Westgate’s Jay Kornegay Talks Rise, Growth, and Future of the Las Vegas SuperContest
The Las Vegas SuperContest is regarded as the greatest sports betting contest in the world. It’s hosted at Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino and Jay Kornegay, Westgate VP of Race and Sports Operations, oversees the contest. He was a recent guest on the Gridiron Gamble podcast to talk all things SuperContest, including its rise, growth, and future.
Rise of the Las Vegas SuperContest
Each year, contestants plop down a $1,500 entry fee to compete across the entire NFL regular season. Five games are picked each week, with one point being awarded for a winning pick, a half point awarded for a push, and no points awarded for a losing pick.
“It was started because they wanted to have a high-end type of contest, and the thinking was that picking five games against the spread wasn’t just a one-and-done type of process and it wasn’t selecting all the games,” Kornegay said. “Picking five games was viewed as a good measuring stick of what type of handicapper you are. So the format has stayed true since the inception of the contest — that is picking five games against the contest line each and every week during the 17 weeks of the regular season.”
The Las Vegas SuperContest has a long, storied history. Although it’s difficult to find actual records from the contest prior to 2004, the Las Vegas SuperContest is said to have started in the late 1980s, either 1988 or 1989 depending on who you ask. Although his time with Westgate began in 2004, Kornegay relocated to Las Vegas in 1988 and recalls the SuperContest’s early days.
“I don’t know the number of entries it had in its first years, but I know just monitoring it over the years that I lived in Las Vegas the number of entries really fluctuated around 150-250 for the longest time period,” Kornegay said. “In 2004, when we took over, it was right around the 300 mark, and in 2005 I believe we set a record for just over 500 entries — 505 I believe it was. We were so proud of that, by marketing the contest and trying to get the word out there for more people to be aware of this opportunity. And it slowly grew, but it really didn’t take off until social media became part of our world.”
In today’s world, social media is commonplace. It’s everywhere. Everyone uses it. Despite what the more youthful, millennial generation may think, social media wasn’t always around. Facebook was launched in 2004, Twitter was created in 2006, and hit the world in 2010. Not only did social media allow individuals all over the connect with one another, it gave marketers access to new channels that provided enormous reach to advertise and promote. The years following the advent of social media were also the years when the Las Vegas SuperContest’s growth was ignited, which is recognized by Kornegay.
“With social media, there was an avenue for us to advertise to those around the country informing them that they could enter this contest even though they were not a Nevada resident because they could use the proxy service for them to submit their weekly selections,” Kornegay said. “Again, they didn’t have to live in Nevada for them to enter this contest, so that spread like wildfire for those early years of social media. From that point, let’s say 2010, we have had a record number of entries for seven consecutive years — this year (2018) would be the eighth consecutive record year for the number of contestants.”
SuperContest Entries By Year
2004: 411 entries*
2005: 505 entries
2006: 416 entries
2007: 342 entries
2008: 350 entries
2009: 328 entries
2010: 345 entries
2011: 517 entries
2012: 745 entries
2013: 1,034 entries
2014: 1,403 entries
2015: 1,727 entries
2016: 1,854 entries
2017: 2,748 entries
*2004 is the earliest year historical data can be found for the Las Vegas SuperContest.
Handling Growth of the Las Vegas SuperContest
Under Kornegay’s watch, word began to spread about the Las Vegas SuperContest, through increased marketing efforts, word of mouth, the accessibility of social media, and mainstream media coverage. Once the word got out about the Las Vegas SuperContest, growth came and it came fast. While the entries averaged less than 400 from 2004 to 2010, 2011 brought a new record of 517 entries and the Las Vegas SuperContest hasn’t looked back since. As Kornegay mentioned, the Las Vegas SuperContest has been putting up record-breaking numbers ever since 2011.
“It certainly is a challenge,” Kornegay said about handling the immense growth of the SuperContest, especially in the most recent years. “There was a point where we had one person that really was appointed to look over the whole contest and now it’s three people that really go over it and handle the contest, whether it’s accepting the entries, looking over the rules, getting the applications ready.”
