Underdog Fantasy Review: A Close Look at the Top Daily Fantasy App
Underdog Review Overview
Underdog Fantasy achieves high rankings in all important categories ranging from game play options, app experience and promotions available. As such, we believe Underdog Fantasy really shines among other options in the DFS space. Here is a snapshot at our category metrics for Underdog, along with a wide range of detailed experience and options in the rest of our review page.
| Category | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Game Play / Modes | 5 / 5 | Underdog's variety of daily fantasy, best ball and pick'em contests mean DFS users have a wide variety across all sports on a regular basis. |
| App Experience | 5 / 5 | Underdog has been my favorite app from a user experience perspective in the DFS space. |
| Promotions Available | 4 / 5 | The $100 deposit bonus is pretty standard in the space, so nothing overly unique here. Underdog has ramped up the regular boosts and bonuses in the pick'em area this football season which adds to the experience. |
| Innovation | 5 / 5 | Underdog seems to be laser focused on developing new and exciting options for its users. In 2023, Underdog rolled out new best ball options around Eliminator formats and Weekly Winners. |
| Community | 4 / 5 | There are not social features built into the app, but the Underdog community in places like Twitter/X really thrives especially in Best Ball. |
| Overall | 4.6 / 5 | Underdog Fantasy is easily one of the best apps out there serving DFS users. |
What’s New In 2023?
Underdog has been a favorite of ours for several years, but the company has released some really nice, new features for the 2023 football season such as:
- New Best Ball formats such as Weekly Winners and Eliminator formats. Underdog continues to innovate and bring new ways to play games and contests around football season.
- More Pick’em boosts and specials both before games and in-games in the app. These help keep users engaged throughout the season and build customer loyalty.
Comparing Underdog vs. Your Other DFS App Options
If you’re weighing your choices between Underdog and the other available DFS apps on the market, here is how we would guide you in your decision process:
| Underdog vs. PrizePicks | Underdog has ramped up its pick'em contest inventory to get closer to the PrizePicks offering which has been the biggest "picks" app in the space in recent years. Underdog's Best Ball contests and community add to the experience and make Underdog's offering more robust. If all you care about is making picks, you might prefer PrizePicks. |
| Underdog vs. Sleeper | Underdog doesn't have the regular, season-long fantasy leagues that Sleeper offers, but Sleeper doesn't do best ball tournaments or any daily drafts besides NFL football. Underdog's payout multipliers on pick'em contests are set, while Sleeper's are dynamic. |
| Underdog vs. Betr Picks | Underdog has a much better variety of pick'em contests over Betr. While Betr does its pick'em contests well, it is currently limited to NBA, MLB, NHL and NFL contests only. Betr also doesn't do daily drafts or best ball tournaments. Betr does offer the opportunity to build contests with multipliers of up to 100x. |
| Underdog vs. Boom Fantasy | Underdog has more offerings on the daily draft and best ball side, but Boom actually has more tiers of pick'em contests. On Boom, you can play "Longshots" contests with a chance at an 80x multiplier. You can also play "Favorites" with lower stat lines to make for potentially easier contests. |
| Underdog vs. Vivid Picks | Underdog and Vivid both have robust picks options. Vivid has the most sports and eSports available for contests outside of Underdog and PrizePicks. While Vivid also doesn't do daily drafts or best ball tournaments, it is a great app for picks enthusiasts. |
If you are more concerned specifically, with payout ratios and how they compare across these various apps, we have all the details further down in this review.
What is Underdog Fantasy?
Underdog Fantasy is one of the hottest and most popular daily fantasy platforms in the U.S. right now. A relatively new player in the space, it has the leadership, the funding, the product and the userbase and community that proves Underdog Fantasy will be a major player in the sports space for years to come.
Its CEO, Jeremy Levine, aims to make Underdog a top platform that millions of U.S. sports fans enjoy. On a podcast interview in September 2023, Levine states that Underdog’s mission is “building games for American sports fans to increase their enjoyment with sports.” Levine’s company is “totally focused on product and innovation,” and they believe this will lead to long-term success. As avid users of the Underdog platform, we can objectively say that Underdog’s focus on product and user experience is absolutely evident in the app, the user experience and the game play offered on the platform. We’ll dive into this in further detail in this review.
Underdog is a daily fantasy platform and app where sports fans and users can play contests and games across three main categories: Daily fantasy contests, best ball or longer duration contests and pick’em style contests. While daily fantasy has been around for over a decade, Underdog Fantasy has quickly become a major player in the space since launching in 2020.
