2014 NFL Wins Pool!

I don’t know about you, but I love football.  I also love gambling.  However, I hate gambling on football.  It’s the WORST.  Vegas knows too much and the lines are damn near perfect.  You might as well throw darts to make your picks.  Better yet, you should just throw those darts as yourself – the emergency room bill plus pain med subscription will end up being cheaper than the money you were gonna lose betting bad picks all day.

Now, betting the lines might be a pain in the ass, but prognosticating win totals?  That seems a little more reasonable, yes? 

The Rules

• ·         Participants select eight teams at the start of the season.  Participants earn points based on their teams winning.  Not surprisingly, all wins are not created equal.  Neither are the points here.  Scoring system is below: 
• Regular season win: 1 point
• Wildcard playoff win: 2 points 
• Divisional playoff win: 3 points 
• Conference Championship win: 4 points
• Super Bowl win: 5 points
• Participants cannot select just any eight teams.  First, everyone must select one team from each of the eight divisions.  Easy enough.  Now the (slightly) tricky part.  Based on last year’s regular season results, you may only select one team who won their division in the AFC & one team who won their division in the NFC.  After that, you may only select one team who finished second in their division in the AFC & one team who finished second in their division in the NFC.  And so on.  Get it?  No?  Well let me help you out.  First, here’s the results of the 2013 NFL regular season:

Now, let’s do a quick test to see if you get the rule.  Which of the following sets of teams are valid? Just answer to yourself (or out loud if you’re a weirdo) yes or no to each of these options:

a.       New England and Cincinnati

b.      Philadelphia and New England

c.       Carolina, Dallas, and Miami

d.      Carolina, Dallas, and Chicago

e.      New England, Pittsburgh, and Tennessee

If you answered No, Yes, Yes, No, No, then there is hope for you.  If not, check your work.  FYI, there are 576 valid combinations of entries.  Even if you don’t understand this, you have a decent chance of stumbling onto a valid entry.

•  Results for the week will be posted every Tuesday on this website.

     Entry Fees & Payouts

• Buy-in price is $25 – if that seems high, remember this basically six months of entertainment, so it’s like $4.25 a month.
• Multiple entries are allowed 
•  Pool will be paid out 100%.  The only way the moderators make money is if we are smart enough to beat you fools down.  Which we aren’t.  Seriously, we’ve never won money in any of our pools.  I have no idea why we do this.
• The number of places to be paid out and the allocation of the prize pool in those paid out places will be determined by the moderators once numbers are final and published before the end of the first week of the contest.
• If you refer one or more friends/co-workers/hobos on the corner to the game, you will be entered in a side “referral” pot which is winner take all.  The total in this pot will be equal to 25% of all the “referred” entry fee.
• Hey guys, if I buy two or more entries for myself, it’ll be like I “referred myself”!  Does that get me in the referral pool too?  Ugh, I guess you crazy bastard.  But there’s a catch.  If you have multiple entries, you must designate one entry as your “referral pool entry” for its scoring.  Sorry, you don’t get to overwhelm the referral pool and buy yourself a better shot at it too. 
•  The 8-for-8 Bonus: At the end of the regular season, everyone who has an 8-for-8 week will be entered in a drawing.  If their name is drawn out, they win 10% of the total prize pool (excluding referral pool).  Multiple 8-for-8 weeks will result in multiple entries.  Might be worth keeping this in mind when structuring your picks. 
•  In the event of a tie, the tie will be broken using the following method:

1.       Entry with the fewest losses (likely will be the same, but this will give anyone who has a team get an actual tie a bonus)

2.       Total Regular Season Scoring Differential for each entry

3.       Total Regular Season Turnover Differential for each entry

4.       Cockfight (not really – if none of this nonsense breaks the tie, participants will just have to split)

Deadlines

• Entries must be submitted before kick-off of the first regular season game, which is Thursday, September 4^th, 2014 @ 8:00 PM EDT. 
•  All entries should be emailed to tourneypools@gmail.com 
•  $$$ can be sent in one of two ways
• You hand it to a moderator in cash or check form
• Send it via paypal to my account at steelcard30@gmail.com – this is by far the easiest method for all involved.  If you don’t have a paypal account, sign up for one.  I set up an experiment where I asked a dimwitted chimpanzee to sign up for a paypal account, and it took the chimp 2 minutes and 28 seconds.  I bet you can easily finish under 3 minutes.  Or are you dumber than a dimwitted chimpanzee?  I don’t know, I guess it’s possible. 
•  No IOU’s will be accepted.  This isn’t a charity.  Maybe when UNICEF gets into the NFL win pool business, you can go there and give them your IOU.  Until then, we’re the guys to talk to.

