Biggest losers collect big checks in Circa Million contest
As a sea of oversized checks worth millions of dollars were presented to Circa football contest winners Friday night, one was handed a tiny personal check on stage during the awards ceremony at the D Las Vegas.
Former Northeastern University football teammates James Mitchell and Ryan Przydzial were the butt of the joke for finishing last in a field of 5,274 entries in the Circa Sports Million contest.
But they had the last laugh, as they were then presented with their own oversized check for $100,000 for winning the last-place booby prize after finishing 29-60-1 against the spread.
After a slow start to the contest — in which contestants pay $1,000 each and make five weekly NFL picks ATS — the friends, who had two entries under the alias “Soda Man,” decided to try to keep picking winners on one entry and select the opposite plays on the other.
They started the strategy after Week 5, when they had 9½ points of a possible 25 on one entry and 10 on the other.
“We were pretty bad,” Mitchell said. “So we just made a decision, ‘Let’s tank one of our lineups and just go inverse on the other.’
“I can guarantee you that, from Week 6 on, nobody had a better or worse record than our two entries.”
They went 4-1 (and 1-4) in Week 6 and stayed hot (and cold) down the stretch, finishing a half point out of the money for the top 100, as they tied for 116th with a 54-34-2 ATS mark on their top entry.
They went 5-0 (and 0-5) in Week 16 to take the lead for the booby prize. They took a 1½-point lead into Week 18, when they clinched last place in the Raiders’ 27-14 win over the Broncos.
“The Raiders clinched the championship for us,” Mitchell said. “We had Denver, but we were rooting for the Raiders.
“It’s kind of a huge mind game. Are we rooting for them to win or to lose?”
House call
Dr. Murray Rosenberg, a physician at Spring Valley Hospital Medical Center, won $25,000 for the fourth quarter booby prize after he went 3-21-1 ATS in the final five weeks.
“I was intentionally trying to lose,” he said. “But if I had done the winners on the opposite side, I would’ve won $150,000.”
Rosenberg, a die-hard Chargers fan who wore a Justin Herbert jersey to the awards ceremony and used the alias Chargers10, had two entries.
But he didn’t use the opposite strategy on his other entry, which would have given him a 21-3-1 record that would have been good for first place in the final quarterly prize that paid $150,000 to the winner.
“It’s OK. I’m thrilled,” Rosenberg said. “I joke around with friends that I’m more proud of this than my medical degree.”
Rosenberg decided to try to pick losers after he failed to submit his selections one week.
“I screwed up the whole-year contest because I was so busy at the hospital that I didn’t get my picks in one time,” he said. “I figured, ‘What are the best odds to win something? Let me try to lose intentionally.’
“It’s just weird because you have to pick the opposite. I had to triple check my picks before I clicked OK to submit.”
Even with missing a week, Rosenberg finished 52-29-4 on his other entry, 1½ points out of the money.
“I’m going to do better next year,” he said. “I’m going to make sure I get my picks in.”
Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com. Follow @tdewey33 on X.