NFL Survivor Pools Explained: Where And How To Play

NFL survivor pools are simultaneously the most accessible and exhaustive form of football betting. Conceptually, they’re about as simple as handicapping contests can get. Just pick a team each week prior to Sunday kickoff, and if that team wins, you’re still in the hunt for the grand prize.

Yet, to actually win a survivor contest takes a great deal of finesse, planning, and perhaps above all, luck. The odds will be heavily stacked against you throughout, and the longer you outwit and outlast your opponents, the more anxiety and doubt will settle in.

While there is no perfect formula for success, bettors can up their chances by adhering to a few tried and true NFL survivor betting principles. In this post, BettingUSA looks at these best practices, describes NFL survivors in more detail, and provides a list of websites and online sportsbooks that offer paid and free contests.

Best NFL Survivor Pools for 2023

How Do NFL Survivor Pools Work?

Generally speaking, there are two types of NFL survivor contests. The first and most common is a traditional survivor pool where bettors pick one team to win outright each week. If that team wins, they “survive” and remain eligible for the winner’s prize. If they lose, the contest ends right there.

The catch is that bettors cannot select a team more than once.

For instance, if a bettor chooses the Dallas Cowboys to beat the New York Giants in Week 1, they can’t select the Cowboys again for the duration of the contest, even if there is a particularly juicy Thanksgiving game where the Boys are heavy favorites. This is one of the reasons why blindly picking heavy moneyline favorites early in the season is a recipe for disaster.

The second survivor pool variant is most commonly referred to as a Last Man Standing contest. In this format, bettors pick a team to win against the spread (ATS) each week. Since all ATS games are a theoretical coin flip, contestants are permitted to pick the same team as many times as they like.

Regardless of the format, a survivor pool continues throughout the NFL season, until either all but one contestant is eliminated, or the season ends. If the winner(s) isn’t determined until Week 18, then that means at least one entrant achieved the miraculous feat of going 18-0 (or in some cases 20-0). Each contest has its own rules for tiebreakers.

NFL Survivor Contest Rules

Every NFL survivor pool has its own nuances, but most follow some general rules and guidelines:

• Contestants must register, by either paying their entry fee or simply entering a free contest, during the eligible registration period. Typically, registration opens a few weeks or months before the season starts and closes at 1 p.m. on the first Sunday of the NFL season.
• Contest entry fees and minimum guaranteed prize pools are posted when registration opens, or slightly before. If the size of the pot exceeds the minimum prize pool after administrative fees are accounted for, then the pot size will adjust upward. However, for free contests, the prize pool is usually fixed.
• Prior to each NFL Sunday, participants select one team from a list of teams they haven’t chosen before.
• If a contestant forgets to submit their weekly pick at any time throughout the contest, they will be automatically eliminated.
• A contestant is also eliminated if they make a single losing pick. NFL Survivors are often called “suicides” because of this one-and-done rule, and the lack of re-entries. This rule applies to both standard and ATS survivors.
• Contestants do not play against the house, as is the case with traditional sports betting. Instead, they compete against one another.
• The winner receives the entire prize pool unless there are either multiple survivors or all remaining survivors are eliminated during the same week. In these fairly common scenarios, the pool is evenly split among the last men and women standing.

Each contest has its own caveats that go beyond these basics, and bettors are well-advised to know what they’re getting into. Read the fine print to find out the answers to critical questions like what happens if a game is postponed, canceled, or ends in a tie, and how many entries each contestant is allowed.

Where To Play NFL Survivor Contests

NFL survivor pools are a great marketing device that increases brand engagement and generates positive PR. This is why so many online sportsbooks and sports media sites don’t mind hosting free contests or paid events with ambitious minimum guaranteed prize pools.

Listed below are some of the most prominent free and paid survivors bettors will find this NFL season:

Free NFL Survivor Contests

Free NFL elimination contests are usually held by sports media brands, but online sportsbooks and daily fantasy sites have recently gotten into the mix.

