The Community Guidelines explain that adherence helps maintain contest integrity and introduce examples of permitted and unpermitted behavior while playing Fantasy contests. The permitted list describes natural, encouraged social behavior; these examples do not themselves set out rules for every DraftKings product.
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Adherence to the Community Guidelines helps to ensure that the integrity of our contests is maintained.
The examples below outline permitted and unpermitted behavior while playing in our Fantasy contests.
Social behavior that is a natural and encouraged part of the DraftKings experience may include the following:
Account & Service Control · User right or choice
You may discuss lineup strategy publicly or privately
In Fantasy contests, DraftKings permits public or private discussion of lineup-building strategy, statistics and the quality of picks. A peer Discord discussion of likely winning athletes or teams is an example. This permission sits alongside the ban on group play that may create an unfair contest advantage, regardless of intent.
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Discussing strategy around building lineups, statistics, and the quality of your picks publicly or privately.
Example: A discord chat with peers who play on DraftKings to discuss and debate which athletes or teams will be the winning plays in that day's contests.
Group play behavior that may create an unfair advantage over others in a contest, regardless of intent, is not permitted.
Qualifications & exceptions
Applies to Fantasy-contest social play; group play that may create an unfair advantage remains prohibited regardless of intent.
You may compete against friends and people you know
The Fantasy-contest examples allow competing against friends or other customers you know personally, including a friend in the same single-entry contest or a family member in the same 150-max multi-entry GPP while competing against both each other and the field. That does not authorize team-building complementary lineups that may create an unfair advantage over individual play.
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Competing in a contest against friends or other fantasy sports customers that you know personally.
Example A: You and a friend compete in the same single-entry contest to see who can build a better lineup.
Example B: You and a family member compete in the same 150-max multi-entry GPP contest against the field as well as against each other.
Team-building complementary lineups that may create an unfair advantage over individual play (commonly referred to as "collusive behavior").
Qualifications & exceptions
These are Fantasy-contest examples; complementary team-built lineups that may create an unfair advantage remain prohibited.
Third-party tools may help you build your own lineups
For Fantasy contests, DraftKings allows third-party media and tools, including streaming video, coaching sites, projections and lineup construction tools, to help you skillfully build your own lineups. Its example permits a content site’s baseline projections and lineup optimizer when the resulting contest entries incorporate a component of your own skill.
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Using third-party media sources such as streaming video, coaching sites, projections, or lineup construction tools to help you skillfully build your own lineups.
Example: Signing up for a fantasy sports content site to use its baseline projections and lineup optimizer to build a roster of contest entries that incorporate a component of your own skill.
Qualifications & exceptions
In Fantasy contests, the entries must incorporate a component of your own skill.
Cross-references
qualified by (model-proposed): Pre-built lineups cannot replace the customer’s own skill — An optimizer may assist the customer, but using or distributing pre-built lineups that bypass the end customer’s own skill is prohibited.
Account & Service Control · User right or choice
You may enter multiple contests within the applicable limits
The Fantasy-contest examples allow entering as many contests as you like up to the maximum permitted by the customer First Initiative’s Enhanced Contest Eligibility and Single Entry Limits product features. Entering guaranteed and non-guaranteed contests in the same Game Set is an example, rather than an exemption from those limits.
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Entering as many contests as you’d like up to the maximum permitted by the customer First Initiative's Enhanced Contest Eligibility and Single Entry Limits product features.
Example: You are excited about a Sunday afternoon slate of NFL games, so you decide to enter a variety of guaranteed and non-guaranteed contests within the same Game Set.
Qualifications & exceptions
Fantasy entries remain subject to the named eligibility and single-entry product features.
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This article does not state the numerical limits of those product features.
Cross-references
qualified by (model-proposed): Do not use another person to exceed entry limits — The permission to enter contests within applicable limits cannot be extended by having someone enter additional entries after the maximum is reached.
Account & Service Control · User right or choice
Your athlete choices may depart from conventional wisdom
In Fantasy contests, you can choose the athletes you want regardless of conventional wisdom. The examples include choosing the athlete you consider most valuable with the first Best Ball draft pick, or rostering a backup quarterback in some multi-entry NFL lineups as a contrarian long-shot strategy. These are examples of your own roster choices.
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Choosing the athletes you want to draft in your contest entries, regardless of “conventional wisdom.”
Example A: You receive the first pick in a Best Ball draft and make a choice to select the athlete you believe will be the most valuable for your roster throughout the season.
Example B: You play in a multi-entry NFL contest where you roster a backup QB in some of the entries as part of a contrarian long-shot strategy.
Qualifications & exceptions
These permissions concern Fantasy contests and the customer’s own roster choices.
You may learn from peers and teach others to participate
The Fantasy-contest examples permit learning from peers and teaching others to participate. Following players’ social-media explanations of lineup construction and showing friends how to create and enter lineups are examples, with customers using their own skill. Teaching does not authorize giving a friend your login to submit lineups from a location where DraftKings does not offer Fantasy contests; that is an expressly unpermitted example.
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Learning from your peers how to become a better fantasy sports customer, or teaching others how to participate in DraftKings contests.
Example A: Following leading fantasy sports customers on social media that discuss lineup construction processes to learn how to build and enter lineups of your own.
Example B: Your friends would like to start participating in DraftKings contests, so you show them how to create and enter lineups using components of their own skill.
