“What’s your pick for Sunday?”
It wasn’t a message that Greg Jones, a self-proclaimed married “soccer dad” from Los Angeles in his 40s with two daughters, expected to receive from his proxy.
Jones, who had four entries in the Circa Sports NFL Survivor contest based in Nevada, thought he had picked the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving with his final entry. Millions of dollars were potentially on the line.
In reality, he had mistakenly selected the Green Bay Packers.
The Lions lost 29-22 to the Packers, so he wondered why his proxy (a person who lives in Nevada and can legally make picks for contestants not living in the state) was calling.
For background, the weekly picks in the contest must be made in Nevada. For those living in the state, it’s easy: Make the picks on the Circa app or at one of their several locations.
For everyone else, a proxy – a regulated service that will enter the pick for the contestant each week through the season for a fee – can be used.
What is a NFL Survivor Pool?
The Circa NFL Survivor contest – in its third year of existence — had a record 9,267 entries this year at $1,000 per entry, creating a prize pool of $9.267 million.
A survivor contest requires contestants to pick a single NFL team each week to win their game. Once a team is used, the same team can’t be selected for the rest of the season.
In a way, it’s like a March Madness bracket contest – except that you only need to make one selection a week and you must be perfect.
As of Dec. 8, just 0.3% of the 9,267 entries were alive.
Survivor prize pools are divided among the number of entries remaining after the final week.
In other words, if three entries remained alive after Week 18 of the NFL season, the $9.267 million would be divided three ways. If three people were left entering Week 16 and all were eliminated, the prize pool would also be divided three ways.
For an added wrinkle, Circa made the three Thanksgiving games their own “week” this season, along with Christmas Day.
So contestants need to use 20 different teams to make it through the 18-week NFL season.
How did Jones make the mistake Thanksgiving week with his final entry on the line?
“My mother passed away the Friday before Thanksgiving and that was always her favorite holiday,” Jones told Forbes Betting. “It was pretty rough that Thursday. I misclicked off the proxy website making my pick. It was a bubble, and I clicked the wrong one.”
Jones said that he had been deciding between Tennessee, New England and Minnesota all week and decided to trust his gut and go with Tennessee for his Week 12a selection. He told his proxy on the phone, and the pick was made in seconds.
Remember, that in Circa Survivor, the three games on Thanksgiving constituted their own “week” and the rest of Week 12 was another “week.”
Tennessee was a prudent choice, as the Titans won 17-10 over the Panthers on Sunday in Week 12, while the Vikings and Patriots lost ugly, low-scoring games.
Jones went with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 13 (21-18 win over Carolina) and is now one of just 30 people with a live entry in the contest heading into Week 14.
Horse Racing Childhood
Growing up in Long Beach, Jones said that his father would take him to the track from the time he was five years old and that from a young age he was around gambling.
“I was figuring out parimutuels before I knew math,” Jones said.
His father worked at a GM factory in Long Beach and would bring home NFL parlay cards during the season, so Jones knew gambling growing up.
Jones went to college in Los Angeles and stayed there after school, working his way up in the entertainment industry to his current role as managing partner at Ruckus Films.
He had one entry in the Circa Survivor contest the previous two seasons but lost in Week 1 with the Indianapolis Colts in both years.
“I thought I’d be smart and map out the whole season and use game theory,” Jones explained, “but then the Colts crushed me both years.”
New Survivor Pool Strategy
For the 2023 contest, Jones bought four $1,000 entries instead of one and employed different strategies.
He focused on “just trying to finish,” rarely using the same team with multiple entries, except in Week 1 when he had three entries using the Baltimore Ravens, who won 25-9 over the Houston Texans.
He wouldn’t give away the entire secret betting sauce.
Still, he mentioned that he tried not to take a road team unless it was unavoidable. Additionally, he pivoted from his strategy of picking against the Cardinals after they looked much better early in the season than experts anticipated.
“That saved me a couple of times during the season,” Jones noted.
He reads injury reports each week and listens to gambling-focused shows and podcasts, but he learned to trust his instincts. Early in the season, he would decide his picks as early in the week as he felt comfortable.
Now? He takes it right up until the deadline on Saturdays.
“I never dreamed of winning $9 million or the contest,” Jones told Forbes Betting. “I’m not super obsessed with the dollar amount. I’m just taking it week-to-week.”
With one daughter about to go to college, Jones said he would be open to splitting the pot if it’s down to a few people and he still has an entry remaining with a few weeks left.
“I have the rest of the season mapped out, and I have some decent options left,” Jones said. “I have Detroit in Week 18. There would be something poetic about using Detroit in the last week.”
Regardless of how it turns out, one person is following his progress a little more closely.
“My wife has said every week that I’m going to lose,” Jones chuckled. “She’s paying a lot more attention now.”
