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If you’re new to daily fantasy sports, the first thing I’m going to tell you is that “daily fantasy sports” is a pain to type over and over, so we call it “DFS”. If that was a revelation, this glossary is for you. If you have no idea what “fading Calvin Johnson in GPPs is a great contrarian play” means, you’d better read on. DFS introduces a whole new set of terms that you just won’t come across if you’ve only played in traditional fantasy football leagues. Understanding some of these terms can even be crucial to your DFS success. Many of these terms will pop up throughout the year in our weekly strategy guides, so feel free to refer back to it at any time.
There are currently 8 names in this directory beginning with the letter C.
Ceiling / Upside
Ceiling is the maximum number of points a team, a lineup, or a player can score. The existence of potential favorable outcomes that would result in a player outperforming his salary. For example, a minimum priced player who is slated to get a starter’s workload is said to have a lot of upside (ability to outperform current salary). An expensive player like Calvin Johnson can also have upside because he is always liable to go for 100+ yards and multiple TDs. Upside can also refer to how much prize money you can win relative to your entry fees. For example, if you put all your money in play into tournaments, you have more upside than if you put all of it into safer “cash games”. The best possible outcome for a particular statistic. This usually refers to a projected outcome -- for example, a player's projected ceiling in our Floor/Ceiling Projections -- but can also refer to an actual outcome -- for example, Antonio Brown's highest receiving yardage output in 2015 was 284 yards, so it can be said that he has a ceiling of 284 yards. Ceiling is the opposite of floor. Ceilings are best used to optimize for tournament lineup construction.
Commission / Rake
It is the fees that are charged by daily fantasy sports websites to play. It is usually around 10% of the buy-ins.
Confirmation Bias
The inclination towards confirming pre-existing beliefs and to look and search for information that fits is called confirmation bias.
Contrarian
Going against the grain with a selection, in hopes that the player will not be highly used, thus making the selection more valuable in tournaments where your score needs to beat a large majority of entries. Using a stud in a tough matchup is a common contrarian strategy.
Correlation
A statistical technique that is used to measure and describe the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables.The scale is -1.0 to 1.0. The larger the absolute value, the stronger the relationship is. An absolute value of 1 means perfect correlation. Absolute values above 0.7 are considered strong, those between 0.3 and 0.7 are moderate, and those under 0.3 are weak. Positive values indicate a relationship where the variables move in the same direction, while negative values indicate a relationship where variables move in opposite directions. Usually notated as "r" in regression output. Not to be confused with "r2" or "R-Squared", which is the square root of r.
Cut / Drop / Release
In the daily fantasy (DFS) glossary of terms, these three words mean the same and refer to the player you don’t want in your team anymore.
CV (Coefficient of Variation)
The standard deviation of a data set divided by its mean. In DFS, can be used as a measure of consistency. For example, if Jimmy Graham averages 16 fantasy points points per game with a standard deviation of 8 points per game, the CV is 50%. In a given week, Graham can be expected to score 50 percent more or 50 percent less than his average. The lower this number, the more consistent a player is.