What Are Demons And Goblins At PrizePicks?

If you have spent any time building entries on PrizePicks, you have run into a little red devil icon and a little green goblin sitting next to certain player lines, and probably wondered what they actually do. So what are Demons and Goblins at PrizePicks? In short, they are payout modifiers: a Demon makes a line harder to hit but boosts your payout, and a Goblin makes a line easier to hit but pays less. You build your entry the same way you always would, you just swap in these adjusted lines to push your potential payout up or your odds of cashing up. Let me walk you through exactly how each one works, what the catches are, and the one habit that separates players who use them well from players who just chase the biggest number. That habit comes down to a single ratio you can work out in your head, and I will show you how to compute it further down.

One thing to square away first, because it changes how you read every payout number below: PrizePicks retired its against-the-house pick'em in the US on August 22, 2025 and now runs a peer-to-peer format, Pick'Em Arena, where you are matched into a pool of other players rather than paid a fixed multiplier by the house. Demons and Goblins still describe the same thing — an alternate line set harder or easier than standard — but treat the payout attached to one as a number to verify on your own entry screen, not as a house price quoted to you.

In Summary (TL;DR)

• Demons And Goblins Are Alternate-Line Modifiers, not separate bet types. You still build a normal entry; you just pick the More side of a Demon or Goblin line.
• Demons (Red Devil) raise the projection, so they are harder to hit, and they boost your payout. A full entry of Demons can climb toward the top end of the payout scale.
• Goblins (Green Goblin) lower the projection, so they are easier to hit, and they pay less.
• You Always Play More on a Demon or Goblin line, and you can mix them with standard lines in the same entry.
• The Winning Habit: take a Demon or Goblin only when its payout change more than covers the change in the pick's true win probability. Pick by value, not by the label.
• The One-Line Test: a Demon that leaves you 70% of your original win probability has to boost your payout by at least 1.43x to break even. Divide, flip, compare. Full tables for Demons and Goblins are below.

What Are Demons At PrizePicks?

Flat out, Demons are the picks that boost your entry payout. You fire up these little devils, and yes, the icon really is a little red devil, when you want to push your potential PrizePicks payday higher.

There is a catch, though. A Demon is harder to win, and here is why: it is an alternate projection set higher than the standard line for that player. So if a player's standard rushing line is set at one number, the Demon version of that line sits a few yards above it. You are still picking More, but now you need the player to clear a tougher bar.

That is the whole trade. The line moved against you, so the payout attached to it goes up to compensate. Stack enough of those devil-horned lines into one entry and the payout climbs toward the high end of the scale. You do not have to go all-Demon, though. You can drop a Demon or two into an entry alongside standard lines and Goblins; you just will not reach that ceiling unless the whole entry is Demons. What that ceiling actually pays shifts with your pick count, your entry type, and the format you are playing, which is why the number on your own entry screen is the only one that counts.

The Demon trap in one sentence: a bigger payout on your entry screen is not a bigger edge — it is the price attached to a line that just moved against you, and your job is to decide whether that price is fair.

What Are Goblins At PrizePicks?

If a Demon is the aggressive side of the trade, the Goblin is the friendly one. It is the opposite of a Demon, though it still carries a ghoulish name and a little green icon.

The Goblin line is an alternate projection set lower than the standard line. Because the bar is easier to clear, the pick is more likely to hit, which is exactly why a lot of players lean on Goblins to build entries with a higher chance of cashing. The price you pay for that comfort is a smaller payout. Like any easier alternate you will find anywhere you can get a wager down, the safer the line, the less it pays.

Just as with Demons, you always pick More on a Goblin, and you can combine Goblins with standard lines or Demons in the same entry.

Here is the evaluation rule I would hand anyone who leans on Goblins: compare how far the line actually moved against how much payout disappeared. A Goblin that shaves a token amount off the line while taking a big bite out of the payout is a pass, however comfortable it looks.

Demons Vs Goblins At PrizePicks: The Quick Comparison

Here is the whole thing in one look:

• Demon (Red): projection set higher than standard. Harder to hit. Boosts your payout. You play More.
• Goblin (Green): projection set lower than standard. Easier to hit. Pays less. You play More.
• Both can be mixed with standard lines in one entry, and the multiplier changes with your pick count, so always verify the payout before submitting.

The mistake most people make is treating that table as the decision. It is not. A Goblin is not automatically "safe value," and a Demon is not automatically "free upside." Each one is only worth taking when the payout adjustment more than covers the change in the pick's true probability of hitting. That is where strategy actually lives. (If you want the full payout-scale picture first, see our guide on how PrizePicks multipliers work, and if you are new to the app, how to get free entries on PrizePicks.)

What's The Best Strategy For PrizePicks Demons And Goblins?