Underdog’s success and quick rise into the forefront of daily fantasy players can be attributed to its excellent design, app and user experience, its strong and innovative leadership and its funding. Underdog raised $35 million in its July 2022 Series B funding round which valued the company at $485 million (source).
Quick Facts
Let’s get you up to speed on Underdog, and if you keep reading, you’ll get our full review of the platform and the app.
- Underdog Fantasy involves three broad game or contest types: daily fantasy contests, best ball or season-long like contest and pick’em contests.
- Underdog plans to get licensed as a sports betting operator and will be offering a wider range of games and contests including ones that are more akin to sports betting offerings.
- Underdog has one of the better product and app experiences in the daily fantasy market, and might have the top fantasy community online (its users love the app, including us!)
- If you signup for Underdog, you can get up to $100 in a deposit match. Use promo code SDS or click here to unlock this bonus. You can also read more about Underdog’s promo code.
Underdog Fantasy Pros and Cons
We’re pretty big fans of the Underdog Fantasy platform, but let’s be direct and transparent about the pros and cons.
✅ Pros
- Wide variety of contests within the three main buckets of daily fantasy, best ball and pick’em games. These contests might be daily, weekend action, season-long, etc.
- Great tracking of live events (other than college) provides a nice second-screen experience while watching sports.
- The best app in the business with fun branding.
- Great community and regular boosts and promotions to provide plenty of opportunities to engage and play.
- User onboarding is easy and well done. Depositing money via credit card is a breeze.
- Underdog is a great user experience on both desktop and mobile app.
- Underdog has the best “best ball” contests and community in the fantasy space.
❌ Cons
- College football does not track live.
- Are large field, daily contests dominated by the die-hards and pros that max enter contests? More on this below.
- Would like to see more withdrawal methods.
Underdog Fantasy NFL Season 2023 Review Update
It’s October 16, 2023, and it’s a beautiful time to be a sports fan. Playoff baseball, football, hockey, basketball. We’ve got everything going right now, and it’s glorious.
It’s been another fun weekend of NFL football. What jumped out at me during Sunday’s action? Miami’s Raheem Mostert continues to just put up monster stats. He’s catching touchdowns, rushing for touchdowns, he’s doing it all, and he’s driving best ball owners to glory right now. We’ll see if it continues. The Dolphins play the Eagles this Sunday night.
With NBA season now less than two weeks away, we’re in the red zone in terms of getting in your best ball entries ahead of the season tipoff. I’m up to 25 entries. I’d like to get more in the 40-50 range, but we’ll see. At a $10 entry fee, we’re talking $400-500 in entry fees for the upcoming season. It’s an investment, but it certainly adds to your enjoyment (anxiety?) for the season, plus you give your shot a chance at winning some big bucks. One of the most fun questions to answer right now is what do you do with French sensation Victor Wembanyama. He’s currently going in late 2nd round, or 3rd round in most draft, so he’s not hard to get. His stats have potential be monster. Can he stay healthy? Should you pair him with another stud big? You can do some pretty interesting bigs.
Our Real Talk Review of Underdog Fantasy
Kevin Duffey and Adam Spencer, two die-hard Underdog Fantasy users have a conversation about what they like and dislike about the Underdog platform.
About Kevin Duffey
Twitter: @KevinDuffey
Underdog Profile: KDUFFEY
About Adam Spencer
Twitter: @AdamSpencer4
Underdog Profile: ADAMS4
Adam, let me first start off by saying that I’m jealous of your Underdog “Higly Experienced” badge. Who’d you pay off to get that?
Since we are both avid players on the Underdog platform, I thought it might be useful to have a conversation about what we like and what we don’t like and add it to Saturday Down South’s Underdog Fantasy review page. Interestingly, we both have keyed in on different types of contests and have different experiences on Underdog, so the combination of our experiences should be useful for users that are considering the Underdog platform. So, with that said, let’s get started…
Why don’t you jump in Adam and tell us about your Underdog experience. How long have you been playing? What games and contests do you tend to play and enjoy the most? What have you had success with?
To start, I’d like to thank MLB daily drafts with big prize pools for my “Experienced” badge. Couldn’t have done it without them! I hit a major hot streak with those playing them every day during the heart of the summer when baseball was the only game in town. So that would be one aspect of Underdog I really like and have attained success with (PGA drafts don’t go as well for me).
I also am a daily player of pick’em contests (though I haven’t hit a 5-leg, $200 payout win like you). I spend a few minutes every morning scrolling through the pick’em options for the day and entering a contest. I’ve also really enjoyed listening to the podcasts on the Underdog Network during football season for advice.
