Circa Survivor winners share their ‘nerve-wracking’ $9.2M story
The week after the Circa Survivor field of 9,267 entries was whittled to four on Christmas Eve, the quartet agreed to a partial chop of the $9.2 million pot.
A source told the Review-Journal that each $1,000 entry was guaranteed $1.8 million and they’d continue to play for an additional $2 million-plus to the winner.
But it turned out to be a moot point. The final four all finished 20-0 to split the $9,267,000 prize in the contest, in which contestants pick one straight-up NFL winner each week — including separate weeks for Thanksgiving and Christmas — but can use each team only once.
The four Survivor winners celebrated their victories Friday night at the D Las Vegas, where they each collected an oversized check for $2,316,750.
“This is probably the most stressful, nerve-wracking process I’ve ever been through, and I’ve been through a lot of stressful, nerve-wracking processes,” Survivor winner Harold Gernsbacher, 69, said. “This one was supposed to be fun. And it was. Most of the time.”
Gernsbacher, a philanthropist from Dallas with six children, had two entries in the contest with his stepson under the alias “Circus Master” — his CB handle as a kid to his father’s “Ringleader.”
“It was interesting in my home on Sundays,” he said. “We have a big theater and a lot of people couldn’t stay in the house for this. We were just a little too much for them.”
The other Survivor winners were Robert Brandt (alias “Indiana Jet”) of Indianapolis, Kyle Motes and Corey Menter (“Jax Jags”) of Jacksonville, Florida, and Greg Jones (“Lajoneser”) of Los Angeles.
They all survived some very close calls. Jones accidentally made the wrong pick on Thanksgiving a few days after his mother died. But he inadvertently won when the Packers beat the Lions, the team he had intended to take.
The other three winners barely survived Week 14, when they all took the Ravens at home over the Rams.
“That was probably the most nervous, stressful game I’ve ever watched,” Menter, 35, said. “This contest, yes, a lot of work is put into it. But there’s also a lot of luck involved, too.”
Baltimore trailed 28-23 and faced third-and-17 with 1:16 left when Lamar Jackson fired a 21-yard touchdown pass to Zay Flowers. Jackson added a 2-point pass to Flowers for a 31-28 lead.
The Rams marched to the Ravens’ 18 in the final seconds before settling for a field goal to send the game to overtime.
“We could see that game winding up in a tie, and it was over,” Gernsbacher said. “We had some hard games along the way, but that one was the toughest. … We were just blessed.”
Both teams went three-and-out in OT before Tylan Wallace returned a punt 76 yards for a score to give Baltimore a thrilling 37-31 win and rescue the Survivor entries.
“There were at least two or three blocks in the back that should’ve been called on that punt return,” Brandt, 51, said. “Had the refs made those calls, I’m probably not talking to you.”
Jones also barely survived that week, when he said one of his partners — back-to-back Westgate SuperContest winner Steve Fezzik — talked him out of taking the Steelers, who were upset at home by the Patriots.
“I wouldn’t be here without him,” said Jones, who also swapped a percentage of his entry with Survivor contestant Marc Goldberg when the field was cut to 13.
Fezzik, who finished 21st in a field of 5,274 in the Circa Sports Million with a 56-31-3 record against the spread, said he was only an investor in Survivor.
“I want to emphasize that Greg won this thing,” he said. “I consulted with him, but he picked the winners.”
Brandt, an attorney and die-hard Jets fan who moved to Indiana from his native New York in 1996, said he’s normally a $50 sports bettor but bought seven $1,000 Survivor entries.
“It’s a special contest,” he said. “I had a few extra shekels, so I figured I’d buy a few extra entries. It’s one of those things that you’ve got to be in it to win it.”
He was down to one entry after Week 5. Fortunately, it was one in which he’d saved the Cowboys for Thanksgiving, not the Lions.
“I got lucky,” he said. “Otherwise, I’d have been drawing dead.
“Once I got down to my final entry, I picked the team that I felt gave me the best chance to get me to the next week. I worried about next week when I got to it.”
Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com. Follow @tdewey33 on X.