There is no single best strategy for how to win PrizePicks Demons and Goblins, but there is a correct way to think about them: both are worth including when the payout adjustment is better than the probability you give up or gain, and not otherwise.

The whole game with a Demon or a Goblin is value. PrizePicks moved the line and changed the payout; your job is to figure out whether that trade is in your favor. A Demon that raises a player's line by a small amount but boosts the payout a lot can be a great pick. A Demon that raises the line a lot for only a small payout bump is usually a trap. Goblins work the same way in reverse: a Goblin that barely lowers the line while only shaving a little off the payout can be a strong, high-probability building block, but a Goblin that hands back a big chunk of payout for a tiny bit of cushion is rarely worth it.

So how do you actually measure that? You compare each PrizePicks line, standard, Demon, or Goblin, to where the rest of the market and the projections say that number should sit. If you can find lines on PrizePicks that are out of step with sharper projections, that gap is your signal to take the More or hold off, depending on how big the gap is.

The One Ratio: How To Price A Demon Or A Goblin

This is the promised habit, and it is one line of arithmetic. A modifier is worth taking when the payout it gives you grows by MORE than the win probability it takes away. Written out:

Take the Demon when the payout multiplies by more than 1 ÷ (the share of your win probability you keep).

Scope this honestly before you use it. The ratio is exact for an all-must-hit entry priced off a posted multiplier, measured as your total entry payout with the Demon divided by your total entry payout without it. On a partial-payout entry type, or in a peer-to-peer pool where your return depends on how the rest of the field does, it is a leg-level approximation that tells you which way to lean, not a precise break-even. Use it to rank candidates; use the actual entry payout to make the final call.

Work an example with illustrative numbers, since your actual projections will differ every slate. Say I project a player to clear his standard line 55% of the time. The Demon version raises the bar, and I now project that tougher line at 42%. I am keeping 42 ÷ 55 = 76.4% of my original win probability. So the Demon only pays me for that if it boosts my payout by at least 1 ÷ 0.764 = 1.31x. Anything less and I just paid for the privilege of a harder line.

Here is that reciprocal across the range you will actually see:

The row I keep coming back to is the 70% one. A Demon that cuts your hit probability by not quite a third feels survivable, and plenty of players take it on vibes, but it needs your payout to jump a full 43% just to break even. That is a much steeper bill than the icon implies, and it is why most of the Demons I look at end up as passes.

Goblins run the same math backwards. If that same 55% pick becomes a 71% pick on the Goblin line, I have multiplied my win probability by 71 ÷ 55 = 1.29, so I can afford to hand back up to 1 − (1 ÷ 1.29) = 22.5% of the payout and still come out even:

Read that first column as a multiplier, not as percentage points: ×1.20 means a 55% pick becomes a 66% pick, not a 75% one. Mixing those two up is the most common way I see this math go wrong. And notice how quickly the ceiling flattens. Even a Goblin that makes a pick half again as likely to hit only justifies giving up a third of your payout, and Goblins that move the line by a hair rarely buy you a ×1.50 swing. That is the honest reason "just play all Goblins to cash more often" is not a strategy: the safety is real, but it is usually priced fully, and sometimes overpriced.

Both tables say the same thing from opposite ends, which is the whole point. You are never asking "is this a Demon or a Goblin?" You are asking whether the price PrizePicks charged for moving the line matches the probability you actually gained or lost. To answer that, you need a trustworthy probability, which is the harder half of the job.

This is exactly the work I lean on Stokastic's tools to do for me. The Stokastic Prop Tools (PrizePicks + Underdog projections) and PrizePicks Prop Tool do it automatically: the tool scans every PrizePicks line on the slate, aggregates odds from across the sports betting market, adjusts for sharpness and hold, and produces a projected win probability for the PrizePicks lines it covers. Instead of eyeballing whether a Demon is "worth it," I can see the projected probability next to the payout and decide based on the number. The tools run on Stokastic projections and market pricing to grade the pick'em lines they cover, so I am grading a Demon or Goblin against real value, not a hunch.

New to Stokastic? Stokastic's Prop Tools grade the PrizePicks lines they cover against market pricing and projections, showing the projected win probability and the +EV side where available. You can try the Sims free and decide for yourself, and code PROPS10 takes 10% off your first payment if you subscribe: Start with Stokastic Props.

