In Week 6 of the 2023 NFL season, DFS player “ddry” took first place in the DraftKings Millionaire Maker, finishing with a total score of 226.38 fantasy points on the back of a highly successful Atlanta Falcons stack. ddry, who is an NFL Sims subscriber, had an impressively dominant winning team, topping the second-place finisher by close to 12 points.
Dalton was kind enough to answer some questions about the life-changing win, while also running through his personal background, DFS research process, and how Stokastic tools and NFL Sims contributed to the win.
Congratulations on your huge win! Could you first introduce the person behind the DFS alias?
I am from Fort Worth, Texas. I played college basketball at TCU from 2014-2018 and majored in business, I then went on and got my master’s in sports management from Baylor.
I work in investments with a group mainly focused on real estate assets. I also spend a lot of time at the Athletic Performance Ranch in Fort Worth, which is a nonprofit helping kids from socioeconomic backgrounds get to college through sports.
How long have you been playing DFS and when did you first start seeing success?
I’ve been playing DFS seriously for about 2 years give or take. I have always loved sports in general and fantasy sports, and once I found daily fantasy sports I was hooked. I’ve been fairly successful; I won $100,000 in November 2022 on NBA and then this month it all clicked for me. I won $108,000 on Sunday, $113,000 on Thursday and then the $1,000,000 on Sunday, so I made a little over $1.2 million in a week.
What is your usual DFS research process like each week? Which sports do you focus on?
A typical week on DFS involves reading content in my free time, mainly different people on Twitter. They put out so much good content I’m thankful for.
I play NFL, NBA and PGA and recently this year started playing MLB contests on DraftKings. Volume really just depends on what I have going on that night. This is a hobby for me that I’m passionate about, but don’t play every night. I’ll play in some capacity every NFL slate whether it’s Monday and Thursday showdowns or the main slate Sunday. During NBA, I’ll play more frequently since there are games going on throughout the week.
You are a Stokastic+ member. What are your favorite parts of the site?
Stokastic is a great site with a lot of contributors and players with a lot of knowledge. I am subscribed to the tools and also read the articles.
I started using the NFL Sims and typically will compile my research from the week, and then on Sunday I’ll tinker my exposures and ROI boosts. Once I’m happy with where I’m at, I’ll favorite some lineups. If I’m going to mass enter a contest, I’ll use it. For my single entry and 3-entry max stuff, I typically hand-build it all.
Can you go into detail about your lineup-building process for the winning week?
The overall build was interesting for that week. I had a lot of exposure to Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp stacks, and although Stafford didn’t work out, Kupp did. I thought the Falcons/Commanders game could be contrarian and had read some stats on Twitter about Drake London and his target share and also about the Commanders’ shaky secondary. I was way over the field on London and that put Desmond Ridder in my player pool.
I had Raheem Mostert locked in no matter what. The matchup was too good and I was willing to eat the chalk on him and get different elsewhere.
I liked a pool of about seven running backs and Kyren Williams was one of them. He’s the primary ball carrier and I think he’s a good back. I knew everyone was playing Stafford, including me, so I decided to play some Kyren and Kupp stacks to get different and luckily it worked out.
Amon–Ra St. Brown is a volume king. I enjoy watching the Lions and knew St. Brown’s volume could potentially put him in a spot to have a big game at no ownership. Rashid Shaheed was my 1% dart who has big play ability and he was able to pay off his salary big time on two big plays.
What was the sweat like?
I’ve recently started not checking my lineups until the fourth quarter of the afternoon games. For the most part, I know who I have as core guys so if they’re playing well I know my lineups could be in contention. There are so many variables and one play could jump you from out of the money to in the money and vice versa.
Around 11:00 min left in the fourth quarter of the Eagles game, I checked my lineups and saw I was in the top 5 with the most PMR left. I watched St. Brown get 2 big catches in a row for like 20 yards and then Kyren ran a touchdown in. Funny enough, the ruling on the field was he fumbled at the pylon and it could’ve been a touchback I believe, they came back and said touchdown and so I jumped to first place. I checked all the people below me and there were two lineups that were within 20 points that had guys playing when I didn’t.
So, all the games end except the Eagles game. I’m in first place with the guy in second having D’Andre Swift and the guy in 15th having AJ Brown and Jalen Hurts. That was a long 6 minutes of football, let me tell you. Swift gets the next three plays and then Hurts turns it over. Eventually, the game ended, and I refreshed my phone about 20 times to make sure it was legit.
Describe how it felt when you realized you had locked up first place.
I was with my dad. He came over to my house to watch the games and we were in my media room. I showed him my phone when I was in first place with 6 min left in the Eagles game and he’s sweating it out with me.
My initial thoughts were a mixture of shock and happiness. As unbelievable and low odds of winning the million is, I’ve had the conviction I would win it since I started playing. My cousin and I were in the weight room and I had just won the $200,000 that week, and I joked with him saying I was going to win the million on Sunday. He said “yeah, call me when you do” and laughed. I called him right after I won and he drove to my house to celebrate with us. To be honest, I’m still in shock.
Do you have any specific plans or planned purchases after the big win?
No big plans with the money initially. I feel blessed to have won and I hope I can impact some people’s lives in a positive way. I’ll invest some and keep playing DraftKings going forward and build off of this last month hopefully.
Any advice for other DFS players looking for their first tournament victories? Other shoutouts?
My advice to other players is to keep learning through content sites, articles, podcasts and shows, etc. There are so many good resources and tools out there that give good advice.
Everyone on Twitter who puts out stats and information and takes the time to deliver great content, thank you. The Stokastic website and new revolutionary tools they’ve come out with for DFS, thank you! My family and friends who support me on this, thank you!
