Draftstars Review November 2024

With such a huge number of different bookmakers available in Australia, it can be difficult at times to determine the difference between agencies, most of whom provide very similar offerings. Draftstars does not fall into that category. This bookmaker enables punters to bet on daily fantasy sports; essentially meaning that you select a team much in the same vein as you would in a regular fantasy league, enter it into competitions and receive points based on how the players in your team perform in real life. It’s a unique way to bet and is accompanied by a quality website and great mobile app, though as we’ll discuss there are a number of areas in which Draftstars could substantially improve. Overall, however, it’s an intriguing product that they offer, and if you want to know more about it then you’ve come to the right place.

Like every betting site, Draftstars has its strengths and weaknesses. Below, we’ve listed some of the most notable of each.

✔️Draftstars Strengths

• Leading fantasy sports operator: Draftstars differs significantly from most bookmakers in the type of punting it offers. There are a handful of other bookmakers offering fantasy sports markets in Australia, but Draftstars is the most comprehensive among them.
• Easy-to-use website: Draftstars is owned by PlayUp, who themselves have one of the most efficient websites of all bookmakers in Australia. It’s little surprise that this has translated to Draftstars, and navigating this unique bookmakers’ website is very straightforward.
• Fantasy Insider Cruncher: In my opinion, DS aims to help its customers with tools such as the FI Cruncher. The cruncher basically helps people build mass lineups for almost all of the sports that they offer, such as AFL, NRL, NBA and more. It’s great for beginners as they can play with the generic lineups and still have fun. Meanwhile, veterans like me also like it because it can save a lot of time if I’m building mass lineups.

❌Draftstars Weaknesses

• Limited customer service: Customer service is a pivotal part of any betting platform, and most bookmakers offer a variety of different ways to get in touch with them. Draftstars falls a little short in this category, with the notable absence of live chat and a phone number, and an online form the only way to reach out.
• Feed Glitches / Issues: In my experience with DS, they have a lot of problems with their feed providers. For example, the NRL feed can stop working in the middle of a game and it’s pretty frustrating when you can’t watch the live scoring. In saying that, this isn’t a thing that happens every day so don’t be too concerned.
• No normal betting markets: Draftstars is a fantasy sports betting operator, which gives them a significant point of difference from most other bookies, but if you just want to bet on standard markets for an upcoming game, then you’ll need to look elsewhere.

👨‍⚖️Final Verdict

Whether these strengths and weaknesses are a major attraction or deterrence will depend on the individual: some may value quality customer support while others don’t care: others may be particularly keen on fantasy sports, or want a bookmaker with a mobile app. What it is that you value will ultimately determine what these strengths and weaknesses mean to you.

Draftstars is not your average bookmaker. First launched in 2016 by BetEasy and Fox Sports as a joint venture, it’s since been acquired by PlayUp and has developed into Australia’s biggest fantasy sports betting platform. Unlike other bookmakers, who offer odds on specific outcomes occurring in a given event, Draftstars asks its users to develop a team using a salary cap and pre-existing prices which are attributed to players, in the same vein that you would create a typical fantasy team. You then pay money to enter competitions against other players, and receive a score based on how well your selected players perform in real life. You’ll then be ranked against all other players in the competition, with the top handful receiving cash prizes for their efforts.

It’s a unique offering and certainly won’t appeal to everyone, but given the popularity of fantasy sports there’s no doubt that there’s a market for it. With most people more accustomed to regular sports betting, there is the potential for this format to be a little confusing, but Draftstars does a great job of providing a very simplistic website design which makes everything simple to understand.

They also have a great mobile app, available for both iOS and Android, which is equally as simplistic. In fact, for many, the mobile app will offer an even more streamlined experience than the website, and can be used as a replacement for the site if you don’t want to get your laptop out.

But while the website and app design are excellent and the concept of this bookmaker novel, there are certain areas in which they have significant room for improvement. The first of these is customer support. Where other bookmakers have live chat, phone numbers and are often available 24/7, Draftstars simply offers an online form where you can make a request which should be responded to within four hours. Technically, they do offer a live chat service but it’s only for existing customers and it depends on whether a support worker is online. In my experience, they are usually more active in the day-time but they also can respond at night. I can also email the support team directly and they’re usually very quick to respond. But without a phone number or live chat support service, this can certainly be a cause for frustration, particularly if you’re new to the fantasy sports betting game as many are.

Another area in which they could improve is the number of payment methods offered. For deposits, you can use debit card / bank transfer / PayID / cash in store. In terms of the competition, they do perform well in the deposit area. But your only option for withdrawals is a bank transfer. For some this won’t be an issue as they would use one of these options anyway, but this list of payment methods is substantially smaller than most other bookmakers. I’ve also experienced a good withdrawal time with DS, usually it hits my bank account on the next business day, which is always nice.

