NFL Pick'em Pools: Where To Play & How To Win Your Contests
Just one more day until 2021 NFL season begins on September 9 in Tampa Bay, which means that office pools, including eliminator, survivor, and pick’em leagues are on many people’s minds once again. In preparation for the upcoming fall, we will be offering some NFL betting tips for how to approach each of these formats. Here, let’s take a look at some useful information for NFL pick’em pools starting with which sportsbooks have the best contests and biggest prize pools.
Online NFL Pick’em Contests at U.S. Sportsbooks
DraftKings Sportsbook Millionaire Pools
DraftKings is known for the ‘Millionaire Makers’ in the DFS lobby, now they’re ready to let you become a millionaire by picking against the spread in their annual NFL pick’em pool. In 2021, they’ll have at least $4M in prize money in their $4M Pro Football Millionaire Pick’Em.
Contest Name: DraftKings Sportsbook’s $4M Pro Football Millionaire Pick’Em
Contest Type: Against the Spread
Buy-in: $1,500
Max Entries Per Contestant: 3
Places Paid: 135
For Who: DraftKings Users in CO, TN, VA, MI, PA, NH, NJ, and WV
Sign Up: Click here
Format: Make five picks against the spread each week, from Week 1 to Week 17. Contestants receive one bye week which they can choose anytime between Week 1 and Week 17, leaving 80 total picks for each entrant during that span.
Scoring: Each correct pick is worth one point, while incorrect picks are worth 0. Entrant with the most points at the conclusion of Week 17 wins $1M!
More DraftKings Pick’em Pools: Additionally, DraftKings provides free NFL Pick’em contests to residents in non-legal sports betting states. They also post pools with smaller buy-ins (thus smaller prizes), along with weekly pick’em pools that end with the respective Monday Night Football game.
Overlay Update (9/7): As of Tuesday, September 7, there are only 1,238 entries submitted, leaving nearly $2M of overlay in DraftKings Sportsbook’s $4M Pro Football Millionaire Pick’Em! Sign up today to take advantage of this opportunity for your shot at $1M!
NFL Pick’em Strategy Articles — Week 1
NFL Pick’em Pool Picks for Week 1
NFL Pick’em Pools
Classic NFL Pick’Em
In the classic pick’em format, participants are typically required only to select the winner of each NFL game straight up. Unlike in sports like baseball where even the worst teams in the league are generally given a 25 percent implied odds of winning when they play one of the best teams, oddsmakers in the NFL sometimes give underdogs less than a 1 in 20 chance of winning a given contest. For example, when teams are listed as 14 point favorites in football, this typically translates to an underdog having less than a 10 percent chance of winning the game. Since 2003, favorites in such situations are 125-10, which is good for a 92.6 winning percentage.
Yet, the fact that there have been only 135 situations since 2003 in which teams have been favored by two touchdowns or more means that those easy wins are relatively rare. Far more frequently, participants must decide between games that have a touchdown spread or less. In these situations, it is a best practice to favor home teams. Over the last 18 years, when home teams are priced between a pick’em and a seven-point favorite, they are 1,404-865-4, which is good for a 61.9 chance of winning.
Pick Against The Spread
In this format, participants must pick each NFL game against the spread–a far more difficult task than simply choosing winners straight up. Since 2003, teams favored between one and seven points are 1,732-1,792-16 against the spread, which is an unprofitable 49.1 winning percentage. Yet, blindly going with underdogs in this context is also unlikely to win anyone their tournament, considering that the champion will probably need to do better than a 50.9 success rate to emerge victorious.
Home teams favored by between one and seven points are only 1,043-1,138-22 against the spread–a 47.8 winning percentage. Blindly betting road underdogs within these parameters is not a terrible strategy, but this information is best used as a reminder that just because the home team wins frequently in the NFL, they do not always cover. When trying to pick against the spread, it is imperative to be mindful of the betting fallacy that you should always bet small favorites to cover if you expect them to win.
Additionally, participants should implement game theory in their pick’em pool strategy. NFL betting lines are extremely efficient, meaning there’s rarely an edge when picking against the spread. Considering this, it’s likely best to avoid popular ‘chalk,’ especially in large-field contests or contests that feature a top-heavy pay structure. In other words, pick against the crowd. If you want to win, you’ll have to be different sooner or later. You can use ScoresAndOdds.com public betting percentages to find out who the most popular picks are against the spread every week.
I’ll also be writing weekly NFL Pick’em Strategy columns in which I look at some of this data and provide you my strategy and picks for the given week. Check in every Wednesday — links will be poster here.!
Confidence
Confidence formats combine the skill of selecting winners with the requirement to be self-aware of your best bets each week. In this mode, participants select a winner of each game and then rank their selections in order of their confidence. For example, if a bettor picks the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to win Week 1 and that is their most confident selection, they could earn 16 points for a Buccaneers win. If that same participant likes the Washington Football Team to win in Week 1, but is only fairly confident in that conviction, they could make that their least confident play–only risking a single point.
The most important aspect of a confidence tournament is having a refined approach to setting your confidence intervals each week. Most people are likely to put their most confident plays on the games with the biggest spread. However, you might choose to always rank home teams as your higher selections because you know that home teams win far more often than they lose in the NFL. You might choose to make intra-division and prime-time games less confident selections each week because of their matchup volatility.
Participants who are intentional about devising a strategy for ranking their selections are likely to end the year with a far better ranking compared to those who haphazardly assign their confidence intervals each week. Prior to each week of action, we will go into detail on our confidence list for the upcoming slate with an explanation of our thought process.
Remember to check our weekly NFL pick’em pools strategy guides through the 2021 football season!