2024 Registration Begins Friday, May 24

Registration for Circa Sports’ two football handicapping contests – Circa Sports Million and Circa Survivor – open at 9 a.m. PDT Friday with a record $16 million in guaranteed prize money, as announced by owner Derek J. Stevens on VSiN’s “Follow the Money program” early Thursday morning.

Circa Sports Million (which requires players to pick five NFL games a week against the spread) will have a $6 million guaranteed prize pool for the second straight year after drawing 5,274 entries at $1,000 apiece last year for a $726,000 overlay, while the guarantee for Circa Survivor (pick one NFL straight-up winner a week without using the same team twice) was raised from $8 million to a nice round $10 million after drawing a record 9,267 entries last year for a record $9,267,000 that was shared by four contestants.

 

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“We’re excited to put up the biggest guarantees in the history of football contests for your customers,” Stevens said. “We went back and forth on offering $9 million or $10 million for Survivor but didn’t go higher as we got beat up a little on Millions, but felt good about increasing the overall guarantee to a record $16 million.”

Contestants can buy up to five entries in Circa Sports Million and 10 in Circa Survivor in person at the Nevada sportsbooks at Circa, Golden Gate and the D in downtown Las Vegas, the Tuscany on Flamingo Road or at Legends Bay Casino in Sparks, near Reno. Weekly entries must be submitted either at the casinos or on the Circa mobile app within Nevada’s borders. Out-of-state entrants can use a local proxy.

Circa Sports Million is in its sixth year after opening in 2019 when Stevens owned just the Golden Gate and the D and was still building the Circa resort. Circa Survivor started in 2020 and is in its fifth season.

On “Follow the Money,” Circa vice president Mike Palm detailed how Survivor has gone from a $1 million guarantee in its first season (which had the added obstacle of launching during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic) and has exploded to $3 million, $6 million, $8 million and now the record $10 million.

Survivor is technically a winner-take-all contest that could go to a single entrant if everyone else gets eliminated, though it’s been split by multiple winners each season. Unlike other King-of-the-Hill/Last-Man-Standing-type contests, Circa Survivor has special Thanksgiving and Christmas “weeks” that require contestants to save teams playing on those holidays.

“The monkey wrench thrown into the process this year was Christmas landing on a Wednesday,” Stevens said in an exclusive interview with this reporter. “We lucked out with the NFL deciding to play two games on Christmas Day [Chiefs-Steelers and Ravens-Texans] and we’re also using the Thursday game [Seahawks-Bears], so players can use those three games or six teams for the Christmas week. And we have the regular three Thanksgiving Day games [Bears-Lions, Giants-Cowboys and Dolphins-Packers] and we’ll also include the Black Friday game [Raiders-Chiefs] for four games and eight teams available.”

With registration open on Friday, contestants can sign up anytime until the deadline on Saturday, Sept. 7, though Survivor will still allow those who lose on the Thursday night opener or the first Friday game to re-buy in for the rest of the Week 1 schedule. Stevens and Palm also announced that Circa Sports will hold its special signup weekends at Legends Bay Casino in Sparks on Saturday, July 27, and at the D/Circa on Thursday, Aug. 22, to Saturday, Aug. 24 with the past champions dinner and cocktail party at Bar Canada at the D on Thursday, a Stadium Swim party at Circa on Friday and Palm’s NFL season preview seminar on Saturday at Circa.

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