14 Best Places to Play Fantasy Football for Money

But When a group of middle-aged men started the fantasy sports over 30 years ago in a Manhattan hotel, they never thought this was going to become a multi-billion dollar industry.

According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, roughly 10% of the U.S. population participated in fantasy leagues in 2012.

That is 33.5 million Americans playing fantasy sports games.

Needless to say, out of all the sports, fantasy football is the most popular one.

Got your attention?

Let’s see how you can get your piece of this delicious pie!

You don’t play fantasy football like that!

According to the NFL, this is how fantasy football works:

You decide what type of league you want to participate in, acquire a roster of players (either through a draft or through autopick assignment), then set your lineup each week during the season and watch as touchdowns, field goals, yards gained, sacks, interceptions and much, much more generate fantasy points for or against your team. Whether you win or lose and climb or fall on the leaderboard all depends on how well you maximize the talent on your roster each week.

Since the points are derived from real performances, the fantasy league also starts when the real NFL season starts.

Although, as you will see later in this post, there is a new site that is changing how the game is played by offering daily and weekly contests.

Alright, let’s see how you can make money with this new eSport.

1. Participate in free fantasy football contests

For the biggest prize money, check out the annual contest held by a handful of high-profile websites.

The fantasy football competitions are usually free for all and there is no restriction on any specific or number of leagues you can participate in. Naturally, this greatly enhances your chance of winning.

Where to play:

1. CBSsports.com
2. FireLeague.com
3. Fantasy Football Sharks

2. Participate in paid fantasy football leagues

There are also paid leagues where you have to pay entry fees to participate and win cash.

The traditional fantasy leagues usually begin at the beginning of a season with the draft and last until the end of the official NFL season.

Here is how it works:

• To get started, you pick your league
• Pay your entry fee
• Pick your team
• If your team wins by getting better stats than the other teams in your league, you win the money.

As for how much money you can make, it all depends on your skills and luck.

But there are people who make six figure income with fantasy football.

Where to play:

• Football Guys
• Rotoworld
• The Huddle
• Fantasy Football Champs
• Football Docs
• Pro Football Reference
• Draft Sharks
• DraftStreet

But what if you are a football addict and can’t or don’t want to wait for the football seasons to start and end?

Good news, DraftStreet is here to help.

Draftstreet is a fantasy football contest site with a twist…

instead of going the traditional way (i.e. starting and ending with the start and end of the football season), it has daily and weekly fantasy leagues all year round.

There are a few dozens daily and weekly leagues with different buy-ins (starting from $2 to $420), different sizes (2 people to 550 people), and different draft styles (snake draft, salary cap, etc.)

3. Run your own league

You think you got what it takes to run a decent fantasy football league?

All you have to do is create the league, do some promotion so you can get enough people in to make it worthwhile.

The good news is that you don’t have to do it all on your own.

There are actually fantasy football hosting platforms that make it very easy and quick for anyone to build and run a league of their own

Top fantasy football hosting sites

1. ESPN
2. Yahoo Fantasy
3. Wanna Make a Bet

Normally, you’ll have to get at least 10 to 12 players to make it official.

You can charge a flat fee of a $25 for each participant.

Out of it, you get to pocket $5 from each player, with the rest going to a pool, which goes to the winner(s.)

Alternatively, you can run a recruitment drive to have some buddies to play in Wanna Make a Bet fantasy football.

This site is funded by ads, so there is no fee whatsoever to join.

Here, the prize money is determined by the points you chalk up throughout the season.

Warning

Of course, like any other form of gambling, there are risks involved as well.

You could lose a lot of money and not win a dime.

The fact is that we never hear about those people who lost thousand of dollars playing the game.

We only hear about those who make money, and that may lead to unrealistic expectations.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that there are two sides here.

Don’t gamble your life’s saving thinking you’re going to become a millionaire overnight.

Your turn

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Have you ever played in a fantasy football league?

If so, did you win any money or did you lose?