I put in only one lineup today but used it in three different contests. In the $5 tournament it fell just short of cashing, but in the $25 50/50 it took third out of 40, and in the $10 buy-in for the $25 Friday Grand Slam seat, it was good enough (3 out of 14) to qualify. All told, I invested $40, took back $45 and also have a free-roll for a $25 tournament. My bankroll was $1005.60, now it's $1010.60.

I like the idea of playing satellites for entries into bigger contests, but I hadn't taken the time to figure out whether you have a better chance at a big score doing it that way, or just putting the entries into a big $5 tournament where the top prize is $10,000. In this case, the entry fee was $10, and the top five out of 14 entries got a $25 tournament entry. That means we had a 5/14 chance of winning $25 for our $10. That's 125/14 = $8.93, so unless I'm missing something, it's not a good deal.

I assume the $25 contest will have its own vig too. Looking at the $150K Monday Grand Slam, there are a maximum of 6,896 entries. At $25 each, FanDuel would take in $172,400 while paying out $150,000, for a vig of 14.93%. And that's on top of the one I paid in the qualifier.

Of course, maybe the tournament won't fill, and in that case, the deal gets quite a bit better. But it's probably smarter to cough up the $25 directly than do what I did and pay $10 for a 5 in 14 chance to get there. Again, I might be missing something - as this is the first I've even considered this - but it seems when the prize is simply a seat (rather than cash one can withdraw) there should be true odds, i.e., no vig at all, or at least a very small one.

The solution in this case would be to admit 15 people into the contest and have the top-six qualify. That way it would be $10 for a 6/15 chance to win $25 or ($25 * 6)/15 = $10, i.e., true odds.