BetMGM Football Survivor Pool Challenge

BetMGM Sportsbook has really stepped up its game, offering by far the most appealing free NFL Survivor contest. The BetMGM Football Survivor Pool Challenge is offered in conjunction with Buffalo Wild Wings and allocates $100,000 to the Grand Prize winner(s).

Here are a few items worth noting about the challenge:

• All BetMGM Sportsbook customers with verified accounts in eligible states can participate. The minimum age to create an account is 21 in the United States and 19 in Ontario, Canada. To see if BetMGM is legal in your state, check out BettingUSA’s state-by-state betting page.
• Contestants may only submit one entry per account.
• Traditional survivor rules apply, meaning that contestants can only select each team once. The contest lasts for 18 weeks or until all contestants have been eliminated.
• In the event that more than one entrant survives all 18 weeks, the prize pool will be split accordingly.

BetMGM makes little mention of what happens if a team ties or if there is a postponement or cancellation. In either case, this contest will draw a boatload of contestants, so winning will be difficult. However, the large grand prize and lack of an entry fee make it worth taking a shot.

FanDuel NFL Survivor

In previous years, FanDuel has offered a $100,000 Survivor Challenge. However, it appears that the contest is on hiatus.

That being said, there are several other free-to-play contests that bettors can enjoy, including:

• $100,000 Gridiron Shuffle: Contestants receive a random card with a combination of three NFL team and player props. They can choose to stay put, or “shuffle” any of their selections up to a total of five times. If all selections hit, they’ll split a massive prize pool. $100,000 has been allocated for NFL Week 1, $50,000 for NFL Weeks 2-13, and $25k for NFL Weeks 14-16.
• NFL Hi-Lo: In this free-to-play weekly contest, bettors are tasked with selecting the best and worst performing team or player in three different categories. The more accurate their picks, the more leaderboard points they’ll accrue. Each NFL Sunday, 1,000 leaderboard winners will win prizes ranging from $1 – $1,000.

As each NFL season progresses, expect FanDuel Sportsbook to roll out even more contests. Check back for the latest.

ESPN Eliminator Challenge

This free contest runs for the duration of the NFL Season, and each contestant can submit up to 25 entries.

The ESPN Eliminator Challenge is unique in a few ways:

• All ties count as wins: Although ties are quite unlikely in the NFL (there have only been seven between 2017-2022), it does slightly increase the chances of someone surviving until the end.
• Eligibility: The contest is open to registered ESPN.com members 18 years or older in the United States and Canada.
• There’s (usually) only one winner: In the case that multiple entries survive until the end of the season, or all remaining entries are eliminated during the same week, the winner is decided by a tiebreaker.
• Tiebreaker rules: In the event of a tie, the entry with the largest aggregate total team score difference is the winner. In other words, the winning margins for each week are added together, and whoever has the greater total margin of victory wins.

In the very rare instance that the aggregate totals are identical, the prize pool is split. However, for all intents and purposes, it’s safe to assume there will be one winner.

Given the extremely long odds of winning, contestants should view the ESPN Eliminator Challenge as a good launchpad for their NFL survivor journey, not necessarily a path toward riches. And as ESPN Bet establishes itself in the competitive US sports betting space, look for more eye-catching NFL betting promotions moving forward.

Make Your Own NFL Survivor Pools

There are plenty of sites that allow customers to create their own NFL survivor contests. Some of the most popular include:

• Yahoo Sports
• Gridiron Games
• Run Your Pool

Just be warned that in order to set up survivor pools, the pool runner may be charged administrative fees.

Paid NFL Survivor Contests

Winning a free NFL survivor doesn’t rely as heavily on good fortune as winning the lottery, but due to the sheer number of contestants, luck is an overwhelming factor.

Bettors willing to fork over money to participate in paid NFL survivor pools will often compete against much smaller fields. Not only that, but the grand prizes can be life-changing.

DraftKings Sportsbook Survivor Pools

DraftKings Sportsbook has quickly morphed into the “King” of NFL survivors and now offers a plethora of paid contests.

