Ask The Wizard #291

For those unfamiliar, a suicide pool is a last-person-standing challenge typically associated with the NFL, although it can be based on any sports league. Here’s a breakdown of the key rules involved.

1. All participants contribute an equal entry fee to join the game.
2. Each week, players must select the winning team from one game that week. The scoring is done based on actual game outcomes, without considering point spreads.
3. If a contestant makes an incorrect prediction, they are instantly removed from the competition.
4. Players are prohibited from selecting the same team on multiple occasions.
5. The last man standing wins the pot.

Additional guidelines may exist, such as the organizer taking a share and distributing the remaining pot once a few players are left, but this requires mutual consent.

Before we go deeper, let's refer back to the outcomes from the previous season, sourced from officefootballpool.com .



The 'picks' column indicates the number of contestants that selected that particular team.

Interestingly, throughout the 497 choices made, there wasn’t a single instance where an underdog was picked. The average point spread calculated was 9.3.

It’s puzzling that there was a recorded pick in week 14, given that only one player remained at that stage.

From analyzing the choices of other players, here’s my suggested approach for navigating suicide pools. These are more of general principles rather than strict regulations to adhere to every week.

1. Keep in mind that your main competition is the other participants. Instead of focusing solely on evaluating NFL matchups, concentrate on outsmarting your opponents.
2. Avoid selecting the most dominant teams, as this is often the path taken by most players. The aim is to have that top favorite lose, which would lessen the competition significantly; you want to be the survivor when that happens.
3. Bear in mind the rule against picking the same team more than once. With that said, you sometimes have to choose mid-level teams facing very weak opponents to protect your chances with the stronger teams for later.
4. Disregard complex handicapping. Instead, let the point spread guide your likelihood of success for any pick.
5. If you find two major favorites in a week, it would be wise to steer clear of both. Always aim to strike a balance between picking likely winners and setting yourself apart from the group. Generally, opting for the third highest spread can be advantageous without burning one of the elite teams.

This topic has been raised and is under discussion on my forum at Wizard of Vegas .

This topic has been raised and is under discussion on my forum at Wizard of Vegas .

Absolutely! Continue placing bets of the same amount until you achieve any profit. Then stop, wait 24 hours, and repeat the process.

Specifically, the advantage per bet amounts to 0.0233341%. When employing this strategy, your overall edge is about 90% of that figure, rounding to 0.0210007%.

While there could be other effective strategies available, I am open to hearing about any that might be even better.

The probability comes out to roughly 48.6279%. If you're interested in placing a bet, fair odds for a 'yes' response would be approximately 1.0564 to 1.