Despite these faults, however, Draftstars provides an exciting overall experience for the punter. They offer something which few other betting sites do, and with a user-friendly website it’s easy to see why they’ve become the most popular fantasy sports betting site in Australia, in spite of their flaws.

Betting Variety ⭐⭐⭐
With their focus on fantasy sports, Draftstars offers a niche sports betting experience, but the options in terms of leagues and different bet types is fairly limited.

Banking Options ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Draftstars offers debit card and other methods for deposits, and only bank wire for withdrawals, making their payment methods pretty decent.

Mobile experience ⭐⭐⭐
Since merging the site with PlayUp, the Draftstars App just isn’t as good as before. It’s very glitchy and it’s actually better to use the mobile website instead, in my experience.

Payout Speed ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
We’ve had no major problems with the payout speed, with most winnings credited in your account fairly quickly.

Security ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Likewise, there are no issues with security, with Draftstars licensed and regulated by the Northern Territory Racing Commission.

Betting Experience ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Courtesy of a great website and app, the betting experience with Draftstars is very good.

Customer Support ⭐⭐⭐
There are very little options for customer support, with only an online form available for those needing a query resolved.

Got a particular question that you want answered about Draftstars? Below are our responses to a few of the most common questions we get asked about this bookmaker, and you might just find yours buried among them.

Most good bookmakers have a handful of specific features which help them to stand out from the crowd. Draftstars biggest is undoubtedly the type of betting that they offer, and we go into detail about that and more below.

Unique betting offerings

Unlike the vast majority of other bookmakers in Australia, which simply offer odds on selected outcomes occurring within a sporting event, Draftstars allows players to select their own team of players who then score points based on how they perform in real life matches or events. This is an entirely different way of betting, drawing instead on the fantasy world which has become such a prevalent part of so many sports around the world, and is a notable divergence from other bookmakers.

Draftstars tips

Many bookmakers offer hints and tips in various different forms to help out the punter, though whether these are actually a help or a hindrance depends on the bookmaker. On Draftstars, they are definitely a help – unsurprising given that, while normal bookmakers benefit when you lose, it’s irrelevant to Draftstars how you perform as you’re competing against other punters. They offer three resources to help you – the Playbook, Stat Bible and Fantasy Insider, the former of which offers various blog articles about a number of sports, the latter two of which offer a different way to predict upcoming outcomes using optimised predictive tools.

Mobile app

This is a hugely important feature for an increasing number of punters, with more and more people wanting the ability to bet easily while they’re on the go. Their mobile app is available for iOS and Android and is as good as any on the market, offering an intuitive and easy-to-use layout that makes it simple for punters to get from A to B.  The app allows me to view all the live contests, swap players if needed, play rapidfire and even use the Fantasy Insider cruncher, which is useful when I’m away from a computer.

Draftstars doesn’t offer markets on the quantity of sports as most regular bookmakers, but given they focus exclusively on fantasy sports that shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise. After all, their offering is already specific enough – were they offering fantasy markets on obscure sports it’s highly unlikely that many people would have any interest betting on them. Instead, they focus on the most popular leagues, and we’ve gone over the most notable among them below.

🏉Draftstars AFL

The winter sport of choice in all Australian states with the exception of New South Wales and Queensland, it’s no surprise that the national league of our national game is top of this list. Draftstars offers markets on all AFL games throughout the course of the home and away season as well as the finals, with particularly big prizes on offer as the league reaches the pointy end of the season.

🏉Draftstars NRL

The aforementioned two states of NSW and Queensland direct their collective attention to rugby league rather than Australian rules football in the winter, making NRL a popular league to punt on. This popularity translates to fantasy sports betting, and like they do for the AFL, Draftstars enables customers to enter NRL competitions for games throughout the season, as well as during the finals.

🏀Draftstars NBA

Basketball is growing in popularity in Australia every year, and the Boomers recent historic bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics will only serve to accelerate that process. A lot of this interest is directed towards the NBL, Australia’s own league, but it’s the NBA which stands head and shoulders above the rest as the best league in the world, and it’s towards that league that the majority of basketball fans turn their attention once the season starts. Unlike in the NRL and AFL, in which there are eight or nine games each weekend, the NBA often has that many games in a single day and plays every day of the week, meaning there are a huge number of punting options for this league.

🏏Draftstars Cricket

Once the weather warms up, the entirety of Australia becomes cricket-obsessed, and this is reflected in Draftstars’ offerings. You can enter competitions for the biggest cricket events, including Australian Tests and one-day games, as well as various major T20 tournaments, perhaps most notably the Big Bash League which takes place over the course of every Australian summer.

