Lifelong friends ‘trust process,’ win $100K for last place in Circa Million

Trust the process.

That’s what four lifelong friends from Indiana did in the Circa Sports Million contest, in which entrants make five weekly picks against the spread in the 18-week NFL season.

The process resulted in a 25-64-1 ATS record (28.1 percent), the worst in contest history. But it paid off in the form of a $100,000 last-place booby prize in the $1,000-entry contest, which drew a record 5,685 entries. The winner went 60-29-1.

“We’re looking at it that we set a point record, not only for the losers, but for the whole contest. If we flipped it, it would’ve been the best record in contest history,” said Rob Lappin, one of the biggest losers. “If we’d just flipped every one of our entries, we would’ve won $1 million. So, I think next year we might buy two entries and do one slate we like and the other slate will be the exact opposite of what we like.”

In keeping with tradition at Friday night’s check presentation ceremony at Circa, Lappin was first presented a standard-size personal check onstage before being handed an oversized check for $100,000 made out to “GCIndycate,” their contest alias.

Lappin and his fellow 41-year-old contest partners and Indiana residents Ryan Clinton, Adam Foust and Scott Bucher started out trying to pick winners with their lone contest entry before trying to pick losers following a 7-18 start.

“We’re like, ‘This sucks. We don’t know NFL. What the hell have we been doing?’ We were seriously questioning ourselves,” Lappin said. “I guess whatever I think, I should just start picking opposite of it because then it might win.

“At that point, to win this, we’ve got to hit like 80 percent of the rest of the picks. Or we can look at tanking and go for this booby prize. We just kind of said, ‘Trust the process.’ ”

‘Throws a dart at the wheel’

The process included rotating one person who made two picks each week, while the other three made one each.

“Our No. 1 rule is ‘Don’t go 0-2,’ ” Lappin said.

That soon turned into don’t go 2-0. Lappin, an analytical chemist who has been friends with Clinton (a day trader) since preschool and the others (Bucher is a banker, Foust is a business owner) since elementary school, said they each have different handicapping methods.

“I’m more analytics-based. I’m a numbers guy. I’m hungry for data,” he said. “Ryan is more of a feel guy. He trusts his eyes and what’s going on. Foust is kind of like a schedule spot guy. I’m going to play against the Titans because of recency bias.

“I don’t know what Scott does, truthfully. I think he has a wheel with all four AFC South teams on it and he spins it every week and throws a dart at the wheel and is like, ‘Well, I guess I’m going Falcons again.’ ”

The “GCIndycate” — the “GC” stands for God’s Country, which is what they call Plymouth, Indiana, where they all grew up — led the last-place leaderboard by 1½ points (one point for a win, half point for a push) heading into Week 18.

They finished with a winless week, going 0-5 to clinch the booby prize with losers on the 49ers (+1½, lost 13-3 to Seahawks), Cardinals (+7, lost 37-20 to Rams), Dolphins (+10½, lost 38-10 to Patriots), Packers (+8½, lost 16-3 to Vikings) and Ravens (-3½, lost 26-24 to Steelers).

When Lappin tells people he won $100,000 in an NFL handicapping contest in Las Vegas for last place, they’re confused.

“Their face just kind of twists up and it breaks their brain,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Wait, you got last? But you just said you won money.’ ”

Mental Handicappers (27-61-2) and Son of David (28-62) tied for second to last and split the $50,000 prize.

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com. Follow @tdewey33 on X.