Circa Survivor contest reaches record prize pool

(PRESS RELEASE) -- Las Vegas sports betting venture Circa Sports has once again upped the ante on its professional football contests. After Saturday afternoon’s deadline, there were 9,267 entrants in its Circa Survivor contest. With the guarantee of all entry money going into the prize pool, the final amount for the contest is a record-breaking $9,267,000, which will go to the winner or winners.

The selections for week one of the season were also revealed on Saturday afternoon, with 30 of the 32 teams selected. The only teams that were not selected were the professional football teams of Miami and New York (Giants). The three most picked teams, in order, were from Washington, D.C. (38.3 percent of the pool), Baltimore (32.2 percent) and Minnesota (11.3 percent).

In total, after Sunday’s games, 1,985 of the 9,267 entrants were eliminated in week one. 1,044 were lost on Minnesota, 600 were lost on Seattle, and 141 were lost on Denver. 31 people did not submit a pick by the Saturday afternoon deadline and were eliminated.

The prize pool for Circa Survivor will go to the last person (or people) standing. It will consist of up to 20 legs throughout the year, one for every week of the football season plus two special weeks. Each week, participants will choose a team to win straight up, but the player cannot pick the same team twice for the duration of the season. Thanksgiving/Black Friday and Christmas Day will each be considered their own contest weeks.

Last year’s Circa Survivor was the biggest legal professional football contest in the country with 6,133 entries. With over 2,852 unique entrants, including 353 who bought in for the maximum 10 entries in the contest, this outpaces last year’s number by over 50 percent.