# How Many Daily Fantasy Tournament Lineups Should I Enter?

This is a great question to ask. And unfortunately, there isn’t one universally correct answer to this question. However, I think it would be a good idea to consider some reasons for entering a single lineup vs multiple.

## Reasons to Enter a Single Lineup

We are trying to build an optimizer here, right? So, if that’s the goal, we are essentially trying to find the one perfect lineup in a given slate. We know there is such a thing. There’s always going to be a 9 player list that gets us more points than any other possible lineup from the players in that slate.

If we know there is a perfect lineup, the point of an optimizer is to pick those 9 players.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. Even the best optimizer will rarely craft the perfect lineup. But we can increase our odds of getting as close as possible with some predictive modeling. My point here, is that there is going to be one lineup that is as likely as possible to score a crazy number of points and win a tournament.

If we know one lineup is mathematically most likely to win, why bother entering other, lesser lineups? That’s the logic behind entering a single lineup. Craft the perfect lineup, and ride with just that one.

## Reasons to Enter Multiple Lineups

I’m sure by now you’re thinking it would be pretty freaking unlikely that even the most mathematically perfect lineup actually ends up scoring higher than all other possible lineups.

And I think you’re right.

We can put ourselves in the best position possible, but even the best optimizer, and best point projections aren’t going to predict the future perfectly. In these posts we will discuss ways we can get as close to all of that as possible. But by the end of it, I promise we won’t be nailing every projection and lineup perfectly.

Fortunately, we don’t need to. We can still win often enough to be profitable anyway. But entering multiple lineups is a good way to spread out our bets to multiple players, and teams, and reduce our risk in a given slate.

We will talk more about deciding when it would make the most sense to enter 1, 2, 3, or any other number of lineups into a slate from a mathematically optimal perspective later. We’ll design experiments to test the best approach. I think it’s a good thing to think about now though.

At the end of the day, it’s up to your personal preference and what you find most fun. Winning is fun of course, but fun is the reason we play in the end.

## What’s Next?

At this point, I have covered all of the background research and general strategy I wanted to cover. Now it’s time to start building a DFS optimizer. In the next post, I’ll talk about what software I’ll be using to write our code so you can follow along on your own. Ideally, you should take my lessons and experiments a step further and test out some of your own strategies.

If you want to play along and enter some FanDuel lineups of your own, you can use my FanDuel referral link here to get a deposit bonus. You should just need to deposit at least $15 within 30 days of signing up, and you’ll get a$15 bonus added to your account if you use that link.