the highest scoring single week in that round If still tied, it will be the entry with the second highest scoring week in that round. This process will continue through the lowest scoring week in the round. If still tied, the advancing entry will be the one with the overall highest scoring player in that round. If still tied, it will be the entry with the second overall highest scoring player in that round. This process will continue through the lowest scoring player in the round.
I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and customer (my username is Lan1228) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment in building lineups. I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.