Turns out I'm a bit of a cup specialist

Thanks to Tom and Greg for running - much appreciated.

Excellent season for you!! Not as good as 2 years ago but excellent all the same!

Need to open it out and discuss it with The Dazzler but am thinking of running a handicap league next season with you as the 0 / scratch marker...

Obviously we would quote people a + points rating in advance and take requests for quoting so might need more organisation but could be fun.

Sounds like a good idea, and would potentially encourage increased participation from the less rabid Fantasy League types.

I'd be up for that (although not for the £100 league ).

Happy to help come up with some kind of formula for handicapping based on previous season records.

Turns out I'm a bit of a cup specialist

Thanks to Tom and Greg for running - much appreciated.

I fell away badly after a really good start. Congrats to the winners and thanks for organising Mark.

In for everything. Hope my "picking players I've heard of" strategy works.

Thanks for sharing this - an interesting (if depressing) read. I worked in Ladbrokes shops around ~2005. For the most part it was enjoyable enough with most regulars there for the racing and football accumulators, but there were some early signs that the FOBTs were problematic (nothing close to the extent of the stories in the article). I wouldn't like to work in some of the shops I worked in now.

As long as each-way terms are not advertised on the screen that the higher prices are listed on, I think this is fine. It's reasonable for a bookie to offer different prices for a win only market versus each-way I would say - it seems clear in this case that the the shape of the market would make place bets too profitable for the punter if the prices were close to reasonable on the win part.

Coral do this for horse races on their website, except they go about it in a slightly different way - they advertise the each-way price as standard, but offer an 'enhanced' win only price.

Generally speaking, I think those terminals in betting shops are quite carefully restricted in terms of betting options to deter advantage bettors (for example I'm fairly sure they're SP-only on horse racing).

Thanks to The Dazzler and Junior Senior for running this.

Junior Senior - I just tried to PM you my bank details but not sure if it worked as I can't see it in my outbox (maybe my low post count prevents me from sending PMs?). If you didn't receive it please let me know.

For future reference, you need to tick the "Save a copy to my Outbox" option when sending a PM.

Ah thanks didn't realise that.

Thanks to The Dazzler and Junior Senior for running this.

Junior Senior - I just tried to PM you my bank details but not sure if it worked as I can't see it in my outbox (maybe my low post count prevents me from sending PMs?). If you didn't receive it please let me know.

I lost the h2h final but held on in the £100 league so pleased overall. Lingard could have snatched it away tonight and had a good game so I was sweating!

Well played. I wasn't holding out much hope of catching you last night but when that chance fell to Lingard in the second half I did get briefly excited. If he'd taken that chance and Smalling then didn't score the o.g., think that might have been enough depending on bonus points.

Congrats to Stuart Wright who has won the Blonde UFPL league.

Currently ranked 14th in the world, an amazing season. I finished in the top 100 too but not quite good enough.

UFPL is a lot of fun, would reccomend it highly to anyone that enjoys FPL and wants another challenge. Back for more next year.

Thanks Mark and congrats on a great season yourself. I'll +1 the recommendation on the game. Outside of the initial 25-man squad selection and August/January transfer windows when all the real planning happens, it's a minimal time commitment and great fun.

Thanks for that Girgy - got on at 9.2 (worse than BSP but can't complain)

I've been playing Mondogoal since the start of the season, and more recently DraftKings since it launched.

Mondogoal offered great overlay early in the season and it was very easy to make money, but now they've cut back on their guarantees, and such a high % of all entries are from good regs, that I don't really find it worthwhile (other than playing for modest stakes for a bit of fun). I think they could be in trouble now that DraftKings has launched, as in my opinion it's a far superior product. Mondogoal haven't improved their offerings at all since the start of the season, and they're not attracting any new players as far as I can tell.

While I find playing on DraftKings a fun and slick experience, I must admit that I've been losing money to players who are better than me so far. I'm somebody who takes season long fantasy very seriously, watches loads of football, and even built a pretty complicated model to project expected points for each player taking into consideration betting markets and Opta stats, but I still feel like I'm outclassed at the moment, so my recommendation to anyone thinking of getting involved would be to start small until you work out what you are doing. I can imagine some UK season long fantasy players assuming that they know more about football than Americans and being a bit overconfident, but the truth is the US regs are very good and would absolutely crush a new UK player who just picks players who would be good in FPL (I'm sure you know this already bergeroo, but more for the benefit of anyone else reading this thinking of getting involved).

I haven't touched American sports, but given how good the regs are at football, I imagine it would be very tough. I've played a little golf and although realistically I know I'm never going to be a winning golf DFS player, it's too hard to resist their massive guarantees for small entry fees.

I think it's quite a big issue that the top regs can easily enter all contests - they create their lineup and with minimal clicks can enter into everything from $1000+ buy-in right down to the $1 level. So unlike in poker where beginners playing micro-stakes are protected from the very best players (because they're playing higher up), in DFS they're forced to take them on right away. I tend to agree that it might be a struggle to change the gambling habits of British people, especially if they just get crushed as soon as they give DFS a try. I think it could really take off though if they are able to find a way to attract more casual players while also finding a way to give them a bit more protection from the sharks. I also think they need to tweak their scoring system (for football), so that players who actually contribute positively for their team are rewarded. Crosses being rewarded whether or not they are successful (including set pieces) is pretty farcical to be honest. I don't think it looks good to a casual player when players like Robbie Brady and James McClean are among the top scoring players in the game.

Thanks all - going to have to think through my January transfer window plans very carefully indeed

Agree with both of nuros' posts. A lot of very good FPL players are wildcarding right now, and you will still have a late season wildcard, so ignore what your friend said.

As for the team itself, I agree that you need to squeeze an extra premium player in. Can you find the money for Cazorla to Sanchez somewhere? Your 8th most expensive attacking player is 5.8m, which is a lot of money to be benching every week. Your 7th most expensive is 7.1m, which is a huge amount for a player you might sometimes bench. Either get a base price player who you will bench every week and invest the money elsewhere, or if you prefer to rotate, it still needs to be a cheaper rotation than 7.1/5.8 imo.

I have no strong preference between 2 or 3 paid in the £100 league.