And while I’ve entered dozens of best-ball contests for this NFL season, perhaps I’d best let you address that. Tell the folks about your experience with those.
2023 is marked by my entrance into best ball contest obsession. I’ve gotten really into it. The Underdog platform is really great. The Underdog best ball community is massive and engaged. And I really like the strategy of it. Now, if I strike out and don’t finish any of my 100+ teams in the money, maybe I’ll be singing a different tune next year.
Interestingly, I’ve also gotten really into the NFL battle royale contests. I prefer the ones with only a few games rather than an entire Sunday slate. I think the contests where you draft 6 players from either 4 or 6 NFL teams playing is interesting because it presents some interesting strategy options. For example, I’ve got 26 entries into the Monday Night Football games tonight where the Bengals are taking on the Rams, and the Eagles are taking on the Bucs. I’ve got some serious variation going on.
Ok, let’s talk the app. What do you like about the app? What do you not like? How about depositing and withdrawing? Any direct experience with withdrawing funds? Tell us about that.
Withdrawing is incredibly easy and fast. They say to allow 24-48 hours to process withdrawals to PayPal, but my experience has been so fast that it seems like it has only taken 24-48 SECONDS for the funds to show up in my PayPal. My wife and I are in the process of buying a house, so I’ve made sure to withdraw my winnings and put them in our house fund. Underdog makes doing so super simple, which is very much appreciated, as buying a house is anything but a simple process.
As far as the rest of the app goes, let’s just start by saying that it looks cool. That may sound like it isn’t the best analysis, but it’s absolutely true. The Underdog logo is great. The color scheme is perfect. The app’s design makes you feel cool when you use it. I don’t get that same feeling with some of the other apps on the market.
Underdog also has the best user experience you’ll find in the DFS space. You can pick a sport and then player props are sorted by games and teams. I wish more DFS apps would adopt Underdog’s model, as there are some truly confusing experiences out there. The one critique I have is it takes longer to load than some of the other DFS apps I use. It’s worth the wait, but sometimes I wish I could get things to load quicker.
Is that a problem you’ve encountered at all? What keeps you coming back to Underdog over and over again?
Honestly, I haven’t noticed the load times. That’s interesting. I get very annoyed with slow loading apps as well, so it must not be too bad. How old is your iPhone?! Maybe don’t answer that.
I would agree with the Underdog branding. They really lean into their branding and have done an awesome job with user stickiness (just my observation, I don’t have hard data). My sense is that the Underdog userbase is one of the more loyal userbases in all of daily fantasy and/or sports betting.
Underdog rolled out some new best ball formats this year to complement the offering with the Weekly Winners format and the eliminator format. I love that they continue to innovate and push the envelope. It will be very interesting to see what they reveal in the coming year.
Any last thoughts on Underdog?
That about covers it. I’ll take your advice and plead the 5th on my iPhone version! I’ll close with this — if you’re looking to get into the DFS space, Underdog is absolutely the No. 1 app, in my opinion. The layout, the number of contests, the number of users who quickly fill those contests so you don’t have to wait too long to draft … it’s all top-level, elite stuff from Underdog.
Now if we’re done here, I’m going to go get enter some pick’em contests before kickoff!
The Underdog Contests and Games
The three main groups of games and contests available on the Underdog platform are daily fantasy contests, best ball or season-long like contest and pick’em contests.
Daily Fantasy Contests
The daily fantasy contests are the bread and butter offering of most DFS platforms, and Underdog has a nice variety here. There are plenty of drafts constantly available throughout the sporting calendar on the Underdog app. You can play in cash games of varying entry fees in heads-up format or in smaller groups.
Underdog tends to really shine with the “battle royale” options where you’re competing against a huge field of users even if you simply draft among a group of 4 or 6 contestants or so. These contests are harder to win, of course, but offer big prize money. These regular contests are a big part of the regular use on the Underdog platform.
Best Ball Contests
I personally fell in love with Underdog through the best ball offerings. Best ball is fun because it’s a more interesting way to play season-long fantasy especially for sports like NFL. You draft your team, don’t have to do any maintenance, and go after some significant prize money. You can see the full list of best ball contests that were offered ahead of the 2023 NFL season here. The Best Ball Mania contest gets the headlines because of the huge prize pool ($15M total prize pool for the 2023-24 season).
The main reason I like best ball is because of the strategy. Often compared to games like poker. there’s a lot of strategy and game theory involved in attempting to finish in the money in massive best ball contests. When playing in a heads-up cash game, you just need to be better than one person. In a best ball contests with 500,000 entries, you need to not just be good, but be unique. It’s a very different process.
