While I do not gamble on individual games, I do participate in a Las Vegas Hilton-type handicapping contest each year. This has been my worst year in a while.
I play in a contest with some friends each year where we pick every game against the spread each week. Spreads always include a .5 point so there are no pushes, which means some lines are slightly adjusted. Most seasons our group is above 50%, but generally not enough enough to beat the juice. This year we are bad. I’m in the lead with 60 correct (62 misses)
I’m safe in the undead pool as I picked IND.
Still waffling on PIT, MIA, or BUF in the main pool
I switched to BUF. I think the field will get whittled down a lot over the next 3 weeks so I’m taking the safest play available to me
My pool went
3 IND (safe)
3 DAL (getting smoked early)
3 PIT (MNF)
1 BAL (getting smoked early)
1 BUF (me. currently tied)
Sigh. I’m out.
Still alive in the small undead pool and a bunch of people went out today. If KC wins there will be 7 left, otherwise 6.
Of course, the past 2 weeks I’ve gone 5-1 and 6-0. $$ for going 6-0. Odd year.
In the past few weeks I had an 11-3 week and a 2-12 week. lol.
For several years I played in a pool of ~400 people that included a number of different NFL games, including picking every game every week ATS. There was a bonus if anyone had a perfect week ATS. The game had a very low buy-in ($20-25 IIRC) and only a small piece went towards the perfect week bonus, but it had rolled over for many years without anyone winning so the prize had gotten pretty large. When someone finally hit it the guy decided it was a good run and shut the game down. Too bad, as it was a lot of fun. He used to post on the AO some but was not a prolific poster, and I’m not sure he made it here.
I think the games included:
Annual Winner ATS (Winner and first few got a nice payout, and maybe top 35-50 got paid. I cashed in the top 20 once I think). You got your money back if you had the worst ATS record
Weekly winner ATS
Cumulative Margin of Victory for the season
Beat the Dog (his dog picked 6 games ATS/week, and whoever beat the dog the most for the season won)
Survivor
Perfect week bonus
These season long pools satisfy any type of gambling urge for me. My pool has a similar # of people, but buy-in is over $300 for the season. 6-0 in a given week wins money, but you split it depending on how many went 6-0; carries over if nobody goes 6-0. 0-6 gets you $50. Maybe 10% of the entries get paid out for the cumulative results after week 17 (18).
I like the side contests in your pool. For some reason, I generally don’t like picking all games.