The Ultimate DFS & Best Ball Glossary of Terms (Fantasy Football)

Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) takes fantasy football into a single slate. Whether it’s a week, a day, or just one game, this glossary provides a core list of terms. Also includes Best Ball terms (some interchangeable). 

This resource is dynamic and will be continually updated.

Editor’s Note: Check out the DFS Pass where Chris will be contributing weekly for our DraftKings content.

A – G

50/50 – Cash game contest where the top half of lineups win, usually about double the entry fee (minus rake).
ADP (Best Ball) – Average Draft Position. Where a player is being drafted on average across all drafts.
ADP Worship (Best Ball) – When a drafter treats ADP like a scoreboard instead of a market reference. Beating ADP can create screenshot equity and the appearance of closing line value, which can matter over a large sample, but a discount only matters if the player fits the roster, contest structure, and path to first place.
Anchor Bias – The tendency to overvalue an initial projection, salary, or take on a player and let that early impression overly influence decisions, even when new data suggests otherwise.
Bankroll – Total money set aside for DFS.
Bink – Win 1st place in a tournament.
Board Flip (Best Ball) – When a drafter, usually near the turn, intentionally selects a player ahead of ADP because the pick fits the roster and creates a more unique build by moving that player to the other side of the draft board. For example, taking a player at pick 25 with an ADP near 36 makes sense if your next pick is not until 48 and that player unlocks the build (or stack) you want.
Boom – A player scoring well and hitting a ceiling (best) outcome.
Breaking the Slate – When a player posts such an extreme fantasy performance that they become essentially mandatory for winning lineups. Without that player, it’s nearly impossible to finish near the top of a DFS tournament.
Bring Back – Player(s) from the opposing team included in a lineup to pair with a stack. Based on the idea that if a stack succeeds, the other side must score to keep the NFL game competitive. Also known as a run back.
Bubble – The cutoff point in a contest where entries miss cashing, finishing outside the minimum cash point.
Bust – A player scoring poorly and hitting a floor (worst) outcome.
Buy In – How much a contest costs to enter.
Cash Games – A contest with flatter payouts, where roughly half the field wins the same amount. These include 50/50s, Head-to-Head (H2H), and Double Ups.
Ceiling – A player’s max potential score.
Chalk – High owned, popular play.
Chalk Donkey – Someone who eats chalk unthinkingly and creates highly owned (often duplicated) lineups.
Chop – When multiple players tie for the same prize position due to duplicate lineups. The total prize money allocated to that position is divided equally among all tied players.
Closing Line Value/CLV (Best Ball) – When a player is drafted before his market price rises later in the summer. If you draft a player at pick 100 and he moves to pick 80 by Week 1, you gained value because you captured the same player at a cheaper cost than the market eventually required. That creates leverage because your roster added that player without passing on the stronger options available 20 picks earlier.
Combinatorial Ownership – The ownership of two or more players together in a contest.
Condensed Player Pool – Narrowing down players in a slate to make selections easier when building lineups.
Contest – The DFS game entered.
Contrarian Player – A low-owned or unpopular player.
Contrarian – When a DFS player does something not popular or expected in a lineup.
Correlation – A mutual relationship or connection between two or more things.
Dart Throw – Low-owned, low-probability upside play.
Dead Lineup – Lineup with no chance to cash.
Diversification – Spreading out player selection across multiple contests to reduce risk.
Donkey – A bad DFS player.
Double Up – Contest where winners double their entry fee. Lineups need to finish in roughly the top 45% to cash due to the rake.
Draft Capital (Best Ball) – The cost of each player based on where you pick them. The earlier the pick, the higher the draft capital.
Dupe – An exact lineup that matches another entry with the same player selections; also called a duplicate.
Entry Fee – The amount of money to enter a contest. Same as buy-in.
EV (Expected Value) – The long-term average return of a lineup or play, calculated by weighing possible outcomes against probability.
Exposure – % of lineups a player is in.
Fade – Intentionally not playing a player
Fish – An inexperienced and usually poor DFS player.
Flex – A lineup slot available for more than one position (RB, WR, or TE usually).
Flipping the Board (Best Ball) – See Board Flip
Floor – Player’s safe minimum output.
Fragile – A player with an easily breakable projection.
Freeroll – A contest with no entry fee offering real prize money or rewards.
Game Script – The flow of an NFL Game (score, pace, momentum) that influences how teams call plays and how players score fantasy points. Also used to describe teams’ style of play based on the score and situation.
Game Theory – How lineup decisions interact with other contestants. Lineups balancing projection with uniqueness gain an edge by exploiting how the field is likely to build rosters rather than relying solely on raw player projections.
GPP (Guaranteed Prize Pool) – Tournaments with a guaranteed prize pool regardless of the number of entries.

