Circa NFL Million-dollar handicapping challenge

Quote: Wizard

Here are my entries for week 1:

"Funky Doctor"?

Meanwhile, in the Circa Survivor Contest, 425 of the 1373 entries chose the Colts, while 1 chose the Jaguars.

Here are my entries for week 1:

Entry 1:
NEP -6.5 W
Chic +3 W
SF -6.5 L
Rams +3 W
Tenn -2.5 L

Entry 2:
NEP -6.5 W
SF -6.5 L
Rams +3 W
Sea -2 W
Phil -5.5 L

Update concerning the Circa Survivor contest:
Of the 209 entries still in it going into Thanksgiving weekend, 49 have a team in the Steelers-Ravens game...which has been moved to Sunday. The problem is, in this contest, Thanksgiving Day is considered its own weekend, and any game scheduled for Thanksgiving that is not played by Friday morning is treated as a tie - which, in a survivor pool, counts as a loss for both teams.

Meanwhile, in the other contest, Funky Doctor #1 is tied for 242nd with 31 wins (19 losses, and apparently one missed week). The current Top 10 have, out of a maximum 40, one 39, one 38 1/2, four 37 1/2s, one 37, and one 36 1/2. The top 50 cash out; 50th place is currently at 34. There's still hope.

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Update concerning the Circa Survivor contest:
The problem is, in this contest, Thanksgiving Day is considered its own weekend, and any game scheduled for Thanksgiving that is not played by Friday morning is treated as a tie - which, in a survivor pool, counts as a loss for both teams.

One would think common sense would prevail, unless they do not want as many entries next season. And the organizers believe bad publicity is better than no publicity.

Quote: IndyJeffrey

One would think common sense would prevail, unless they do not want as many entries next season. And the organizers believe bad publicity is better than no publicity.

Common sense? This is a big money bet! Common sense says "We have established the rules before the bets were taken. We will follow the rules that were established."

As opposed to "We established a set of rules. But we are unilaterally changing them mid season because some games are being postponed, even though we specifically before the season said what we would do in the event of postponed games!"

Quote: IndyJeffrey

One would think common sense would prevail, unless they do not want as many entries next season. And the organizers believe bad publicity is better than no publicity.

The problem is, this isn't the first weekend where they have had this problem. There is a similar rule for Sunday games - if it isn't played by Tuesday morning, it counts as a tie (note this applies to the Million Dollar Handicapping Challenge as well, although in that event, a tie counts as 1/2 win and doesn't automatically eliminate you) - and they enforced it in Week 5 when the Bills-Titans game was moved from Sunday to Tuesday. They can't turn around and say, "Well, it's Thanksgiving, so it's different."

Update: while the final results in the handicapping challenge haven't been released yet, there were 35 perfect entries in the Survivor contest, each receiving $68,285. Note that nobody who was still in the contest going into week 17 picked a losing team.

Meanwhile, the Circa ended up losing $1 million, since the prize pool was "100% of the entry fees, plus $1 million of our money as a bonus if anybody gets through the season with a perfect score."

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Update: while the final results in the handicapping challenge haven't been released yet, there were 35 perfect entries in the Survivor contest, each receiving $68,285. Note that nobody who was still in the contest going into week 17 picked a losing team.

Meanwhile, the Circa ended up losing $1 million, since the prize pool was "100% of the entry fees, plus $1 million of our money as a bonus if anybody gets through the season with a perfect score."

I tend to believe they knew losing that would be almost certain.

Quote: ThatDonGuy

"Funky Doctor"?

Looks like Funky Doctor finished 42-37-1 (looks like he missed a week), which is tied for 1204th. It took 51 wins (and 34 losses) to cash out; the winner was 56-27-2.

Had he bet $110 on each game at -110, he would have finished up $130 for the season.

Circa has upped the prize for its Survivor contest to $6 million, with a $1 million bonus for going 20-0 - but in order to get the bonus, you have to choose either Kansas City or Tampa Bay in the final week of the season. Also, to make things a little harder, for the games on the day after Christmas, you have to make your selection between midnight and 9 AM that day; this is because the Thursday and Saturday games that weekend are their own week, in the same way that Thanksgiving is its own week.