The Underdog best ball community is simply incredible. The contests are so well setup with a variety of entry fees and structures. The community has a ton of content around it. You can literally watch some die-hard Underdog folks do best ball drafts on social media or YouTube basically every day of the summer. It’s very easy to get really into it.
Pick’em Contests
Like all DFS apps, pick’em contests and picks are very popular. The DFS platforms really want this business to take off because it’s quite lucrative to them. Also, users love it because it’s a way to get in on real money props-bet like action in non-legal betting states. Underdog and the other DFS outlets will be quick to point out that while you are wagering real money on single player and statistical outcomes like you do in prop bets, there is a distinction here. You have to select multiple players/statistics from multiple games for it to qualify as a legal entry. Regardless, they are fun, and we love them. Underdog’s pick’em contests are many and they are incredibly fun.
The Underdog Community and Loyalty
When reviewing Underdog, you really can’t provide a complete review without calling out the Underdog Fantasy community. Simply put, Underdog has an incredibly strong, loyal and engaged user base. And it’s very fun to be a part of. Whether it’s the best ball die-hards posting draft screenshots on Twitter/X or exposure screenshots sharing how exposed they might be to a quarterback that just went down with an ACL injury, it’s super fun to engage with.
Lots of users play lots of different DFS apps, but I can say that Underdog users might love using Underdog the most out of any app’s userbase.
To help facilitate this community, Underdog does a couple of fun things (and is planning to do even more). First, users can get profile badges based on their experience levels in the app. They look like this:
What do these mean? The black, “Experienced” badge means that they have played in at least 500 contests or have won at least 6 contests with total prizes of at least $2,500.
The red “Highly Experienced” badge means that the user has played in at least 1,000 contests or have won at least 4 contests with prizes of at least $1,000 each.
Not only do these badges show you who the big time players are, but it also means these experienced players are prevented from entering contests that have a “Beginner” label on them.
Additionally, Underdog is aiming to launch a more thorough VIP program (likely called Top Dogs) where they begin to reward and celebrate the biggest users on the platform.
Moreover, Underdog employs a number of boosts and rewards to its userbase as a way to celebrate and encourage loyalty. This year when Underdog officially crossed 1 million paid users on the platform, they launched the $100k Sunday program, where pick’em users are entered to win $10,000. Each Sunday during the NFL season, Underdog is randomly selected ten pick’em users to receive a $10,000 prize. Not bad!
Are Underdog Battle Royale Contests too dominated by the pros?
In addition to best ball contests, I’ve become pretty fond of the battle royale contests around a small set of NFL games. For instance, I like Underdog’s Thursday night – Sunday night combination. It lets me draft against three other individuals a roster of players from 4 teams that are playing across 2 games.
The reason I like it is also the same reason why these contests might be… flawed? That reason is that these contests really lend itself to pushing hard on multiple entries into the same contest. If you check out the adjacent image, you’ll notice a results list from a recent contest I entered. Anything stand out to you? To me, it’s interesting that almost all of the top winners shown here have experienced badges. This means that the die-hard users are dominating these contests.
Is this a problem? I’m not sure it is, but I also think that for these contests to thrive long-term, you probably need more casual users to win sometimes? Structurally, however, I’m not sure it’s possible. For the record, I put forth nearly 30 entires into this contest myself (I roughly broke even, but did not place in the big money).
If this is a concern of yours, you can always stick to more 50/50 cash games. The concern I’m voicing here is specific to the large field, big prize pool contests. And again, I’m not even sure this is a concern. To me, the strategy involved in putting multiple entries into the contest is what appeals to me. But thinking globally, I could see this as not being ideal for long-term success of these contests.
Of course, the pick’em contests don’t have this concern either, since you aren’t playing against other individuals. So why don’t we move on and talk about pick’em contests on Underdog.
How are Underdog’s Pick Payouts Compared to Competition?
Daily fantasy operators have gone all in on picks and pick’em contests. On Underdog, it’s called Pick’Em contests. While each operator has some slight variations in how you can structure picks, we can review at a high level what the payout ratios are across the operators as follows:
Underdog Fantasy Picks Payouts
Underdog keeps the structure pretty simple here with either standard picks or insured picks. Insured picks mean you can miss one and still earn money.
Standard Picks
2 picks: 3x
3 picks: 6x
4 picks: 10x
5 picks: 20x
Insured Picks
3 picks: 3x
4 picks: 6x
5 picks: 10x
Betr Picks Payouts
Like Underdog, Betr has a pretty simple approach but goes up to 8 picks and 100x payout potential.