• Main Event NFL Survivor Pool: The 2023 iteration of this pool has a whopping $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool and just a $100 entry fee. Each contestant is permitted up to 25 entries.
• The Ultimate NFL Survivor Pool: Reserved for only the highest of high rollers, this contest costs a staggering $10,000 to enter and guarantees $100,000. Casual bettors need not apply.
• High Roller NFL Survivor Pool: This more reasonable high roller costs $1,000 to enter and guarantees $100,000, although the guarantee is usually surpassed by a wide margin. Each contestant is permitted up to 10 entries.
• Micro NFL Survivor Pool: On the other end of the spectrum is a survivor with just a $1 entry fee, 50 maximum entries per contestant, and a prize pool that easily eclipses $50,000.
• Mini NFL Survivor Pool: Here’s another very affordable survivor that costs $10 to enter, permits up to 25 entries, and typically boasts a prize pool of over $200,000.

With paid contests, it’s important to know how much the host takes off of the top. On DraftKings, administrative fees range from 5% for contests with large entry fees to 15% at the micro levels.

A few noteworthy rules, universal to all DraftKings survivor pools:

• Contestants must hold a verified DraftKings Sportsbook account. A daily fantasy account won’t cut it. They must also be physically geolocated in a state where DraftKings Sportsbook is legal and licensed.
• Ties count the same as wins. For instance, if a bettor selects the New York Jets to win and the final score is 21-21, the bettor lives on to fight for another week.
• Contestants who do not make their selections by 1 p.m. on NFL Sunday are eliminated. Wednesday is considered the first day of the NFL Week.
• One rather harsh rule is that if a game is delayed to a later week or canceled, all selections will be graded as a loss. This nuance will rarely come into play, but it’s happened as recently as early 2023 when Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin tragically suffered a cardiac arrest on the field.

DraftKings doesn’t implement tiebreakers into its formula. Instead, if there are multiple survivors, or if the last remaining contestants are all eliminated during the same week, the pot is divvied up equally.

It’s also worth noting that DraftKings has recently expanded its NFL survivor offering to include “2nd Chance” pools that begin later in the NFL Season. Not only do these pools give bettors a greater chance of surviving, but they’re a nice option for contestants who were eliminated from their season-long pools.

Circa Sports Survivor Pro Football Contest

The Circa Sports NFL survivor is the granddaddy of them all. In 2023, the prize pool soars to $8 million despite the entry fee standing pat at $1,000. Better yet, there are absolutely no administrative fees.

Bettors are permitted up to 10 entries, and they will certainly want to take note of the following rules:

• Unlike most traditional survivor contests, Circa’s spans a full 20 rounds including the 18 weeks of the NFL season, plus Thanksgiving/Black Friday and Christmas Day games.
• Ties count as losses. This flies in the face of most NFL survivor rulesets, where ties are graded as wins.
• Picks are due early, at 4 pm PST every Saturday on normal weeks, by 10 pm PST on the Wednesday preceding Thanksgiving, and 9 am PST on Christmas Day.
• Unfortunately, bettors can only register and submit picks in person at Circa-affiliated casinos. They can use proxy services, but contestants will be charged for the convenience.

A contestant who survives the full 20 weeks will win the grand prize. If by some miracle, multiple contestants cross the finish line, the prize pool is evenly split. In the more likely scenario, the prize fund will be split among all remaining contestants eliminated during the previous week.

Last Man Standing & Stations Casinos

Stations Sports hosts an annual elimination contest with a twist. Instead of selecting a team to win outright, contestants make selections against the spread. There are no ties because all spreads are half points.

The minimum prize pool for this contest is $100,000 and there are no administrative fees. Bettors pay just $25 per entry and are limited to five entries each, so it’s not too damaging to the wallet.

As is the case with the Circa Sports Survivor, the Last Man Standing contest only permits in-person registration in Las Vegas. Furthermore, contestants must possess a Boarding Pass of Club Cortez loyalty rewards card.

Contestants who survive all 18 weeks split the prize pool. If all participants are eliminated earlier, the last contestants standing split the prize. Considering that it’s far more difficult to survive an ATS contest, expect this one to wrap up early.

