After writing my plays for Week 11, I also wanted to give my thoughts on the FanDuel/Draft Kings merger.  There is a lot of speculation as well as a lot of changes coming, but we can only speak about what we know and what we hope will happen in the future.

Draft Kings has clearly passed FanDuel as the site with the most players and biggest games.  Even though I have an affinity to FanDuel because I prefer their rules way better than Draft Kings, there are more people out there that prefer Draft Kings.  This is where I’m skeptical because I am really hoping that the merging company continues to keep them separate in order to offer the same games and rules that FanDuel currently offers.  I can’t say that I’m optimistic, but I sincerely hope they do.  I would hate to have to alter my thinking and gameplay to account for no kickers, an additional “flex” position, and late-swap.

The thing I hate the most of these is the “late-swap” feature.  This is an inherently unfair practice that I think needs to get tossed to the side.  I’m of the opinion that less than half of all entrants are either utilizing or even able to utilize this feature giving an unfair advantage to those that do.  Once lineups are set and the game has started, you should not be able to change that based on your score to gain an advantage.

The “Experienced Player” portion also needs to be changed.  It really is a joke.  Only having two designations, or four depending on how you look at it, doesn’t do anything for anyone except to call out all non-experienced players and put a target on their back.  It doesn’t make any sense at all.

There’s also those that say the merging company can also raise their rake and take more money than they already do.  I don’t think they do this, because they would ultimately start losing the amount of profit they could bring in by alienating people that don’t want to pay that high of a rake.  This ultimately only really effects the high rollers, but those same high rollers are the ones playing 10’s of thousands of dollars where those rakes start meaning something.

While no one really knows how this is all going to play out, I hope that this new merging company will not alienate whichever site they choose to drop.  Be it Draft Kings or FanDuel.  As I’m sure Draft Kings has it’s fair share of DK only players as well.

Here’s to hoping.

Let me know your thoughts on the merger in the comments and what you think will happen.