2 picks: 3x
3 picks: 5x
4 picks: 10x
5 picks: 20x
6 picks: 30x
7 picks: 50x
8 picks: 100x
PrizePicks Payouts
PrizePicks lets users go between two main pick modes: Power Play and Flex Play. Power Play is similar to Underdog’s standard picks and the Flex Play option is similar to Insured Picks.
Power Play:
2 picks: 3x
3 picks: 5x
4 picks: 10x
3 Pick Flex Play:
2/3: 1.25x
3/3: 2.25x
4 Pick Flex Play:
3/4: 1.5x
4/4: 5x
5 Pick Flex Play:
3/5: .4x
4/5: 2x
5/5: 10x
6 Pick Flex Play:
4/6: .4x
5/6: 2x
6/6: 25x
Boom Fantasy Picks Payouts
Boom takes a unique approach where you can choose between favorites, toss-ups or longshots.
Boom Favorites: Sets of 2-5 picks for “safer” players with slightly discounted stat lines at lower payouts ranging from 1.3x to 3x.
Boom Toss-Ups: Sets of 2-5 picks similar to normal game play at places like PrizePicks and Underdog with payouts ranging from 3x to 20x
Boom Longshots: The biggest payouts of all the operators where you make 2-3 more challenging picks with payouts of 10x or 40x.
Sleeper Picks Payouts
Sleeper is unique where the payouts are not set ahead of time. They are dynamic specific to every single pick.
Every pick has dynamic and variable multipliers. A over/under on rushing yards might be 1.4x while a touchdowns over/under might be 3x. Total payout/multipliers are determined based on specific combinations of picks.
Let’s Talk Best Ball
While best ball contests might not be the core revenue driver to Underdog’s business in the future, it’s certainly core to its user base. Best ball is likely also Underdog’s best user acquisition tool.
To get more specific, Best Ball Mania might be Underdog’s best user acquisition tool. The company has made news in recent years rolling out the biggest best ball tournament for each of the last 4 NFL seasons. This year, we had Best Ball Mania IV with a $15 million prize pool.
The size and scale of this contest is impressive. With its $15 million total prize pool, the first place winner will bring in a $3 million prize. While Best Ball Mania III pulled in 451,000 entries in 2022, the 2023 version pulled in 677,000 entries. Impressive.
3 years ago today we launched Underdog with Best Ball Mania I
Since then, you all have drafted over 5,000,000 teams
Thank you all so much for playing with us ??
— Underdog Fantasy (@UnderdogFantasy) July 17, 2023
It’s evident that pick’em (and other sports betting games down the road) will be central to Underdog in the future because of the revenue opportunity. Best ball tournaments might be akin to the poker room at the casinos. Poker brings in users, but the casino makes money on slots. Let’s talk more about the future of Underdog…
Underdog’s Future: What’s Coming and What I’m Watching
Jeremy Levine has made it known that Underdog plans to become a licensed sportsbook in various U.S. states in the future. This presents an interesting challenge for Underdog. Levine has been critical of FanDuel and DraftKings for how they’ve essentially latched onto a traditional sportsbook experience and is much less concerned with the fantasy players despite coming of age as DFS operators.
Will Underdog follow a similar path? Will the lucrative world of online sports betting shift Underdog’s focus in the future? I don’t think so. Let’s return to the key Levine quote where Underdog’s mission is “building games for American sports fans to increase their enjoyment with sports.” Levine mentions in the previously referenced podcast interview that becoming a licensed sportsbook isn’t necessarily to simply become a sportsbook, but instead is to remove the restriction on the types of games they can build and offer to users.
Will Underdog offer traditional sports betting markets? Probably. But I do appreciate the path here where Underdog’s leadership simply wants the limits off with respect to the types of games they can offer. This paired with a relentless approach in delighting its users is a path to a really good place for both Underdog the business and the Underdog userbase. I intend to participate and be a part of this.
Underdog also brought on long-time daily fantasy authority Cameron MacMillan in September 2023 to head up a VIP program. With the “Top Dogs” program, MacMillan will aim to “build out best-in-class experiential services for some of the most loyal Underdog Sports users.”
If anything, this seems to indicate an accelerating focus on its users by Underdog. It’s a smart strategy, and one that should lead to a really nice outcome for the Underdog Fantasy community.
Additional Resources and Reading
- Underdog Fantasy business profile (Crunchbase)
- Founder and CEO Jeremy Levine LinkedIn profile (LinkedIn)
- Founder and CEO Jeremy Levine Twitter profile (Twitter/X)
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