DRAFT Review

Overview

On December 30th, 2019, DRAFT stopped offering new contests and claimed that it was going to “integrate the best of DRAFT into FanDuel and give sports fans a one-stop-shop for fantasy contests.”

DRAFT was headquartered in New York City and led by Jeremy Levine (CEO), who in 2020 helped found Underdog Fantasy, a comparable “Best Ball” daily fantasy sports site, Jordan Fliegel (CEO), and Nicolo Giorgi (CTO). Industry giant Paddy Power-Betfair acquired the site for $48 million in May of 2017 and later sync’d DRAFT with it’s other daily fantasy sports acquisition, FanDuel. [1, 2]

DRAFT was created in 2014 because they believe drafting is the best part of fantasy sports. Why limit that fun to once a year? DRAFT’s goal was to bring you snake draft excitement anytime, anywhere. You can read our full DRAFT review below:

Restricted States

You must be a resident of and physically located within the USA or Canada to make a deposit on DRAFT. If you are physically located in Arizona, Iowa, Missouri, Louisiana, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Hawaii, and all countries other than the United States of America or Canada, you cannot deposit or play for real money at DRAFT.

To view a full list of online gambling sites that welcomes players from your region, click here.

Security & Fairness

DRAFT endeavors to incorporate commercially reasonable safeguards to help protect and secure your personal information. However, no data transmission over the internet, mobile networks, wireless transmission or electronic storage of information can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

Please note that DRAFT cannot ensure the security of any information you transmit to us, and you use their service and provide them with your information at your own risk. DRAFT utilizes the industry standard, Secure Socket Layer (SSL)-capable web browsers support encryption technology that helps prevent unauthorized users from viewing or manipulating your Personal Information as it travels over the Internet.

Customer Support

DRAFT customers may contact support via email at support@draft.com, or by tradition mail. If you wish to send DRAFT a letter, please address it to: StarStreet, LLC, 217 West 21st Street, New York, NY 10011 (Attn: Privacy Officer). You can also reach DRAFT on both Twitter and Facebook.

Games Offered

Snake Drafts

DRAFT’s most popular game type is 2 to 12 person snake drafts. Snake means that the pick order is reversed each round. If you have the 1st pick in round 1, you will have the last pick in round 2 and the first pick in round 3. Most commonly, drafts will start when filled. For example: a 6 person draft will start right when the 6th person joins.

If there is a scheduled start time, the time will be listed in the title of the draft in the lobby, and on the join screen of that draft. The draft pick order is randomly generated when the draft is filled. There are no other factors that affect the order of a draft.

When it’s your pick and the clock expires, a player will be auto-picked for you. Your auto-pick will be determined according to DRAFT’s standard auto-pick rules.

Private Drafts

Creating private drafts and following friends is only available on the iOS and Android mobile apps right now. You can create a draft and invite friends, followers, and anyone on DRAFT. Customize your draft by sport, game slate, draft size, entry amount, and more. The draft will appear in their featured lobby for them to join.

Blind Auction Drafts

In blind auctions, you nominate and bid on players. If you submit the highest bid for a player, you win the player. Blind auctions have a snaking nomination order that is randomly determined. If you are the first to nominate in the first round, you will be the last to nominate in the second round.

You have 15 seconds to nominate a player. If you do not actively nominate a player, the first player in your queue is nominated on your behalf. If your queue is empty, the first player in the player list is nominated on your behalf.

You can only nominate players in unfilled positions on your team. If your team is filled, you are skipped in the nomination order. You start with a bankroll of $100, which is the maximum amount you can spend on your five-player team.

You can submit a bid on every player that is nominated, regardless of who nominated the player. You can also pass on players you do not want on your team. You have 15 seconds to decide whether or not to submit a bid on a player.

You must submit a bid of at least $1 on players that you nominate. If you do not actively submit a bid on a player you nominate, a $1 bid will automatically be submitted on your behalf when time expires.

You do not know the actions your opponents take on a player until the bidding period is over. You cannot cancel or change your bid once it has been submitted.