Rainbow Six Jackpot Pool

Around the Crone household about the only thing that causes more conversation and arguing than college basketball is our first great love...horse racing.

In the past we have focused this blog on mostly our NCAA Tournament Pools, which ballooned to 119 entries this year and has certainly become the most popular NCAA Tournament Pool in existence (well...maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration...). However, horse racing is where our passion lies, and this weekend is offering a chance for us to make an even bigger pool than the one we have in March...

This Memorial Day Monday is set to play host to the biggest horse racing jackpot pool ever. Gulfstream Park's Rainbow 6 is expected to have between $15 to $20 MILLION dollars that will be paid out to people who correctly pick six straight winners.

A little background for those not versed in horse racing wagering...

The Rainbow 6 is a jackpot wager that has existed for the last couple of years. It is a 20 cent base wager. So, if you pick one horse in each of the six races the wager only costs 20 cents. However, most people play multiple horses in each race, making it 20 cents per combination. As a simple illustration let's say your ticket looks like this:

   Race 1    Race 2    Race 3    Race 4    Race 5    Race 6
     1,2           1,2         1,2,3         1           1,2,3      1,2,3,4

Here you would have 144 combinations (2x2x3x1x3x4) which would cost $28.80.

What differentiates the Rainbow 6 from most wagers is that THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE WINNER (except on mandatory payout days...I'm getting to that...). Since there can only be one winner the pool has grown to over $6 Million dollars over the past few months. Daily winners have collected thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands, of dollars, but this isn't a normal bet type, this is The Highlander, and there can be only one.

HOWEVER, Monday has been decreed as a mandatory payout day, which, in a nutshell, means all of
the winners will split up one of the biggest prize pools in horse racing history. The total pool is expected to balloon to somewhere between $15 and $20 MILLION dollars to be divvied up between winning bettors.

So, what does all of this mean, and why should you care?

Fair questions savvy reader, fair questions indeed. What you may or may not know about me (David Crone), is that I happen to be somewhat of an expert in the field of wagering on horses. Just ask my Alma mater's magazine if you need PROOF (page 11), or check out this janky link to a Courier Journal article about me and Philip HERE. Further, my brother, father, and some of our cohorts are also among the top handicappers in the country. We've won major handicapping contests, been featured in newspaper articles (one cited above), and have extensive backgrounds related to figuring out which horse will get from point A to point B the fastest. Since this is such a unique opportunity and such a huge pool we are putting together a wagering syndicate to build a big bankroll and take a shot at taking down a huge score.

How this works:

We have about $1,500 to start with as seed money. We will add to that any funds which you, or your friends/family/enemies/frenemies/framily/and or pets would like to throw into the bankroll. You will then be given a percentage share equal to the money that you invest. So, if you put up $30 and we end up with $3,000 you will have a 1% stake. If we win and it pays $40,000, your $30 would turn into $400 (minus taxes, which I would pay, it would not be taxed for you, but it would be taxed on my end, so I will have to hold out the money to cover that).

On Sunday night/Monday morning we will see where our bankroll stands and put together a series of Rainbow Six tickets. We will then let everyone know what tickets we have bet, and what combinations we have covered. You will be able to watch these races through a variety of television/online channels (if you need that info we will provide it).

Hopefully, by Monday evening we will be reaping wonderful rewards and spreading out some cash, love, and positive vibes between all who took part. The total payout will end up being based on the odds of the winning horses throughout the six races. On the low end it will probably pay $5-$10 thousand. But, there exists the possibility of a six figure payout on a day like this.

Let me know what questions you have, what I didn't cover well enough, and if you want to take part! Should be a lot of fun...hope you join in!

Suicide Pool Final Results

I think David resigned from updating the blog due to extreme bitterness toward this tournament.  And with that, I'll congratulate all the winners!

1st - Chris Stinnett
2nd - Ryan Sandlin
3rd - Nick Kahl
4th - Jon Ryan Neace
5th - David Crone

Referral Pool

1st - Jon Ryan Neace
2nd - David Crone
3rd - Steve Fiscus

Payments should be getting sent out soon.  Congrats everyone!  And see ya next year!