PrizePicks VPN: Player Picks, Sports and Online Privacy in 2026

PrizePicks gives sports fans a different way to put their knowledge of players and teams to use. Rather than looking like a traditional sportsbook, much of the PrizePicks experience revolves around researching athletes, comparing player projections, and deciding how you think they will perform. That makes PrizePicks part of a much larger game-day routine.

Before making a football pick, you might research a quarterback’s recent performances, check an injury report, look at the weather, compare defensive matchups, and follow breaking news. Basketball might have you checking minutes, starting lineups, recent box scores, injuries, and player trends. A PrizePicks VPN can add privacy and security across that sports activity. A VPN encrypts the connection between your device and the VPN server while masking your normal public IP address. That can be particularly valuable when you’re following sports while traveling or connecting through hotel, airport, coffee-shop, and other unfamiliar Wi-Fi networks.

PrizePicks also has geographic limits that sports fans should understand. Player Picks, Team Picks, Culture Picks, and Free2Play don’t have identical availability across the United States, and your experience can change when you travel between states.

In this guide, we’ll look at:

• How PrizePicks works
• Player Picks and Team Picks
• Football and basketball
• Where PrizePicks is available and International availability
• How VPN can add another layer of privacy to your sports setup

What Makes PrizePicks Different?

PrizePicks isn’t simply another version of a traditional sportsbook. One of its defining products is Player Picks, its daily fantasy sports game built around predicting individual player performances. Instead of only asking which team will win a game, you’re paying attention to the athletes themselves. PrizePicks provides statistical projections for players. You build a lineup containing between two and six athletes and make predictions based on those projections.

That changes the type of sports research you might do. For football, your attention could be on passing, rushing, receiving, or another available player statistic. For basketball, you might be researching points, rebounds, assists, three-pointers, or another projection. PrizePicks has also expanded beyond Player Picks. Depending on your location, the current platform can include Player Picks, Team Picks, Culture Picks, and Free2Play contests. That product variety is important because not every PrizePicks user sees exactly the same options.

How Do PrizePicks Player Picks Work?

Player Picks put individual athletes at the center of the experience. Imagine a hypothetical quarterback has a projection of: 245.5 passing yards. You can research the player, opponent, recent performances, injuries, weather, and other information you consider relevant before deciding how you think the player will perform relative to that projection.

PrizePicks currently lets users build lineups containing two to six players and make More or Less predictions on their statistical projections. That’s one reason PrizePicks feels different from simply choosing the winner of a game. A football team could win while a particular receiver finishes below his projection. A basketball team could lose while its star player has an outstanding statistical performance. With Player Picks, those individual performances matter.

Using PrizePicks for Football

Football is particularly well suited to player-focused research because so many individual performances contribute to the outcome of a game. Quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, tight ends, kickers, and other players can all generate statistics worth following.

Depending on what’s currently offered, that might have you researching areas such as passing yards, completions, passing touchdowns, rushing performance, receiving yards, receptions, touchdowns, and other player statistics.

And there’s more to the research than looking at last week’s box score. A quarterback could be facing one of the league’s strongest pass defenses. A receiver’s role might change because a teammate is injured. Weather could affect a football game. A running back could see a larger workload because of changes elsewhere on the roster.

College football can also be part of PrizePicks, although college Player Picks have additional restrictions in certain states. PrizePicks currently says users physically located in Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Vermont can’t submit Player Pick lineups containing college sports. Several other states have their own college-athlete or projection restrictions. For football fans, that means your physical location can affect not only whether PrizePicks is available, but potentially which football picks you can make.

Using PrizePicks for Basketball

Basketball creates a different Player Picks experience. Football concentrates much of the action into a few days each week. Basketball gives fans new games, players, injuries, and matchups almost every night during the season. Available basketball projections can involve statistics such as points, rebounds, assists, three-pointers, and other individual player performances.

That makes context particularly important. A player’s minutes could increase because a teammate is unavailable. A lineup change could create a different role. Recent form, injuries, opponent, pace, and other factors can all give you more to research before making a prediction.

PrizePicks can include major basketball competitions such as the NBA and WNBA, while college basketball availability can depend on the rules where you’re physically located. For basketball fans who already spend the season checking box scores, injuries, player statistics, and starting lineups, PrizePicks fits naturally into that existing research routine.

