Daily fantasy sports startup Boom Fantasy continues to tempt fans in its own clever way. With a nontraditional format, the New York DFS company has been making some moves in the DFS space since launching in 2016.
Boom Fantasy recently rolled out a new $100,000 daily jackpot. The contest costs $3 to enter and gives users a chance to win a six-figure prize on any day of the week.
What is Boom Fantasy?
Boom Fantasy is an alternative to the traditional, salary-cap DFS format. Rather than construct full lineups, users select from a series of player-specific propositions. Each question is assigned a bonus value, so users are rewarded for picking the less-likely outcomes.
NFL contests typically include eight selections. Here is an example of the choices users are faced with:
Players accrue basic stats in addition to the bonus points for leading the category.
Boom Fantasy has privately raised at least $3.5 million through two funding rounds. Its investors include Founders Fund partner Cyan Banister, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus and former executives from Major League Baseball and ESPN.
Boom Fantasy jackpots
Boom Fantasy already offers players the chance to win a progressive jackpot for just $2.
It’s currently over $30,000 after launching earlier this year, and the company says it is the fastest-growing feature of its product. Four users have gotten seven of the eight questions correct, but the top prize has yet to be claimed.
Boom Fantasy beefed up its jackpot offerings with the addition of a $100,000 daily jackpot. The $3 contest requires users to pick all eight props correctly to win the payout. The jackpot contests will now have their own dedicated section on the client, too.
Here are the three jackpot contests that are available and the corresponding prizes:
- $1 Mighty Dollar: Four questions; starts at $100
- $2 Progressive: Eight questions; currently over $30,000
- $3 Jackpot: Eight questions; $100,000 prize
CEO Stephen Murphy sees players wanting something different from the salary-cap sites, in favor of more casual DFS contests, like those provided on Boom Fantasy. He says that trend provided some of the impetus behind enhancing the jackpot system:
It is virtually impossible for most sports fans to navigate the shark-infested water of salary cap sites, with a game format inherently set up to help the mass-entry pros. We wanted to create a product where anyone with $3 could win a huge amount of money on any day of the week.
Other forms of DFS
Most of the DFS landscape is occupied by traditional, salary-cap contests hosted on an online client. There are a few companies who are brainstorming some alternatives within the space, though:
- USFantasy Sports is a form of pari-mutuel DFS offered mainly in Nevada.
- FastPick is a parlay-based DFS platform built by Resorts Atlantic City.
- EagleStrike Fantasy Sports operates a network of DFS kiosks in bars and social centers in seven states.
- Draft offers a season-long hybrid product which uses snake drafts instead of manual lineup construction.
Some of the larger, established DFS operators are seeing the benefits of these alternatives formats. DraftKings rolled out cap-less Pick’em contests last year, and FanDuel offers Mini contests with abbreviated rosters, too.
Boom Fantasy decided not to compete on the same field as the “big two” of DFS, and its nontraditional approach is generating enough interest to run some pretty significant games. The new jackpots are just their latest take on trying to offer fantasy users something different.
