Dueling with Kings High Stakes, Killer Sharks, and the Get-Rich Promise of Daily Fantasy Sports

In the spirit of Bringing Down the House and The Wolf of Wall Street, “an engrossing and often hilarious behind-the-scenes look at the characters, compulsions, and chaos inside the fantasy sports gold rush. It’s the perfect meld of a sports and business book, engagingly written like a fun, page-turning novel” (The Wall Street Journal).

Daniel Barbarisi quit his job as a New York Yankees beat writer and began a quest to join the top one percent of Daily Fantasy Sports (“DFS”) players, the so-called “sharks,” in hopes to discover the secrets behind this phenomenon—and potentially make some money along the way.

DFS is fantasy sports on steroids. It’s the domain of bitter rivals FanDuel and DraftKings, online juggernauts who turned a legal loophole into a billion-dollar industry by allowing sports fans to bet piles of cash constructing fantasy teams.

Yet as Barbarisi quickly realizes, what should have been a fun companion to casual sports viewing was instead a ferocious environment infested with sharks, a top tier of pros wielding complex algorithms, drafting hundreds of lineups, and wagering six figures daily as they bludgeon unsuspecting amateur “fish.” Barbarisi embeds himself inside the world of DFS, befriending and joining its rogue’s gallery as he tries to beat them at their own game.

In a work equal parts adventure and rigorously reported investigation, Barbarisi wades into this chaotic industry at the very moment its existence is threatened by lawmakers sick of its Wild West atmosphere and pushy advertising. All their money made FanDuel and DraftKings seem invincible; but, as Barbarisi reports, they made plenty of dubious—perhaps even scandalous—moves as they vied for market supremacy.

In Dueling with Kings, Barbarisi uncovers the tumultuous inside story of DFS, all while capturing its peculiar cast of characters, from wide-eyed newly minted millionaires, to sun-starved math geeks, to bros living an endless frat party of keggers and Playboy Bunnies. Can he outwit them all and make it to the top?

Daniel Barbarisi is a longtime sports and news journalist, having published over five thousand pieces in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and The Providence Journal, and appeared on hundreds of radio and TV programs over the course of his career. Most recently, he was on staff at The Wall Street Journal, serving as the Yankees beat reporter. He and his wife reside in Boston, Massachusetts. Dueling with Kings is his first book.