What Other Sports Can You Follow on PrizePicks?

PrizePicks goes well beyond football and basketball. Depending on what’s currently in season and available in your region, sports fans can find picks involving MLB baseball, NHL hockey, PGA and other golf events, soccer, UFC and MMA, boxing, tennis, esports, motorsports, and other competitions. That variety gives PrizePicks year-round appeal. Football can dominate the fall, basketball takes you through the winter and spring, baseball fills the summer, and golf, combat sports, soccer, tennis, and other events provide additional options throughout the calendar.

Player Picks vs. Team Picks: What’s the Difference?

This is one of the most important distinctions on the current PrizePicks platform. Team Picks and Player Picks aren’t the same thing.

Player Picks

Player Picks are PrizePicks’ daily fantasy sports product. You build a lineup of athletes and predict how they’ll perform relative to statistical projections. The emphasis is on the player.

Team Picks

Team Picks focus on sports outcomes. PrizePicks says Team Picks can include winners, spreads, totals, and futures across sports such as football, basketball, UFC, boxing, and others. Team Picks are offered as event contracts through PrizePicks Predict. The emphasis shifts from:

“How will this player perform?”

to questions about:

“What will happen in this game, matchup, or season?”

There’s another major difference.

Player Picks and Team Picks don’t have identical geographic availability.

PrizePicks currently lists Player Picks in 36 states plus Washington, D.C., while Team Picks are available in 36 states plus D.C. The states making up those groups are different. So simply knowing that PrizePicks operates in a particular state doesn’t tell you everything about what will be available there.

Why Use a VPN With PrizePicks?

The biggest reason we recommend a VPN for PrizePicks users is privacy across your broader sports activity. Think about everything you might do online before making a player pick. You could be researching statistics, checking injuries, comparing matchups, following scores, reading sports news, managing fantasy teams, watching analysis, or using compatible sports streaming services. You may also be doing those things across several devices. A VPN such as ExpressVPN can add another privacy layer to that activity by encrypting the connection between your device and its VPN server while masking your normal public IP address.

That can be particularly useful when you’re:

• Researching player projections
• Checking football or basketball statistics
• Reading injury and lineup reports
• Following live scores
• Managing fantasy teams
• Reading sports news
• Using compatible streaming services
• Traveling with your sports devices
• Connecting through hotel, airport, or public Wi-Fi

A VPN doesn’t replace strong passwords or other good account-security practices. Instead, it’s another layer of protection for the internet connection behind your sports activity.

Affiliate Disclosure: VPNForSports may earn a commission if you purchase through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Why Your PrizePicks Experience Can Change When You Travel

Travel can have a bigger impact on PrizePicks than some users might expect. PrizePicks says users must follow the rules associated with the region where they’re physically located while accessing the app. That matters because PrizePicks products aren’t available uniformly across the country.

• Some states currently have Player Picks, Team Picks, and Culture Picks.
• Others have Player Picks and Culture Picks but not Team Picks.
• Another group has Team Picks and Culture Picks but not Player Picks.

Some states have even narrower product availability. That means someone who crosses a state line could encounter a different version of the PrizePicks experience. For example, PrizePicks currently lists California, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas among states with access to its major Player, Team, and Culture pick types.

• New York, however, currently has Player Picks and Culture Picks but not Team Picks.
• Washington has Team Picks and Culture Picks but not Player Picks.
• Arizona currently has Player Picks but not Team or Culture Picks.

Travel can also mean relying on networks you wouldn’t normally use. Hotel Wi-Fi, airport networks, coffee shops, and other public connections are exactly the situations where having ExpressVPN installed can provide an additional privacy layer for your general online and sports activity. PrizePicks’ geographic requirements remain separate from those VPN privacy benefits.

Where Is PrizePicks Available in the United States?

PrizePicks availability is more complicated than creating one list of supported and unsupported states.

The better question is: Which PrizePicks product do you want to use?

PrizePicks currently reports:

• Player Picks: Available in 36 states plus Washington, D.C.
• Team Picks: Available in 36 states plus Washington, D.C.
• Culture Picks: Available in 48 states plus Washington, D.C.
• Free2Play: Free contests may be offered in jurisdictions where permitted.

