Rules

Weekly Picks | Survivor Pool | Margin Pool | Playoffs Pool | Squares Pools

Entry fees:

$25 per person, payable up front. A person may have more than one entry but will have to pay for each one.

All money will be dispersed as prizes during the course of the season. The $25 entry fee breakdown is:

• $18 - 18 week season play
• $3 - Season Winners
• $1 - Survivor Pool
• $1 - Margin Pool
• $2 - Playoffs Rank'em Pool

There will be NO refunds, so if you quit before the end of the season you can sell your spot to whoever you like for whatever you can get and they will assume your points total as far as the overall standings go.

Prizes (assuming 100 users):

Weekly Winners:

• 1st place = $70
• 2nd place = $20
• 3rd place = $10

Overall Season Winners:

• 1st place = $150
• 2nd place = $100
• 3rd place = $50

For 4 places (150-200 players), the weekly, season & playoffs payouts will be: 1st - 55%, 2nd - 20%, 3rd - 15%, 4th - 10%

For 5 places (>200 players), the weekly, season & playoffs payouts will be: 1st - 50%, 2nd - 20%, 3rd - 15%, 4th - 10%, 5th - 5%

Automatically generated picks are not eligible for weekly prizes.

Seasons standings will be automatically calculated from each individuals top 16 results. If automatically generated picks make up one third or more (6 weeks) of a persons season point total, they will not be eligible for the season prize.

In the event the tie-break fails to do its job for determining the weekly winners the relevant prize money will be split. In the event of ties for the season prizes, the player pick records will be used to determine the winners and if necessary, the prize money will be split.

Note: once the number of players has been determined the actual amounts for the weekly and season prizes will be determined and will typically be rounded to whole dollar values.

Weekly Picks:

Pick the team you think is going to win and allocate a point value to the game.

Each number from 1-16 can only be used once and invalid picks will be rejected at the time of submission with a warning issued to the user.

If the team you picked wins then you will score the point value that you assigned that pick. If the team you picked loses you score zero on that pick. If a tie game occurs everyone will score the value they assigned to that game.

The person with the highest total score for the week wins.

For those that have never played this kind of pool before here's a quick hint: allocate 16 pts to the pick you are most confident about, 15 to next, etc. down to 1 pt for the one you are least confident about.

If 14 games are played during a week, when teams have off/bye weeks, allocate from 16 down to 3. You will automatically be awarded points for the two other games (2+1 = 3 points total).

Tie Breakers:

When you submit your picks you will be prompted for the tie breaker. You must predict the total combined score for the teams involved in the Monday night game. The smallest difference between the predicted point total and the actual point total for the game will be used to determine the winner in the case of 1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th / 5th place ties. The largest difference will determine the "winner"; in the case of weekly LOSER.

In the event that there is more than one Monday night game, the tie breaker is for the final game of the evening. Also, if there is no Monday game, the tie breaker is for the final game of the week.

Due Dates:

Entries are due 1 (one) hour prior to the 1st game of each week, based on Eastern time. For specific submission times, please check the Due Dates page. All entries must be submitted via the Web site. After the deadlines have passed there will be no way to enter your picks for that week.

Survivor Pool:

The object of the Survivor pool is to be the last active player. In order to accomplish this goal, a user must correctly pick the winner of one football game each week. But, to make this somewhat simple task more difficult, a user can only pick each football team once during the season. The payout structure will pay the "last person standing" or will be split by the last remaining players if everyone goes out on the same week.

• If a correct selection is made, the user will remain active for the following week.
• If the player's chosen team loses, the player is eliminated.
• Games that end in a tie count as a correct pick.
• Teams that are not playing in a specific week cannot be chosen.
• Your pick must be made by the normal pick deadline - 1 hour before the first game of the week.
• The last user(s) remaining wins the entire pool!
• Due to the nature of the pool, late entry will not be permitted.