⚽Draftstars Soccer

The world game might not have the same hold on the Australian sporting public as it does elsewhere, but there is still more than enough passion for the game down under to justify Draftstars offering markets on the biggest leagues, particularly given these are among the biggest leagues on the planet. The English Premier League, as the biggest soccer league in the world, is unsurprisingly a particular feature. They also have contests for the Soccer World Cup every four years.

🏈Draftstars NFL

American football isn’t exactly a common pastime in Australia, but like the NBA, the NFL is rapidly growing in popularity down under. The viewer-friendly times of many of these games – with night games in the U.S taking place in the mid-morning in Australia – as well as the unique nature of the sport have helped it to capture the imagination of many sports fans in Australia, and it’s no surprise that it’s becoming an equally popular thing to bet on too. Draftstars offers competitions over the course of the weekend when the NFL is played, making this enormously popular American sport that little bit more exciting.

🏇Draftstars Racing

It was only in 2020 that Draftstars first began to offer horse racing markets, and these take on a different format to what you’ll get with the aforementioned sports. Rather than building a team with a salary cap, players simply select one horse and are paid out according to that horse’s odds if it ultimately wins, in much the same vein as regular bookmakers.

Not sure how to go about building your team for the above leagues? Fortunately, Draftstars offer a number of different resources which provide information about player form and likely performance, and these can be used to help determine who may or may not be a good fit for your team. Take a look at these resources below.

Playbook

The Playbook is essentially a blog which is available for users of both Draftstars and PlayUp. There are news items, previews, reviews and tips on a wide range of different sports – including NRL, NFL, AFL and NBA – as well as racing. There are also articles written which relate specifically to fantasy sports scoring, including changes to scoring systems, making this a valuable resource for punters using Draftstars.

Stat Bible

The Stat Bible is a resource offered by Draftstars in conjunction with a brand called Wicky, and provides a simple and easy to understand way to take a look at players’ projected scores for upcoming games. It has information about each player in an upcoming game, including their price, recent scores, form, and also provides a projected score and value rating which can help you to decide whether they’re a good pick. Finally, the percentage of punters on the platform who have been picking each player weekly is listed, meaning you’ll be able to choose whether you want to follow the crowd or go out on your own.

Fantasy Insider

Fantasy Insider is the most in-depth of the tipping resources offered by Draftstars. It offers projections on NBA, NRL, State of Origin and AFL which are based on models developed over the course of 15 years. This platform can give you invaluable insight about how players are likely to perform, and you can use their line-up cruncher to optimise your line-up and give yourself the best chance possible of putting together a good score. This is a well-developed and highly advanced tool, and is definitely worth taking the time to understand and utilise if you’re betting with Draftstars.

These three tipping resources all use different methods to keep you informed, each of which has its advantages and disadvantages. Particularly if used in conjunction with one another, they can be valuable sources of information and are definitely worth checking.

Mobile apps are an increasingly popular way to bet, with the flexibility they afford punters a major reason for their emergence. Not all bookmakers, however, have yet got around to creating one, among those who have, not all apps are created equal. Some are extremely streamlined, easy to use and offer a better experience even than the website, while others are clunky, slow and have a continual stream of issues popping up. So how does Draftstars fare in this regard?

The short answer is very well. Draftstars have created a mobile app which is available for both iOS and Android devices, and it can very easily be used as a replacement for the website if you rarely jump on the computer. You can do all that you need to do via the app; create an account, deposit and withdraw, and of course place bets.

On top of that, the functionality is first-class, with the app design closely mirroring the website but in a way which is more suitable for the much smaller screen on which the app will be used. There are also elements of the design which you can customise to suit your own preferences, making the things that you are likely to want to access more visible and accessible.

Importantly, and unlike many of its counterparts, the app also runs quickly and smoothly, and in our time using it we came across no frustrating speedbumps. Many other apps seem to struggle to deal with all the data contained within them, regularly malfunctioning or closing entirely, but Draftstars appeared to have created an app which manages to avoid these frustrations.

On the whole, this is one of the better apps among all sports betting sites in Australia. It ticks all the boxes, being functional, responsive, easy to use and most importantly, allowing you to do all that you need to do, making it an excellent alternative to the website proper.

Banking is an interesting component to analyse for bookmakers, because whether or not it’s important will vary enormously between customers. Many punters are more than happy to simply use their debit card, a payment method which is offered by virtually all bookmakers, and as a result they probably won’t pay any attention to the other methods available. Other customers, however, tend to rely on more obscure payment options, and if they aren’t available it can enough to send them turning their back on a bookie before they’ve even started.

