Drafting strategies in fantasy football: A study of competitive sequential human decision making
Drafting is a competitive task in which a set of decision makers choose from a set of resources sequentially, with each resource becoming unavailable once selected. How people make these choices raises basic questions about human decision making, including people’s sensitivity to the statistical reg...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press
2022-07-01
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| Series: | Judgment and Decision Making |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1930297500008901/type/journal_article |
| _version_ | 1827827297331183616 |
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| author | Michael D. Lee Siqi Liu |
| author_facet | Michael D. Lee Siqi Liu |
| author_sort | Michael D. Lee |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Drafting is a competitive task in which a set of decision makers choose from a set of resources sequentially, with each resource becoming unavailable once selected. How people make these choices raises basic questions about human decision making, including people’s sensitivity to the statistical regularities of the resource environment, their ability to reason about the behavior of their competitors, and their ability to execute and adapt sophisticated strategies in dynamic situations involving uncertainty. Sports provides one real-world example of drafting behavior, in which a set of teams draft players from an available pool in a well-regulated way. Fantasy sport competitions provide potentially large data sets of drafting behavior. We study fantasy football drafting behavior from the 2017 National Football League (NFL) season based on 1350 leagues hosted by the http://sleeper.app platform. We find people are sensitive to some important environmental regularities in the order in which they draft players, but also present evidence that they use a more narrow range of strategies than is likely optimal in terms of team composition. We find little to no evidence for the use of the complicated but well-documented strategy known as handcuffing, and no evidence of irrational influence from individual-level biases for different NFL teams. We do, however, identify a set of circumstances for which there is clear evidence that people’s choices are strongly influenced by the immediately preceding choice made by a competitor. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T03:24:28Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e0488eec3f784c488736a77043ef5070 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1930-2975 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T03:24:28Z |
| publishDate | 2022-07-01 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Judgment and Decision Making |
| spelling | doaj.art-e0488eec3f784c488736a77043ef50702023-09-03T13:42:59ZengCambridge University PressJudgment and Decision Making1930-29752022-07-011769171910.1017/S1930297500008901Drafting strategies in fantasy football: A study of competitive sequential human decision makingMichael D. Lee0Siqi Liu1Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, IrvineDepartment of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, IrvineDrafting is a competitive task in which a set of decision makers choose from a set of resources sequentially, with each resource becoming unavailable once selected. How people make these choices raises basic questions about human decision making, including people’s sensitivity to the statistical regularities of the resource environment, their ability to reason about the behavior of their competitors, and their ability to execute and adapt sophisticated strategies in dynamic situations involving uncertainty. Sports provides one real-world example of drafting behavior, in which a set of teams draft players from an available pool in a well-regulated way. Fantasy sport competitions provide potentially large data sets of drafting behavior. We study fantasy football drafting behavior from the 2017 National Football League (NFL) season based on 1350 leagues hosted by the http://sleeper.app platform. We find people are sensitive to some important environmental regularities in the order in which they draft players, but also present evidence that they use a more narrow range of strategies than is likely optimal in terms of team composition. We find little to no evidence for the use of the complicated but well-documented strategy known as handcuffing, and no evidence of irrational influence from individual-level biases for different NFL teams. We do, however, identify a set of circumstances for which there is clear evidence that people’s choices are strongly influenced by the immediately preceding choice made by a competitor.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1930297500008901/type/journal_articledecision strategiescompetitive decision makingsequential decision makingsports draftsfantasy football |
| spellingShingle | Michael D. Lee Siqi Liu Drafting strategies in fantasy football: A study of competitive sequential human decision making Judgment and Decision Making decision strategies competitive decision making sequential decision making sports drafts fantasy football |
| title | Drafting strategies in fantasy football: A study of competitive sequential human decision making |
| title_full | Drafting strategies in fantasy football: A study of competitive sequential human decision making |
| title_fullStr | Drafting strategies in fantasy football: A study of competitive sequential human decision making |
| title_full_unstemmed | Drafting strategies in fantasy football: A study of competitive sequential human decision making |
| title_short | Drafting strategies in fantasy football: A study of competitive sequential human decision making |
| title_sort | drafting strategies in fantasy football a study of competitive sequential human decision making |
| topic | decision strategies competitive decision making sequential decision making sports drafts fantasy football |
| url | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1930297500008901/type/journal_article |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT michaeldlee draftingstrategiesinfantasyfootballastudyofcompetitivesequentialhumandecisionmaking AT siqiliu draftingstrategiesinfantasyfootballastudyofcompetitivesequentialhumandecisionmaking |