Circa Survivor Contest: New Details Behind Largest Legal NFL Survivor Pool In U.S. History
After last year’s Circa Survivor accumulated a record-breaking $14.26 million prize pool, Circa owner Derek Stevens and vice president Mike Palm announced the details of the 2025 Circa Survivor. It remains the largest legal NFL survivor and sports betting contest in U.S. history. Let’s assess the new wrinkles in this one-of-a-kind competition, including an increase from last season’s $10 million guaranteed prize pool.
2025 Circa Survivor Guidelines
The Circa Survivor contest is a large-field competition with a guaranteed prize pool of $15 million ($1,000 per entry fee). If it fills, the contest will have at least 15,000 entries. That is likely since last year’s contest delivered over 14,200 sign-ups. Eight of them finished undefeated to win more than $1.78 million apiece from the abovementioned $14,266,000 prize pool.
It’s a winner-take-all contest, unlike Circa Millions, which focuses on picking five teams against the spread each week before paying out the top 50 contestants. The last remaining entry (or multiple if there’s a tie) takes home the guaranteed prize from the survivor pool.
Additionally, Circa Survivor operates without a rake. Every dollar entered into the contest goes into the prize pool.
To win the Circa Survivor, entrants will presumably need to survive 20 selections, or close to it, if the contest goes to the end of the NFL regular season. Circa Survivor includes two unique holiday weeks, where you must successfully pick a team to win on Thanksgiving (or the Friday after) and Christmas Day.
Contestants can buy a maximum of 10 entries. Similar to last season, they can re-buy an extra 10 entries if they lose them on either of the kick-off games.
The 2025-26 NFL season begins with the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles renewing their rivalry with the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday, Sept. 4. For the second time in 54 years, there’s an opening-week Friday game, featuring the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers.
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Circa Survivor Contest Strategy
Surprisingly, one of the biggest hiccups in the Circa Survivor contest is executing the obvious — your weekly selection. Picks are due by 4 p.m. PT each Saturday or before the start of a particular matchup if it takes place before this deadline.
The deadlines for Thanksgiving and Black Friday games are different. Ahead of Turkey Day, contestants must submit their entries by 10 p.m. PT on Wednesday, November 26. Once the holiday season kicks off, participants have eight teams to play with on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
The Christmas Leg slate incorporates three more games, involving the Cowboys at Commanders, Lions at Vikings, and Broncos at Chiefs. The remaining entrants will have nine hours to select on Thursday, Dec. 25, from midnight to 9 a.m. PT.
Circa Survivor contestants can play in Nevada at a Circa Sports kiosk or via the Nevada app. They can also register with Nevada-based proxies and inform them of their weekly choice. The sign-up period begins on Friday, May 23.
Unveiling Of Circa Grandisimo
Stevens and his team will open their third NFL contest pool. All the same rules from the Circa Survivor apply to Circa Grandisimo. However, this high-stakes version has a maximum of two entries. The guaranteed prize pool is $1.5 million, and the entry fee is a whopping $100,000.
“Grandismo is the name of a project that was going to be (the late) Jay Sarno’s project,” Stevens said of Sarno, who founded the Caesars Palace and Circus Circus hotels in Las Vegas, on the Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSiN). “His third project was going to be the biggest project in world history … a 10,000-room luxury VIP hotel resort. He never got there, and it never got built. … We wanted to celebrate a little bit of the history of Jay Sarno, and we felt the thought process of Grandisimo would be the perfect wording for this exclusive high-stakes survivor that we built here.”
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