June 7, 2024: Circa Survivor

Ever since I heard of the contest last year, I’ve been interested. Listening to Follow The Money since last year, really amped up my excitement for this contest. For those who don’t know, it’s the Circa Survivor contest hosted by the Circa Casino in Las Vegas, you know, the one in downtown Vegas with Stadium Swim… Yes, so it’s a basic survivor pool with a couple twists. The Thanksgiving games and the day after count as 1 week; the Christmas Day games and the day after count as a week too. So a total of 20 weeks, and you’re unable to use the same team twice. Yes, pick one winner per week, and you too, can win a share of the $10M guaranteed prize pool. Probably a little higher than the stakes you play for… It’s 1K per entry. We are in!

I threw it out there as the contest was winding down last year; I didn’t want to fork over the 1K by myself, so time to find some partners. I work with the first guy; he actually runs a pool like this every year. He participates in pools like this every year. From a straight survivor pool experience side of things, he has the most. The next guy is someone I grew up with; I’ve known him since I was 5 years old. We starting gambling, including playing fantasy football, about 35 years ago. The next guy is my friend from LA, the die-hard Raiders fan; we can’t have ALL Bears fans!!! He brings his share of football knowledge, no doubt. Finally, my brother… no explanation necessary. So there it is… the 5 partners going in at about $200 a piece, chasing a $10M prize. That wouldn’t be too bad of a return…

The rules do require to sign up for this contest in person; luckily, I’ll be in Vegas in August… check. However, in order to make your picks remotely, outside of Nevada, you’ll need a proxy. OK, we looked into that one, and should be good; that’ll run us a few more bucks, but no biggie. Sounds like I’ll have to meet with them when I sign up for this contest in Vegas this summer. At that point, we’ll be all set… to participate in the contest. What can we do to prepare for this? Well, this is what is in front of us now…

Time to setup a meeting with the boys to discuss strategy. Keeping in mind those holiday game weeks will be one of the first topics, no doubt. Obviously, trying to find a single winner for the Week 1 slate is important; I hope we don’t get knocked out the first week! It’d be cool to make a little run, make it interesting. One of the guys from the Follow the Money show that I listen to, made a deep run, losing on MNF when he took the Packers over the Giants… brutal way to go out, although at that point, pretty much any loss would be brutal, unless you took a big underdog for some stupid ass reason… Anyways, hoping for weeks of excitement ahead… time to strategize!