Margin Pool:

This is similar to the Survivor pool where you only pick one team each week and a user can only pick each football team once during the season. Unlike the survivor pool, you do not get eliminated if your team loses. If your team wins, you score the points they win by. i.e. the difference or margin between the points scored by each team. If your team loses, you score 0 points, but the "negative" points will be accumulated towards the season tiebreaker. So, if the Broncos beat the Chiefs 30-10, anyone picking the Broncos scores 20 points, anyone picking the Chiefs scores 0 points (and -20 points towards the tiebreaker).

The player with the highest margin point total at the end of the season wins! The payout structure will pay the top 5 people at the end of the season, similar to the weekly payouts above.

• If a correct selection is made, the user will score points based on the margin between the points scored by each team.
• If the player's chosen team loses, the player scores 0 points, but the "negative" points get added to the tiebreaker.
• Games that end in a tie count as 0 points.
• Teams that are not playing in a specific week cannot be chosen.
• Your pick must be made by the normal pick deadline - 1 hour before the first game of the week.
• If a tie breaker is necessary at the end of the season for any of the top 5 positions, the number of weeks played and then the total of the "negative" points for incorrect games will be used and the player with the smallest number of "negative" points will determine the winner. i.e. the tiebreaker total closest to zero.
• All 18 weeks count towards the season total, so if you miss a week, you get 0 points.

Playoffs Pool:

This NFL playoff pool is based on the concept of ranking all the NFL playoff teams, similar to ranking each weekly game in the main pool:

• Users rank all 14 NFL teams competing in the playoffs from strongest (14 points) to weakest (1 point)
• Users are awarded the number of points assigned to each team when that team wins
• The actual points awarded are based on a progressive point system, by having a point multiplier for each playoff round (see Scoring section below)
• Once a team has been eliminated, it doesn't score any more points
• The points are tallied for each team, by week, and will be added to the users total points
• Note: NFL teams that have earned a bye in the first week will not get any points for that week
• Prize payouts are the same as the season prizes above.
• There is a tie breaker where you must predict the total combined score for the Super Bowl, and it works just like the Monday night tie breaker mentioned above.

Scoring
If a user assigns 9 points to the Denver Broncos, the user is awarded 108 points when the Broncos win their Divisional Round game. If the Broncos go on to win the AFC Championship game, the user is awarded another 126 points and 135 if they win the Super Bowl.

Points Multiplier Table:

Actual points assigned by round:

Squares Pools:

A squares pool typically has 100 squares available in a 10 by 10 grid and pays out based on the last digit of the score for each team, either at every score change or the end of each quarter. One axis of the grid represents the last digit of the visiting team's score and the other represents the last digit of the home team's score. Whoever has the correct last digits of each score change or quarter wins a share of the pot; If the game score was 28-21, for example, a winning square would be where the No. 8 on the visiting team axis meets the No. 1 on the home team axis.

• Players may purchase and select one or more squares before the randomly drawn numbers are assigned. The numbers range from 0 to 9.
• The price per square will be displayed on the square selection page.
• There will typically be a limit on the number of squares that can be purchased per person, per pool.
• Each square can win more than once, based on the game score.
• Once the numbers have been drawn, each square will have a pair of numbers assigned to it, one number for each team. Smaller grids (25 or 50 squares) will have additional pairs of numbers allocated to them.
• For squares that pay out every score change, the actually prize money or share size will be determined by the number of score changes. Depending on how the square pool is configured, the initial game score (0,0) may be considered a score change. e.g. 100 squares at $10 each = $1000. If there were 20 score changes, the size of each "share" would be $50.
• For squares that pay out at the end of each quarter, the prize money will be evenly divided by 4.
• All prize money will be paid out once the game is complete.
• In the event that a square pool is not completedly filled, empty squares will not be included for prize payouts.
• Once a square pool is completely filled or the due date has been reached (Friday before the game), the numbers will be witnessed and randomly drawn by multiple people to ensure fairness. The people who witnessed and drew the numbers will be displayed on the square selection page.