Las Vegas Hilton: 2004 NFL Handicapping Contest

The grand-daddy of all NFL handicapping contests is arguably the "Super Book" run by the Las Vegas Hilton. For $1,500 you are entered into the tourney and have to submit exactly 5 NFL picks against the spread every week of the regular season. So after 17 weeks, you've made 85 picks and with a point for every win, and half a point for every push, the standings show who comes out on top.

As we wrote about some years ago, this structure would typically suggest you'd need a high number of points to win -- see the LV Hilton Simulations for the full article. To summarize though, we found that typically the median win number should be around 55 points (the equivalent of a 55-30 record or 64.7%).

So, it was a bit of a shock to see this year's three-way tie for first with only 52.5 points (52.5-32.5 for 61.7%) (Hilton Standings):

Rank	Score	Player (410 Entries)
1t 1 1 4t 4 6t 6 6 6 10t 10 ... 17t	52.5 52.5 52.5 52 52 51.5 51.5 51.5 51.5 51 51 ... 50	Group A Letitridespors.com Tiger Wilson Dallas Mike SquarePants Clark Kent Smashmouth Al Sullysports TD Ok wat Nak Palaz ... TMW

So any number of "might have beens" existed in this crowd, with a game here or there enough to catapult many into the top spot, and yes the TwoMinuteWarning entry did finish tied for 17th at 50-35 (58.8%), a mere three games away from glory. First place, after being split three ways was apparently worth $131,000 each, while 17th place...um, $2,740. [Congrats also to the TMW subscribers who finished above us!]

With over 400 entries, you would have expected some truly stellar records to jump out, so maybe indeed it was a tough season for many handicappers, although we have to say that most of the TwoMinuteWarning features had fairly typical performance, with the exception perhaps of some of the turnover difference based contrarian indicators. A look at the other notable season-long spread based selective play handicapping contests is worth undertaking:

The Stations contest attracts a smaller field, but also features select college games and pro totals among the wagering options for the same "five a week" structure saw the winner post a 50-35 mark, and 48-37 would have had you tied for third!

The Golden Nugget contest in its first year, has a slightly different format as while a player has to pick five games each week again, one play is labeled as a best bet and counts twice. Thus while the top record was 56-29, this player tied with a 55-30 player who had one more win on his best bets. Now, before you go proclaiming one tourney superior to the other, you might want to realize that they use different lines, and some dubious ones -- let's just say the Nugget giving +4.5 on Cincinnati against Philadelphia in the last week of the season when the actual spread was Cincinnati favored by three or more in midweek is a tad off!

One of the nice things about these tourneys is that thanks to the Jim Feist web site, you can track the picks of each player, many of whom enter under their own names, or site affiliations. In other words, if you are looking for free picks, this may be a great resource since submitted picks count for something for people who make them (unlike the vast majority of free picks floated about in the world).

2005 Contests