The constraint nobody questioned
For as long as daily fantasy sports has existed, one rule went unquestioned: one stat projection per athlete per lineup. Power users with high conviction in a single athlete had no way to fully express that belief: forced to spread their lineup across players they were less confident about, diluting strategy with noise.
User pain point
High-confidence conviction in a single player couldn't be fully expressed in one lineup
User pain point
Correlated outcomes: passing yards and TDs on the same great game: couldn't be leveraged together
The opportunity
Stacks changed this entirely. For the first time in DFS, members could select up to three different stat projections from the same athlete in a single lineup. Stack a quarterback's passing yards, passing touchdowns, and rushing yards: and if he has a breakout game, all three projections benefit. A fundamentally different way to play.
Core mechanic
Each projection must represent a different statistical category. Lineups still require at least one athlete from a different team. Up to three projections from one player: all riding on the same breakout performance.
The design challenge
Stacks introduced a new interaction problem: how do you let users select multiple projections from the same player without it feeling like a mistake? The existing UI assumed each slot would be a different athlete. Everything: selection flow, entry card, validation logic: needed rethinking.
I led end-to-end design from concept through launch, defining the interaction model for multi-projection selection, designing stack affordances that made the feature feel intentional rather than accidental, and working through every validation and error state with engineering and compliance.
Challenge 01
Balancing power with simplicity
Stacking amplifies payout volatility. The UI needed to communicate correlation clearly without overwhelming users with warnings.
Challenge 02
Risk signaling
How much should the UI telegraph compounded risk? We designed for user autonomy: making the stack visible without undermining confidence.
Challenge 03
Validation guardrails
Three-projection limit, different stat category enforcement, and cross-team validation all needed to fail gracefully.
Impact
Stacks launched July 30, 2025 for MLB and WNBA. It trended on X on its first day at 100% rollout: organic, user-generated excitement no paid campaign could manufacture.
Adoption
32%
of users created at least one Stacks lineup
Engagement
72%
vs 47% non-adopters
Stacks users played significantly more often
Revenue
$13.4M
Gross Gaming Revenue attributed to Stacks
Quality
70%↓
500k → 150k daily errors
Daily errors reduced post-launch
"PrizePicks is the only DFS platform to offer Same Player Lineups. The first day we rolled out to 100%, the feature got PrizePicks trending on X."
Within weeks of launch, competitors across DFS started shipping their own versions of same-player stacking. We didn't need to say anything, the industry said it for us.
Press release ↗ Feature explainer ↗