Now there are far more people than ever to satisfy, as evidenced that entries in the SuperContest are measured in thousands and not hundreds. For Kornegay, the hardest thing about handling this growth is simply maintaining.
“You know, we doctor the rules a little bit each and every year,” Kornegay said. “We change it up a little bit, we tweak it, but the toughest thing for us to do is to just keep course and keep everything status quo as it has been since 1988. It’s kind of like when you’re lost. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is just keep going straight, and sometimes we look at the review process after each and every year, and we take notes during the course of the year, for how we can make it better and in most cases we don’t want to adjust anything because if it’s not broke quit trying to fix it.”
One improvement for 2018, Kornegay said, was how to handle proxies, who are used by a large percentage of contestants to enter their picks each week.
“This year, we tweaked a couple of things in there, but nothing really major,” Kornegay said. “We wanted to make sure the proxies had a contingency plan that we want to make sure that we got the word out to contestants so when selecting a proxy that you should ask your proxy what type of backup plan they have if somehow they are not able to submit a contestant or contestants selections. Make it a priority that when people are looking into proxies that you do your homework and make sure that these proxies have some type of contingency plan. As most people know, we are not affiliated with any proxy service. We don’t promote or market, it’s a third-party agreement. We just ask those contestants to do their homework.”
Even though the Las Vegas SuperContest gets its most eyeballs throughout the NFL regular season and it’s easy to think that once it’s running it runs itself, the work involved is much more of a year-round project that requires an enhanced week-to-week approach during the season.
“The growth has been tremendous, Kornegay said. “We start working on this right after the Super Bowl. People don’t realize how much time and effort there is with this contest. As you know, there’s an administrative fee, or rake as some people look at it, administered a couple years ago mainly just to cover our costs because when we were looking at the expense versus the benefit, it really wasn’t penciling out. Anybody that is close to this contest could see that. There was a lot of man hours that’s involved, not only during the offseason with trying to prepare for it, but on a weekly basis handling the number of contestants. You would be surprised how many inquiries we get each and every week we get about people losing their card, or contesting their record isn’t correct, questioning last week’s picks. It’s all computerized, and I’ll knock on wood right now, but not one time have we had an error on the selection process. It is all computerized, and it’s human error if anything when submitting their selections.”
What’s Next for the SuperContest?
It’s been reported that the Westgate’s SuperBook brand will be expanding, both within Nevada and elsewhere across the United States. With its expansion will also come the expansion of the SuperContest, according to Kornegay.
“I think that the SuperContest will run parallel with the growth of sports gaming,” Kornegay said. “Not sure if you’re aware, but we are developing a new entity, which is the SuperBook brand. It’s not directly associated with Westgate, but it is the SuperBook. Westgate does own the I.P. for the brand SuperBook, so it’s an opportunity that we’re looking at to expand our SuperBook brand. We’ve been working on it for months. We’ve been discussing it for about a year, but over the last few months we really structured a new company called the SuperBook and we will be competing on a national level. We’ve been talking to potential partners it seems like everyday for the last month or so. With that said, the SuperContest will remain part of the SuperBook and it will be offered in other jurisdictions within the state as it is in Nevada.”
The licensing deal hopes to leverage the rapid growth of sports betting throughout the United States, while allowing for new sportsbooks to gain the brand power and experience that comes with the SuperBook. This would then allow for those licensee partners of the SuperBook brand to run a SuperContest from their sportsbook. Things will likely be restricted to a state level to start, but Kornegay hopes to see the SuperContest expand nationally in the near future.
“Now, we are looking at opportunities with the SuperContest to take it to a national level, and, it depends on what attorney you talk to whether that’s possible, but it could be Mega Millions or it could run like Powerball,” Kornegay said. “It really is — the sky is the limit with the SuperContest, but you will see the SuperContest in other sports gaming jurisdictions in the future and we hope to see it more on a national level down the line.”
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