Splash Survivor Contests

A relative newcomer to the daily fantasy space, Splash Sports offers a variety of paid NFL survivor contests. The peer-to-peer service is currently available in 33 states including the starved betting markets of Florida, California, and Texas.

Splash is setting the bar high with guaranteed prize pools that soar as high as $100,000.

Additionally, the contest rules are more flexible than what bettors typically find on most NFL survivor sites. Here are some variables to consider:

• Single entry vs. multi-entry: Some contests only permit one entry while others allow bettors to submit 30+
• # of picks: When it comes to how contestants select picks, Splash really flexes its creative muscles. For instance, a recent survivor tasked contestants with selecting one team for Weeks 1 through 14, and two teams per week for Weeks 15 – 18.
• Guaranteed vs. non-guaranteed: Contests hosted by Splash employees typically support a minimum guaranteed prize pool, while peer-run contests generally do not.

Splash Sports also offers pick’em contests and traditional daily fantasy sports events for six different leagues including the NFL, EPL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and PGA. At present, it’s fairly easy to find lucrative overlay opportunities, as the site is still in its nascent period.

NFL Elimination Contest Strategies

By implementing just a few common sense strategies, bettors can give themselves a leg up on the field. Delve into slightly more advanced game plans, and every entry you submit will have a positive expectation.

Starting with the most basic strategies and working our way up:

Know That The Odds Are Against You (Severely)

Even the most seasoned bettors recognize that winning an NFL Survivor requires a tremendous amount of luck.

NFL survivors are structurally similar to tournaments in that contestants compete against one another, with the house content to passively collect its administrative fees. However, the big difference between a traditional tournament like the World Series of Poker and an elimination contest is that only one or a small group of entrants get paid.

Therefore, if a survivor contest draws 10,000 entries, the odds of a single entry winning — all other factors considered equal — is right around 1-in-10,000. Sure there’ll be instances where two, three, or even five contestants cross the finish line, but claiming victory is still extremely rare.

Moneyline odds in the NFL run tight, and as teams are used up, your best option might only be a slight favorite to win. Assuming your teams have a 65% average win percentage, the odds of surviving just 5 weeks is about 11.6%. That drops to 1.3% after 10 weeks, and about 0.1% (or 1-in-1,000) after 16 weeks. In an 18-week contest, a safe assumption is that roughly 4 out of every 10,000 contestants will be left standing at the end.

It’s important to recognize early just how much the odds are stacked against you. This awareness will help you cope with negative emotions and reduce the psychological impact of losses. Going on tilt is a surefire way to cloud your judgment, which could result in rash decision-making. That’s the last thing you want to do if you still have live survivor entries.

Upsets in the NFL happen frequently, and selecting 18-20 consecutive winners is extremely hard. Accept this as an immutable truth before submitting your first survivor entry.

Do Not Forget To Submit Entries

It may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many contestants forget to submit their picks before the proverbial buzzer sounds. Remember that in an NFL survivor, failing to beat the deadline just once will result in elimination, without exception.

While there are no exact statistics on how many contestants are eliminated as a direct result of negligence, assume that paid contest entrants will be more diligent than those who participate in freerolls, especially as the stakes rise.

Never miss a deadline by setting some sort of alert or calendar reminder on your smartphone. Write a physical note if you have to. Just make sure to get those picks in.

Lastly, be cognizant of when the weekly deadline is, because they vary from contest to contest. Not all survivors require contestants to have their picks in by 1 p.m. on NFL Sunday.

Be On The Lookout For Overlays

An overlay occurs when there aren’t enough entries to fulfill a guaranteed prize pool. For instance, if DraftKings runs a $1,000,000 elimination contest with a $100 buy-in, but only 9,000 players enter, then the entry fees total $900,000. The resultant overlay is $100,000, and each entry is now worth $1,000,000/9,000 or $111.11. This is a positive expectation play.