How To Build A Demon And Goblin Entry, Step By Step

Here is the workflow I use when a Demon or Goblin catches my eye:

1. Start from value, not the icon. Pull up the slate and look for lines where the PrizePicks number is out of step with the projected number. Those gaps are where the edge is, on standard, Demon, and Goblin lines alike.
2. Run the ratio on the Demon. Divide your projected hit rate on the Demon line by your hit rate on the standard line, then flip it. That is the payout boost the Demon owes you. Back at 76% retained probability, it owed 1.31x — hold the Demon to the same test.
3. Run the ratio on the Goblin. Divide the Goblin hit rate by the standard hit rate to see how much likelier the pick got, then check that the payout you surrender is smaller than the ceiling in the second table. A Goblin that barely lowers the bar while keeping most of the payout is a strong building block; one that gives back a lot of payout for a little cushion is not.
4. Mix to fit your risk. Combine standard lines, Demons, and Goblins to shape the entry. More Demons pushes the ceiling up; more Goblins raises your odds of cashing. Neither is "right" on its own, it depends on the entry you are trying to build.
5. Verify the payout before you submit. The multiplier changes with your pick count and your mix, so confirm the exact payout shown on the entry screen. What you see at submission is what you are actually playing for.

Done this way, a Demon or Goblin is just a tool to tune your risk and reward, with the value of the pick, not the color of the icon, driving the decision.

PrizePicks Demons And Goblins Glossary

The icons come with their own vocabulary, and most of the confusion I see traces back to one of these terms rather than to the strategy itself:

• Standard Line — the default projection PrizePicks posts for a player. Demons and Goblins are both alternates priced off it.
• Demon — the red devil alternate. Line set HIGHER than standard, harder to hit, boosts the payout. You play More.
• Goblin — the green alternate. Line set LOWER than standard, easier to hit, cuts the payout. You play More.
• Multiplier — the number your entry payout is calculated from. It moves with your pick count and with how many Demons or Goblins you included, which is why the full multiplier breakdown is worth reading alongside this.
• All-Must-Hit Vs Partial-Payout Entries — some entry types require every pick to land, others still return something on a miss. The entry type changes what a Demon actually costs you, which is why the ratio above is scoped to the all-must-hit case.
• Projected Win Probability — how often a projection model expects a specific line to hit. This is the input the ratio above depends on, and producing it is the whole job of a props projection tool.
• +EV — a pick whose payout more than compensates for its true chance of missing. The tables above are just +EV expressed in Demon and Goblin terms.

How Demons And Goblins Pay Out In The Arena Format

Since PrizePicks moved its US game to the peer-to-peer Arena format in August 2025, Demons and Goblins still appear on the board and work the same way strategically: a Demon is a harder, boosted line and a Goblin is an easier, discounted one. The difference is the payout math — multipliers are no longer a fixed table. The app shows your entry's exact payout before you submit, and it can shift with the mix of Demons, Goblins, and standard picks in the lineup, so the number on the entry screen is the one that counts.

FAQ

What are Demons and Goblins at PrizePicks? They are alternate-line payout modifiers. A Demon raises a player's projected line, making it harder to hit but boosting your payout. A Goblin lowers the line, making it easier to hit but paying less. You play the More side of both, and you can mix them with standard lines in one entry.

What is the difference between a Demon and a Goblin on PrizePicks? A Demon (red devil icon) is a higher, harder line that increases your payout. A Goblin (green icon) is a lower, easier line that decreases your payout. Demons add upside and risk; Goblins add safety and cost you payout.

Do you pick More or Less on a Demon or Goblin? You always pick More on both. The modifier already adjusts the line up (Demon) or down (Goblin); your job is just to decide whether that adjusted line is worth taking.

Can you mix Demons, Goblins, and standard picks in one entry? Yes. You can combine all three in a single entry. Loading up on Demons pushes your potential payout toward the top of the scale; adding Goblins raises your chance of cashing for a smaller payout.

What is the highest payout on Demons and Goblins? A full entry built entirely of Demons can reach the top end of the scale, since every line is harder than standard. What that actually pays depends on your pick count, your entry type, and the format you are playing, so the entry screen is the only reliable answer.

How do I know if a Demon or Goblin is a good pick? Divide your projected hit rate on the modified line by your hit rate on the standard line. For a Demon, flip that number: keeping 76% of your win probability means the Demon must boost your payout by at least 1.31x. For a Goblin, a pick that becomes 1.29x likelier justifies giving up at most 22.5% of the payout. Stokastic's Prop Tools and PrizePicks Prop Tool compute that projected win probability for every line on the slate so you can decide by the number.

Build Smarter PrizePicks Entries

Once you see Demons and Goblins for what they really are, alternate lines with a matching payout trade, the strategy gets simple: run the ratio. A Demon that keeps 70% of your win probability owes you 1.43x, and if it is not paying that, the horns are decoration. The icon is marketing; the value is math. DFS is high variance and intended for players 18+ (19+ or 21+ where required), and availability varies by state, so check what is offered where you are before you build anything. For more on the format itself, see whether PrizePicks is gambling or DFS.

See the projected win probability and the +EV side of the PrizePicks lines we cover, Demons and Goblins included, with Stokastic's Prop Tools. New members get 10% off their first Stokastic Props payment with code PROPS10: Start with Stokastic Props.