'Lightning in a bottle': Inside the booming world of Circa and NFL survivor pools — SkimNews
Get the Sports newsletter
Daily sports — scores, transfers, the storylines from the leagues you actually follow. Free.
- Circa Survivor launched in 2020 with 1,390 entries and grew to 18,718 entries by 2025, with only five entries finishing the season a perfect 20-0; the 2026 contest had already surpassed 14,000 entries by the second day of sign-ups.
- Derek Stevens opened Circa Resort & Casino on Fremont Street in 2020 as a sports-betting hub, launching Circa Survivor a year after debuting the Circa Million handicapping contest in 2019.
- The contest requires a $1,000 entry fee to pick one NFL team to win each week for 20 games with no repeats, and Circa added two holiday mini-week slates — described by veterans as the season's most stressful stretch — to expand from the original 17-game schedule.
- Circa Sports keeps all contests 'no rake,' meaning the house takes no cut from entry fees, and in 2025 launched Grandissimo, a $100,000-per-entry variant that drew 69 entries in its first season.
- Players can register up to 10 entries under one name and combine them into syndicates; six co-workers at a meat processing company calling themselves 'the Meatball Brothers' won over $300,000 each in 2024 after pooling entries, and high-level players now trade equity in entries through third-party marketplaces or hedge with Circa lines of credit.
- Celebrity entries in 2025 included Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux and UFC president Dana White, while 2025 winners included poker pro Galen Hall (solo) and Jason Somerville (as part of a team).
Why it matters: Circa has turned a $1,000 backyard survivor pool into a $20 million-plus professionalized contest industry, and its no-rake model plus entry-trading marketplaces have created a new asset class inside sports betting — one where syndicates, hedge lines, and celebrity entries now compete against everyday fans chasing the same perfect 20-0 ticket.
Ask SkimNews