Example B: You give a friend your username and password to submit lineups for you because you are in a location where DraftKings does not offer fantasy sports contests.
Qualifications & exceptions
The Fantasy-contest examples retain each customer’s own skill and do not permit the described credential-sharing workaround.
Cross-references
qualified by (model-proposed): Do not share your account or log into someone else’s — Teaching others to enter their own lineups does not permit using someone else’s account or letting another person use yours.
Account & Service Control · Restriction or exception
Group play that may create an unfair advantage is prohibited
For Fantasy contests, DraftKings prohibits group play behavior that may create an unfair advantage over other contestants, regardless of intent. The following unpermitted-behavior list gives examples; the rule does not require a stated intention to gain an unfair advantage.
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Group play behavior that may create an unfair advantage over others in a contest, regardless of intent, is not permitted. Such behavior may include the following:
Qualifications & exceptions
The rule applies to Fantasy-contest behavior regardless of intent.
Account & Service Control · Restriction or exception
Do not coordinate complementary lineups for an unfair advantage
DraftKings lists team-building complementary lineups that may create an unfair advantage over individual play as prohibited collusive behavior in Fantasy contests. Examples include friends coordinating lineups to minimize direct competition in a multi-entry contest, or dividing NFL quarterback and receiver picks among a group. Friends may still compete against each other and the field, and an individual may make contrarian picks; those permissions do not authorize the described coordination.
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Team-building complementary lineups that may create an unfair advantage over individual play (commonly referred to as "collusive behavior").
Example A: You and a friend coordinate the makeup of the lineups you build to minimize direct competition with each other in the same multi-entry contest.
Example B: You and a group of friends collaborate in NFL contests, each drafting different QBs and WRs to minimize direct competition with each other.
Example B: You and a family member compete in the same 150-max multi-entry GPP contest against the field as well as against each other.
Example B: You play in a multi-entry NFL contest where you roster a backup QB in some of the entries as part of a contrarian long-shot strategy.
Qualifications & exceptions
The complementary team-building prohibition concerns a potential unfair advantage over individual Fantasy play.
Cross-references
qualifies (model-proposed): You may compete against friends and people you know — Competing with friends is permitted while coordinating complementary lineups that may create an unfair advantage is prohibited.
Account & Service Control · Restriction or exception
Do not use another person to exceed entry limits
Once you have entered the maximum number of entries in a Fantasy contest, contest type or event, the guidelines prohibit having another person enter additional entries for you. The example is a contest capped at 150 entries where you ask a friend to enter extra lineups for you; 150 is the example’s limit, not a universal limit set by this article.
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Entering the maximum number of entries in a contest, type of contest, or event, and having another person enter additional entries for you.
Example: A contest has a maximum of 150 entries but you want to enter more, so you ask a friend to enter additional lineups for you in the contest.
Qualifications & exceptions
Applies after reaching the relevant Fantasy contest, contest-type or event maximum; the 150-entry figure is illustrative.
Cross-references
qualifies (model-proposed): You may enter multiple contests within the applicable limits — The permission to enter contests within applicable limits cannot be extended by having someone enter additional entries after the maximum is reached.
Account & Service Control · Restriction or exception
Pre-built lineups cannot replace the customer’s own skill
The Fantasy-contest guidelines prohibit using or distributing pre-built lineups that bypass the end customer’s own skill. Using an optimizer without substantive, independent decisions is a prohibited example. An optimizer with baseline projections is separately allowed when entries incorporate the customer’s own skill, so the restriction turns on how it is used rather than banning optimizers generally.
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Any use or distribution of pre-built lineups that bypass the need for the end customer to incorporate a component of their own skill.
Example: Building lineups with the use of a lineup creation tool, such as an optimizer, without incorporating your own substantive, independent decisions.
Example: Signing up for a fantasy sports content site to use its baseline projections and lineup optimizer to build a roster of contest entries that incorporate a component of your own skill.
Qualifications & exceptions
In Fantasy contests, both use and distribution are covered when pre-built lineups bypass the end customer’s skill.
Cross-references
qualifies (model-proposed): Third-party tools may help you build your own lineups — An optimizer may assist the customer, but using or distributing pre-built lineups that bypass the end customer’s own skill is prohibited.
Account & Service Control · Restriction or exception
Do not use another customer to evade an opponent’s block
The Fantasy-contest guidelines prohibit having another customer enter your lineup against an opponent who has blocked you from competition. The example is instructing a friend to use your lineup against a customer who no longer lets you join their Head-to-Head games.
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Having another fantasy sports customer enter your lineup in a contest against an opponent that has blocked you from competition.
Example: You play in Head-to-Head contests with another customer who no longer lets you join Head-to-Head games, so you instruct a friend to play against that customer for you while using your lineup.
Qualifications & exceptions
Applies where the opponent has blocked you and another customer enters your lineup for you.
Account & Service Control · Company commitment
DraftKings says it applies its policies equally to all customers
In its Game Integrity statement, DraftKings says it upholds the policies in the Terms of Use, Community Guidelines and contest rules equally for all customers. This article identifies those other rule sources without supplying their full terms; this card does not import them or promise a particular enforcement outcome.
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We uphold the policies defined within the Terms of Use, Community Guidelines, and contest rules equally for all customers.
Not stated here
The full Terms of Use and contest rules are outside this assigned article.