In Best Ball contests, participants will draft a lineup via a live snake draft and contests will last multiple weeks of the season. After the draft there are no trades or roster management. Each week of the contest your highest scoring players are automatically your starting lineup and count toward your team’s overall fantasy point total. Overall contest payouts are based on the cumulative fantasy points scored by your starting lineup each week. A scoring week will run from Monday - Sunday except where otherwise noted.

All Best Ball contests are limited to the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.

Tournaments are Best Ball drafts that are played out over multiple rounds of contests. Our tournaments are played out over 4 rounds.

Round 1: 16 weeks (10/24 - 2/11)

Round 2: 1 double week (2/12 - 3/3)

Round 3: 1 double week (3/4 - 3/17)

Round 4: 1 double week (3/18 - 3/31)

*NOTE: The in-season tournament Championship Game, scheduled for 12/9/2023 will not be scored for best ball.

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.

If you have an entry advancing to Round 2 there will be no action required on your part. Round 2 entries will automatically show up in your upcoming contests page on 2/12. Your round 2 entries will transition to the live contests page after the first game of the night starts. This same procedure will take place between all future rounds.

In order to be eligible for Best Ball contests you must either edit the pre-draft rankings, add a player to your queue during the draft, or make a manual pick during the draft. Failure to take any one of the prior three actions will result in an invalid entry and you will not be eligible for prizes or a refund.

There are two options for drafting best ball entries: Fast Drafts and Slow Drafts. Fast Drafts give you 30 seconds per pick to keep things moving, whereas Slow Drafts allow up to 8 hours per pick. Drafts start as soon as all seat are filled.

You can create your own personalized ordering of a Best Ball player pool by editing the pre-draft rankings. Your last saved version of the pre-draft rankings are automatically imported for you as soon as a draft starts. You can edit your pre-draft rankings at any time and it will apply to every upcoming draft in the game set. If you do not edit your pre-draft rankings before a draft starts, you will use the default DraftKings player rankings. If you do not make a pick before your pick clock expires, we will draft a player for you based on the following logic: We will pick the highest player from your queue, then we will pick the highest ranked player from your pre-draft rankings. Note: We will not auto-draft more than 8Gs, 8Fs, or 3Cs for your team when auto-drafting from the pre-draft rankings. It is possible to exceed these limits when auto-drafting from the queue.

If you fail to make 2 consecutive manual selections we will automatically turn auto-draft on for you. You can turn auto-draft on or off in the draft settings. When you are on auto-draft you will not receive push notifications for the contest.

Yes. In order to get Best Ball notifications, you will need to allow DraftKings notifications in your phone settings. We will prompt you to turn on your notifications in the waiting room (if they’re turned off). If you have notifications turned on, you will receive the following types of notifications:

Contest Filled - will get a push notification when the contest fills and the draft is about to start.

You’re Up - will get a push notification when it is your turn to pick