PrizePicks’ current Player Picks availability includes major states such as California, Florida, Texas, New York, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Massachusetts, and others.

Team Picks have a different footprint that includes major markets such as California, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Washington, New Jersey, and others.

PrizePicks also says real-money games aren’t currently available across all 50 states.

Because these rules can change, check the current availability of the specific PrizePicks product you’re interested in rather than assuming all PrizePicks features are available everywhere.

Is PrizePicks Available Outside the United States?

PrizePicks’ primary real-money sports products are heavily focused on the United States. PrizePicks’ current disclosures say its DFS product is available to U.S. residents only, while Team Picks and Culture Picks require users to be U.S. residents and meet their respective eligibility requirements. Account verification reinforces that U.S. focus.

PrizePicks says account activation generally requires a legal U.S. residential address within the 50 states, Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as U.S. citizenship, permanent residency, or a valid U.S. visa, with certain exceptions such as qualifying military personnel. Free-to-play availability can be broader than the real-money products. The important takeaway for international travelers is that PrizePicks isn’t a broadly international sports platform in the same way some other services are. If you’re leaving the United States, check PrizePicks’ current eligibility information for your destination rather than assuming the same products will remain available.

Best VPN for PrizePicks: ExpressVPN

Our VPN choice for PrizePicks users and sports privacy is ExpressVPN. We’re primarily looking for a VPN that can protect the many online activities surrounding PrizePicks: player research, scores, statistics, sports news, fantasy, streaming, and travel.

Several ExpressVPN features make it stand out for that purpose.

• Servers Throughout the United States: ExpressVPN provides server coverage across all 50 U.S. states. For privacy use, that means sports fans have plenty of options for finding a server relatively close to their actual location rather than unnecessarily routing traffic across the country.
• Large Worldwide Network: ExpressVPN also has a substantial international network across 100+ countries. That’s particularly useful for travelers who want VPN protection while following sports away from home. PrizePicks availability and ExpressVPN server availability are separate issues, but a large network gives you considerably more flexibility for general privacy while traveling.
• Lightway Protocol: ExpressVPN’s Lightway protocol was developed around speed, security, and reliability. That’s useful for sports fans because a VPN may stay active while you’re jumping between statistics, news, scores, fantasy platforms, and compatible streaming services.
• TrustedServer Technology: ExpressVPN uses TrustedServer technology, which runs its VPN server software on RAM rather than relying on conventional hard drives. That’s one of the privacy technologies we particularly like about the service.
• Network Lock: ExpressVPN also includes Network Lock, its kill-switch feature. It’s designed to prevent internet traffic from continuing outside the VPN tunnel if the protected connection unexpectedly drops.
• Protection Across Your Sports Devices: Sports fans rarely rely on a single screen. You might research players on a laptop, check scores on your phone, use a tablet for fantasy sports, and watch games through a television or streaming device. ExpressVPN supports a broad range of popular devices, making it easier to extend VPN protection beyond one computer.
• 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee: ExpressVPN also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for new customers. That gives you an opportunity to test the VPN across the devices, networks, and sports services you actually use.

Affiliate Disclosure: VPNForSports may earn a commission if you purchase through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

PrizePicks FAQs

Build a More Private Game-Day Setup

PrizePicks is different from many of the other sports platforms fans use because individual player performance sits at the center of the experience. And that naturally creates research. Before making a football pick, you might check recent performances, injuries, matchups, weather, statistics, and breaking news. Basketball might have you researching minutes, starting lineups, recent box scores, injuries, and player trends. PrizePicks is only one piece of that routine. You may have statistics open on your laptop, scores on your phone, fantasy information on a tablet, and a game playing on your television.

That’s where ExpressVPN fits into our PrizePicks setup. ExpressVPN can encrypt the connection between your device and its VPN server while masking your normal public IP address. Its extensive U.S. coverage, international network, Lightway protocol, TrustedServer technology, Network Lock, and broad device support make it our VPN choice for sports fans looking for additional online privacy.

PrizePicks separately determines which products and features are available based on its eligibility and geographic requirements. For us, the value of combining the two is simple: PrizePicks gives sports fans another reason to research individual player performance. ExpressVPN adds another layer of privacy to the online sports activity surrounding game day.