The payout table
| Finish | Prize | Net of the $75 stake |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | $500 | +$425 |
| 2nd | $250 | +$175 |
| 3rd | $150 | +$75 |
| 4th – 10th | $0 | −$75 |
The $100 buy-in still splits into $75 to the pool and a $25 refundable participation deposit. At ten teams, player contributions total $750, while the unchanged prizes total $900. That $150 difference is an explicit funding discrepancy in the current settings, not a balancing error this guide can silently repair.
Finishing 4th pays what finishing 10th pays
Fourth place is a season of attention, and it is worth the same as never opening the app: nothing. Seven of ten teams lose the identical $75. There is no partial credit, no consolation, no sliding scale.
And at the other end, first place is worth more than second and third combined — $500 against $400. So the payoff is flat along most of its range and then rises steeply at the very end: convex, which rewards variance.
Where "build for variance" becomes bad advice
If the sentence stopped there it would be wrong, because pure variance never reaches the money at all. The season is two stages, and they reward different things.
Weeks 1 through 14 — finish top 6 of 10. This is a fourteen-week accumulation of head-to-head results, and the thing that survives fourteen weeks is a high average. A team that scores well most weeks qualifies; a boom-or-bust team can strand itself before the playoffs.
Weeks 15 through 17 — win a six-team bracket. Once qualification is secured, each playoff matchup is an elimination event. Average scoring matters less than having enough high-end weekly outcomes to beat a specific opponent.
So: the regular season buys the ticket, the playoffs cash it. The mean gets you in. The ceiling wins it.
The resolution, in draft terms
Two rules, and they do not conflict because they apply to different parts of the draft.
Do not sacrifice the mean early. The early picks buy the playoff berth. They are the players who start every week during the regular season and are the largest input into qualification. The refreshed 10-team simulation found no supported upside crossover, so take the highest-value reliable volume rather than paying for variance by round. See How much to spend on running backs for the specific version of this argument.
Do not pay for variance by round number. The refreshed simulation found no crossover where deliberately preferring residual variance beat taking the highest-value player. Late in the draft, use contingent role upside as a tiebreaker between otherwise similar values and keep the bench flexible; this shallower 10-team waiver wire can supply usable one-week replacements, but it does not promise a fixed point total. See When to start drafting for upside.
The schedule is random, so your record is a noisy signal
The six playoff berths come off a randomly generated schedule. Every week you are matched against one of the other nine teams, and which one is luck. In any head-to-head season, the gap between points scored and games won can be large; compare total points scored with the top-six qualification threshold before diagnosing the process.
The $25 that has nothing to do with winning
The $25 participation deposit is refunded for participation only — it is forfeited to first place if the league judges you inactive. It is not a prize and it is not competitive.
Open questions
- The August 2 10-team simulation found no supported upside crossover round; its projection-driven model still cannot represent a player whose true mean is much higher than the market believes.
- The $900 prize total exceeds the $750 in player pool contributions by $150. This page reports that discrepancy; it does not assume its funding source.