Where it gets tricky is if administrative fees are involved. Let’s say that instead of 9,000 entries, the contest drew 10,200 but the house takes 10% of each entry. Now, $90 of each entry is applied to the prize pool, for a total of $922,500. That’s still below the guarantee despite the initial appearance that the contest reached its targeted prize pool.

In this scenario, each ticket is worth $92.25, which is not enough to turn the expected value (EV) positive, but a better bargain than if the guarantee was reached.

In short, look to play survivors with guaranteed prize pools that still offer positive expectations after accounting for administrative fees. The best way to do this is to scour survivor lobbies right before registration closes and target contests that are far from reaching their guarantees.

Remember, there’s nothing stopping you from researching your picks before registering, so entering at the last minute won’t hurt your chances of winning.

Know The NFL Survivor Contest Rules

There are several variables that you’ll want to take note of before entering an NFL survivor contest:

• When does the registration period close?
• By what day/time must weekly picks be submitted?
• What happens if a game is postponed or canceled?
• How does the contest deal with Thanksgiving and Christmas games? Are these separate slates or included with the next or previous week’s games?
• How are tiebreakers handled?
• Is the contest a true survivor or an ATS survivor?

Knowing the rules will give you a slight leg up on the competition and ensure that you’re not part of the dead money pool.

Know Your Enemy

Although the implication is that an NFL survivor is all about, well, ensuring your own survival, it’s actually quite a bit more complicated than that. The main goal is to outlast and outsmart your opponents, and this often requires a delicate, and sometimes contrarian, approach.

Let’s say that each week, you and the rest of the field pick the biggest remaining moneyline favorite and miraculously, they always win. You survived, but now you have to split the prize pool with everyone else. Surviving and winning are not interchangeable.

Admittedly, this is a very extreme example but it illustrates the point that in order to truly win a survivor you can’t just blindly pick the biggest favorites, because that’s what the public does. Following this method will either result in you surviving with a large portion of the field still intact, or going down in flames with the rest of them.

Say that during Week 1, 40% of the field picks the mighty Baltimore Ravens because they’re a -400 fair odds moneyline favorite. This equates to an 80% probability of a Ravens win. Seems like a good bet.

However, going contrarian unlocks a valuable opportunity to beat nearly half the field in a single swoop, and this will happen a not insignificant 20% of the time.

Recognizing this, you decide to take a mediocre New York Giants team listed at -250 (71.4% chance to win) against the woeful Arizona Cardinals. Collectively, there’s a 14.3% chance that you’ll advance and at least 40% of the field will be eliminated. Even if both the Giants and the Ravens win, you’ll still have one of the NFL’s best teams in your back pocket.

All of this is not to say that you should always take a contrarian approach, just that you should be paying as much attention to the opposition’s maneuvers as your own.

Use Visualization Tools

At the very least, NFL survivor contestants should keep a keen eye on which teams their opponents are selecting. Sometimes, the contest host will display ownership percentages, but you can go a step further by checking out visualization tools like Survivor Grid.

This site not only displays ownership but shows a team’s win probability, their EV, and the value of saving a team for later (on a scale of 1-5 stars). Admittedly, a lot of serious bettors use this tool, so you may want to go contrarian and utilize a different tool. Just ensure that you’re tracking ownership somehow.

Additionally, visualization tools are extremely helpful in plotting out your own early-season course.

Adapt Frequently

Finally, the best NFL survivor bettors are always retooling their strategies. Usually, it’s ideal to chart out all 18 weeks of the contest and be rather sticky with your first 4 or 5 picks, pending any major injuries.

By around Week 5, the NFL landscape will start to shift. Dark horses emerge, and teams that were supposed to be Super Bowl contenders just aren’t playing up to snuff. You should still have a loose idea of which teams you want to save until later in the season but be flexible.

If you intentionally saved the Cleveland Browns for their Week 11 matchup against the Buffalo Bills, but the Browns suffered a key injury and got blown out against two mediocre teams during Week 6 and 7, it might be time to pull an audible.

Start out with a concrete strategy and allow it to become more malleable as the season progresses for the best chance to win.