Looking at the deposit methods, DS has a good range of options in my view. Firstly, they offer the basics of debit card, which is very common in the industry. It’s always my favourite option as I can easily place funds into my account instantly and there’s no wait time. Meanwhile, there’s also the ability to use PayID with your bank account. This option is becoming a lot more common and similar to debit card, it’s easy to follow. Meanwhile, it’s also possible to use cash in-store at local agencies in Australia. This one really depends on your preference as you’ll have to find a local outlet, which might not be possible for some. Lastly, you can deposit with a bank transfer and that’s a safe way to transfer money.

If you manage to win some money on Draftstars, your options for withdrawing it will be even more limited than they were for depositing. You have just one option to take out your money from Draftstars – bank transfer. Like with debit card, this will probably be fine for most people, but if you were hoping to transfer your winnings to an ewallet, PayPal or something else then you won’t be able to do it until after transferring it to your bank account.

As with all bookies, when you withdraw you’ll have to wait at least a day or two for the funds to arrive in your bank account, and the exact length of time it takes will depend when you do it (over weekends and public holidays takes longer) and your bank. Deposits, in contrast, are a lot quicker, with this money arriving immediately in your account to allow you to start punting straight away.

Yes, it sure is. Draftstars, like most major bookmakers in Australia, is licensed and governed by the Northern Territory Racing Commission. This means that you can be confident that they will operate as expected, and if you want to know more about this then you can download their General Terms and Conditions as well as their Fantasy Sports Terms and Conditions via the Terms and Conditions link at the bottom of the homepage.

Customer support is an increasingly important part of virtually every business, and this is particularly the case with bookmakers. There are invariably issues or queries which arise for many customers when punting, and it’s important that bookies offer a way for them to get these resolved, ideally as quickly and painfully as possible. Most bookmakers do a pretty good job of this, with features like live chat and 24/7 service increasingly common among most major websites. Unfortunately, Draftstars doesn’t fall into this category.

The only option which they offer as a way to get in touch is an online form, which is available by clicking on the ‘Contact Us’ link at the bottom of the home page. This form requires you to fill in your name, email address and message, and is accompanied by a note saying that Draftstars will endeavour to respond to you within four hours during business hours, which run from 6am-12am AEST.

In fairness to Draftstars, this is a reasonably quick response time for an online form and their business hours are comparable with most of their competitors. Most other bookmakers, if they offer an online form, would likely take longer than this to get back to you, and in our experience Draftstars stuck to their word and replied fairly promptly.

One of the unique parts about DS is they do offer a community chat service on their website and app for existing customers. I can browse different chat categories such as general, AFL, NRL and more. It’s also possible to chat with a live support agent, usually by using @DS to get their attention. So if there’s any feed issues or I entered the wrong contest, you’ll find they do respond fairly quickly and I feel they truly try to help in anyway they can.

It’s worth noting, however, that most of these competitors would also offer a number of ways in which customers can get in touch with them immediately, and as a result an online form would likely be the last resort for anyone with a query using these sites. Live chat, as mentioned, is a simple, quick and increasingly common way to sort out any issues, while bookmakers without this option will typically have a phone number which customers can call up to get an immediate response to their query.

That Draftstars offers neither of these options is a big black mark against their name, and has the potential to be a major source of frustration for punters. They could substantially improve the betting experience by adding at least one way for customers to get an immediate solution for any issues they might run into, or questions they might need answered, while using the platform.

If you’re after step-by-step advice on how to perform important functions on Draftstars, look no further. Below, we cover how to create an account, place a bet, and download the app.

How to open an account with Draftstars?

Opening an account with Draftstars is easy when you follow the below steps, and you should be able to get through the entire process in around a minute.

1. Head to the Draftstars website.
2. Click the ‘Sign Up’ button in the top right-hand corner of your screen.
3. Fill in the required details, including name, username and password.
4. Agree to the terms and conditions, set a deposit limit if you wish, click ‘Sign Up Now’, and you’re ready to go!

How to enter a competition with Draftstars?

Once you’ve created an account, you’ll want to know how to enter a competition. Follow these steps to do just that.

1. In the ‘Lobby’, click on the sport that you wish to bet on.
2. Scan through the available contests, and click ‘Enter’ on one that appeals to you.
3. Add your desired players to your team by clicking the ‘+’ sign next to their name.
4. Once you’ve completed your team, click ‘Submit Lineup’ and you’re on your way.

How to download the Draftstars app

Want to download the aforementioned app which we spoke so fondly about? Then follow these steps.

• Grab your iOS or Android device!
• Head to whichever platform you use to download apps.
• Type in ‘Draftstars’.
• Click on the Draftstars app which pops up, download it, and it should load onto your phone within the space of a minute.

Features: Unique way to bet, intuitive website design, quality mobile app, excellent betting resources
Sports covered: AFL, NRL, NBA, NFL, cricket, golf
Apps: Yes, available for iOS and Android
Payment options: Deposits via debit card or POLi, withdrawals via bank transfer
Contact information: Online form