Boom Fantasy is putting more money in its fantasy sports jackpots, to the tune of seven figures.
Boom uses a unique model in the daily fantasy sports industry. Its contests are based on a series of propositions, which require users to predict the comparative performance of athletes. It’s one of the only sites using the system for DFS games.
It’s also the only one offering daily jackpot contests, and they’re apparently catching on. Boom has just added a $4 jackpot contest with a $1 million prize.
BoomDFS jackpots
With the addition of the Million Dollar Jackpot, Boom now runs four such contests:
- $1 Mighty Dollar: Four questions; starts at $100
- $2 Progressive: Eight questions; currently over $30,000
- $3 Jackpot: Eight questions; $100,000 prize
- $4 Jackpot: Eight questions; $1,000,000 prize
The jackpot lobby ranks the difficulty for each contest from Easy ($1) to Very Hard ($4). The set of questions for the $3 and $4 contests is the same, but there is no margin for error in the Million Dollar Jackpot. Users must get the final two questions, the toughest questions, exactly right. Those might be something like, “How many points will Russell Westbrook score?”
Jackpot contests are only available in 34 states, and they’re only live on iOS at the moment. The company says it plans to roll them out on desktop and Android in the near future.
They’re available for basketball and football, as well as golf. Football is particularly interesting, as Boom is the only major DFS site currently offering NCAA contests.
Will anyone win the jackpot?
The contest is presented in a way that makes the odds of winning tough to calculate. Some questions are comparative, and some are absolute. Some give two options, others four. The margins of error differ, too. But suffice it to say it’s going to be tough to hit this thing.
The $1 jackpot has only four questions, and it has been claimed several times. That’s a good sign. The $2 jackpot started at $5,000, though, and it’s over six times that amount now. Nobody has hit it yet, nor the $3 jackpot, which was launched last month.
A few have come close, though. Four players have gotten seven of eight questions correct in the progressive. Users who get at least five correct receive a small prize, but it takes a perfect eight to win the jackpot.
DFS building out, not up
It’s pleasing to see the variety that has emerged in the DFS space.
Boom is definitely one of the innovators. Along with FastPick, it’s one of the few exploring the prop-based model.
Draft has brought the snake drafts of season-long fantasy into the DFS realm for the first time, trying to tempt that user base. There’s USFantasy Sports, too, a form of pari-mutuel DFS with a presence mainly in Nevada. It dabbled in brick-and-mortar DFS, which is the space EagleStrike is entering. The Virginia startup is installing kiosks in bars along the East Coast and elsewhere, drawing on the social aspect of DFS.
Fantasy sports legislation has enabled some of this outward growth, providing the legal clarity to foster startup operations. And that legal clarity has allowed more innovation from DraftKings and FanDuel, rolling out their own new contests and formats alongside each other over the past couple years.
Companies like Boom don’t represent any immediate threat to DraftKings’ throne, and it’ll be a while before a company comes along that would. But the competition is finding ways to draw players out of the nooks and crannies of the fantasy sports landscape.
And a million bucks is a no-joke number from Boom.