Once 15 seconds have passed, or everyone has acted on a player (whichever comes first), the player is awarded to the person with the highest bid. Ties are broken by who submitted the bid first.

When you set your Pre-Draft Rankings for a given sport and slate, those rankings apply to your Blind Auction nomination order.

Dream Team

In Dream Team, you select any 5 players that you think will score the most points that night. There are no salary caps or monetary restrictions on player selections. Players are not removed from the player pool if another user selects them. Players are restricted positionally based on the requirements set forth in that sport.

You’ll compete against other opponents and their Dream Teams to score the most points. Payouts depend on entry fee and contest size. Your lineup is not entered until you press submit.

You may edit your Dream Team lineup up until the contest slate begins. You may not swap inactive players after the contest slate begins. No player can enter more than one lineup into any given Dream Team draft.

NBA Dream Team player pools do not always include all players. Top performers are removed to increase parity and skill and to reduce the likelihood of ties.

Banking

You can easily manage your DRAFT account balance at any time through the settings section. DRAFT offers three banking options: PayPal, Credit or Debit card, and Check. This site does not offer Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency banking options.

DRAFT first processes your withdrawal by refunding your deposit method, then send any remaining balance via PayPal or check. For example, if you deposit $100 with a credit card and then withdraw $200, $100 will be refunded to your card and $100 will be sent via PayPal.

Please limit yourself to 5 withdrawals per month. More than that may be subject to a $5 charge per withdrawal. DRAFT processes all withdrawals manually, so please allow 48 hours for PayPal withdrawals before reaching out to their support team.

If you no longer have the card you deposited with please email support@draft.com and notify the team of this prior to withdrawing. If the email is not sent prior to withdrawing and a refund is issued before you send the email, it is the responsibility of the user to recover the funds where they were refunded.

In order to be approved to have your funds sent to a source other then the one you deposited with you will first have to play through your last deposit by entering contests. If requesting to another PayPal account that account will also need to be in your name.

All withdrawals are subject to anti-fraud checks on playing patterns and deposits prior to processing. DRAFT reserves the right to hold a withdrawal if suspicious activity is detected.

Please limit yourself to 5 withdrawals per month. More than that may be subject to a $5 charge per withdrawal.

Bonuses & Promotions

DRAFT does not offer any traditional deposit bonuses or promotions, but players following the site on social media can win all kinds of coupons and bonuses. DRAFT does offer a free entry coupon with each deposit. These coupons rotate frequently, so you’ll have to check back in with the site often to see which promotion is currently running.

Refer A Friend Program

Refer your friends to DRAFT and if they play $10 worth of contests, you’ll both get a free $5 entry coupon to play on DRAFT. There is no limit to the number of friends you can refer.

Supported Devices

DRAFT has a sleek, user-friendly mobile app that has helped the site win numerous FSTA (Fantasy Sports Trade Association) awards including Best Games App, Best Draft Room, and Best Daily Fantasy Sports Game [3]. In addition to their mobile app, DRAFT has an equally user-friendly website that allows you to do all the things you can do on the app.

History & Background

DRAFT is headquartered in New York City and led by Jeremy Levine (CEO), Jordan Fliegel (CEO), and Nicolo Giorgi (CTO). Industry giant Paddy Power-Betfair acquired the site for $48 million in May of 2017 and later sync’d DRAFT with it’s other daily fantasy sports acquisition, FanDuel.

DRAFT was created in 2014 because they believe drafting is the best part of fantasy sports. Why limit that fun to once a year? DRAFT’s goal is to bring you snake draft excitement anytime, anywhere.

Responsible Gambling

For millions of people, gaming is a form of entertainment, but for some individuals who may have a gambling problem, it can be very difficult to stay away.

To ensure you enjoy your online experience and stay in control of your gaming, DRAFT provides their players with a range of options to assist them in gambling responsibly. These options include cooling off periods, deposit limits, the ability to unsubscribe from promotional materials, and self exclusion.

Responsible gambling is a very serious topic and is actually one of the first factors we investigate when reviewing online gambling sites. GamblingSiteFinder.com advises against playing at any online gambling site that does not have this information readily available to all customers. For more information, please read this article on problem gambling.