H – Q

H2H (Head-to-Head) – Conest vs one opponent, winner takes all (minus the rake).
Handbuilding – When a player manually sets a lineup without the help of an optimizer, simulator, or other multi-entry tool.
Hedge – Entering a lineup or making a player choice that reduces risk by offsetting exposure to another lineup, player, or outcome.
High Stakes – Contests with large buy-ins.
Implied Total – Projected points based on Vegas odds.
Late Swap – The ability to replace players in later games after other games have started.
Late Swap Equity – The value in keeping lineup flexibility for late games, giving users an edge when unexpected news breaks or chalk busts in earlier games.
Lean – Preference towards a player or outcome when making lineup decisions.
Leverage – Using lower-owned players as pivots off popular chalk plays to gain an edge on the field.
Lock – Time at which the contest begins, and lineups become fixed for players in games that have started.
Max Entry – Maximum number of lineups allowed per user in a contest.
Min-Cash – Lowest payout spot in a contest.
Mass Multi-Entry (MME) – Any contest allowing more than one entry.
Negative Correlation – When one player’s outcome hurts another player. For example, an RB scoring a TD hurts a DEF.
One-Off – Solo player in a lineup not stacked with a teammate.
Opportunity Cost (Best Ball) – The value of a player you pass on at a given draft pick compared to the alternatives available at the same pick.
Opportunity Cost (DFS) – The value of the lineup paths you give up by choosing one player or stack over another, often measured by the points or leverage you sacrifice for that roster spot and salary.
Optimizer – Lineup-building software tool.
Overlay – When a contest fails to fill, leaving extra prize money in the pool, boosting the value for every entry.
Ownership % – How many lineups roster a player in a given contest.
Overweight – When a user intentionally puts certain players into more lineups compared to the field.
Pace of Play – How fast a team runs plays.
Pay Up – Spending a large portion of the salary cap on a high-priced player.
Pivot – A player that differentiates from the field by swapping off a chalk option to another viable play in the same price range or lineup slot.
Player Pool – Players available on a slate.
Point Per $  – A player’s salary divided by projection. If a player projects for 10 points and costs $5,000, the PP$ would be $500. The lower, the better.
Positive Correlation – When one player’s outcome helps another player. For example, a QB throws a TD to his WR.
pOwn – Player ownership %.
Primacy Effect – The natural bias of clicking on players at the top of projections, rankings, or lists without deeper consideration. It’s the “easy click” effect of visibility and ordering.
Prize Pool – The total amount of money distributed to winners in a contest.
Projection – Predicted fantasy point for a player.
Punt Play – A low-salary, low-owned player carrying low expectations but enabling access to higher-priced players and leverage. 

R – Z

Rake – Fee a site takes from entry fees.
Recency Bias – The tendency to overrate a player’s most recent performance and assume it will repeat, rather than weighing their full range of outcomes.
Relative Value – How much a player’s ceiling matters within a position group compared to the slate as a whole.
ROI (Return on Investment) – Profit relative to entry fees.
Run Back – Player(s) from the opposing team of a stack. Also known as a bring back.
Salary Cap – The maximum budget a lineup must stay under when selecting players.
Screenshot Equity (Best Ball) – When a Best Ball draft looks impressive after the fact, usually because a player(s) is drafted well below ADP or the roster looks clean on a draft board. It can signal market value, but it can also become a trap when the drafter cares more about winning the screenshot than building a roster that wins a contest. 
Screenshot Equity (DFS) – When a DFS lineup looks sharp after the fact, usually because it included a low-owned player, a contrarian stack, or a strong leverage play that hit. It creates social proof because the lineup looks smart in a screenshot, but the real question is whether the process was repeatable or just lucky (like when you see the Milly Maker on social media). 
Sharps (Sharks) – Experienced, winning DFS players.
Sims (Simulations) – The process of running a lineup (or lineups) against a data set to forecast a range of outcomes with similar projections/ownership via software.
Single Entry – When each user can submit only one lineup.
Slappy – A hype driven, public-tailed play with little real edge. Often, a high-risk, low-value move similar to slapping buttons on a slot machine. Usually describes bad chalk or blind tailing, though some use Sharp Slappy tongue-in-cheek to intentionally and uniquely leverage hype. Mostly used for Best Ball drafts during the summer.
Slate – The set of NFL games included in a contest.
Slate Breaker – A player whose massive fantasy performance breaks the slate, meaning they score so many points relative to salary and ownership that they decide the outcome of a DFS contest. Having them is almost required to finish well on that slate.
Stacking – Playing teammates to maximize correlation.
Stud – High-salaried player with strong projections expected to deliver top-tier production.
Survivorship Bias – The tendency to focus only on winning lineups or successful outcomes while ignoring the much larger sample of losing results, leading to inflated confidence in a strategy’s true edge. Often occurs when analyzing tournament winners (like the Milly Maker winner) without accounting for the thousands of similar builds that failed.
Sweat – Watching results as lineups score in real time, often creating excitement or disappointment as games play out.
Take Down – Winning 1st place in a tournament (see Bink).
Tilt – Emotional frustration from how events play out often causing users to make poor or impulsive decisions.
Timeboxed Tournament (Best Ball) – Tournaments where drafts happen within a specific time window. Once the window closes, no new teams can enter, so news that happens before or after is irrelevant.
Tournament – Large field contest.
Train – A group of identical lineups (dupes) entered by multiple users in a contest.
Upside – Player’s potential to exceed projections for a ceiling outcome.
Value – A player whose projected performance exceeds the expectations by salary, providing more production per dollar.
Viable – A player or lineup decision based on salary, role, and matchup that may or may not be an optimal choice.