Saturday, November 24, 2012

First Pari-Mutuel Fantasy Contest Yields Interesting Results

As part of its soft launch effort, ProContest.com offered a free play NFL Thanksgiving game.  The game consisted of four yardage-based questions/races:  Quarterback, Running Back, Wide Receiver and Team Defense.

This was the first open offering of this new fantasy sports game that combines pari-mutuel wagering (Win, Place, Show) with fantasy statistics.  This is the first truly innovative concept in fantasy sports game play in quite a while.

For those interested, here's the results for the various game elements along with their final odds to Win as determined by contest entrants:

Quarterback (QB)
Win    Stafford DET / 6:1
Place  Romo DAL / 2:1
Show  Brady NE / 11:1

Running Back (RB)
Win    Morris WAS / 5:1
Place  Foster HOU / 4:1
Show  Ridley NE / 12:1

Wide Receiver (WR)
Win    Johnson HOU / 8:1
Place  Other/Field / 3:1
Show  Johnson DET / 3:1

Defense (D/ST)
Win    New England / 21:1
Place  Dallas / 4:1
Show  Washington / 3:1

For the QB position, there was a tie with regard to passing yards between Stafford DET and Romo DAL.  What separated the two was that Stafford had a better yards per attempt average.  Although both quarterbacks had 441 yards passing (a very good day for both), Stafford did that with fewer passes.

A bit surprising was that how the New England defense went off at 21:1, when they were playing the New York Jets, a bad offensive team this year.  This shows that by exploiting knowledge and skill, players can make some very good choices.

As the launch process moves forward, new games will be offered to allow users to gauge user acceptance and to try new game metric concepts.  Pari-mutuel fantasy sports has the potential to further drive new growth in the skill game areas as well as create new offerings in regulated wagering, particularly with venues already familiar with pari-mutuel wagering, such as horse and dog racing.


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