‘I’m alive’: Proxies vital to growth of football handicapping contests

Los Angeles resident Greg Jones was grateful on Thanksgiving weekend in 2023 for his proxy, who helped him stay alive in Circa Survivor en route to winning a share of the $9.2 million contest prize.

On the flip side, a contestant in the quest for last season’s $14.2 million Survivor jackpot could’ve used a proxy when — as one of 96 entries remaining from a field of 14,266 — they inexplicably failed to submit a pick.

Proxy services, which enter selections on behalf of contestants mostly from outside Nevada, have played a vital role in the exponential growth of football handicapping contests in Las Vegas.

The Westgate SuperContest saw its entries soar from 328 in 2009 — when Matty Simo and Toni Law launched the first major proxy service at FootballContest.com — to 3,328 in 2019.

Survivor entries have skyrocketed from 1,390 in its inaugural season in 2020 and are on pace to shatter the mark of 15,000 entries needed to meet this year’s $15 million prize guaranteed by Circa owner Derek Stevens.

Ninety percent of entries use proxies, according to Circa sportsbook operations director Jeff Benson.

“The contest cannot grow without them,” he said. “They are essential in allowing this to be not just a Nevada contest.”

Circa runs three contests in the $1,000-entry Survivor (pick one NFL winner each week, can’t use same team twice), $1,000-entry Million (five weekly NFL picks against the spread) and $100,000-entry Grandissimo, its ultra-high-stakes version of Survivor.

The Westgate runs four SuperContests in the original $1,500-entry SuperContest (five weekly NFL picks ATS), $500-entry College (seven weekly college football picks ATS), $5,000-entry Gold (five weekly NFL picks ATS, winner take all) and $5,000-entry Survivor, its high-stakes version of the contest.

Contestants must either be in Nevada to enter their picks each week, or have a proxy do it for them, which is legal under state gaming law and contest rules. There is a one-time requirement to sign up in person before the season starts. But entrants can submit their selections through designated proxies.

Industry leaders

FootballContest.com, VegasFootballProxy.com and WinnersCircleProxy.com (formerly KellyInVegas Proxy Service) are the industry leaders. They charge between $99 and $325 per contest entry, depending on a Friday or Saturday deadline and number of entries.

Simo and Law started acting as proxies separately for a handful of people in 2005, when they worked together at a sports betting information website.

“We got in on the ground floor and, to keep up with technology and social media, we knew that two people working together were better than one,” Simo said. “I strongly believe that we’ve set the standard for everyone that’s tried to do this. We’ve seen so many people come and go over the years.”

Football Contest Proxy now boasts more than 1,000 clients from around the world and handled more than 3,500 entries last season.

Law said 75 percent of their clients have been with the service for years, including Pro Football Hall of Fame honoree Brent Musburger and pro bettor John Accorsi, who paid $139,000 in entry fees alone for 34 contest entries, including the Grandissimo.

“They know we’re trustworthy and they can count on us to make sure we get down to the sportsbook every single week for the past 20 years,” Law said.

Customers can submit their picks via online portals and receive confirmation emails from their proxies. Law and Simo enter every selection on Circa Sports kiosks reserved for them at the Tuscany.

“Some proxies just use the app to do the picks. But we feel the process that we have used for years is the best way to do it for our customers, just for peace of mind,” Simo said. “We get physical tickets for every entry that’s put in and I’ll review all those and make sure everything’s 100 percent accurate before we leave the book.”

Weekly rates also are available and Simo and Law are starting a refund credit program this season for Survivor clients who get eliminated in the first three weeks. They also offer the same standard rate for the Grandissimo as they do for the other Survivor contests.

“It is funny how many people have asked me if we are charging more for that,” Law said. “Our stance on that is we’re doing the same service, regardless of how much they’re putting in.”

Despite spending thousands of dollars on entry fees, countless contestants forget to submit their picks. But they can usually count on their proxy to track them down if they miss the entry deadline.

“We had a farmer in Nebraska who was doing really well in Survivor and we hadn’t heard from him,” Law said. “We reached out and told him ‘We haven’t got your Survivor pick yet.’ He was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I completely forgot. I’m at a sheep auction.’

“That’s his real life, dealing with sheep on a Saturday morning.”

‘I’m alive’

Tom Carroll, who worked for 16 years as an attorney in Washington, D.C., before starting his Vegas Football Proxy service a decade ago, has a policy not to shepherd his clients toward certain picks.

That policy served Carroll well when Jones sent him his Survivor selection on the Packers over the Lions on Thanksgiving Day 2023.

Green Bay was an 8½-point underdog and Carroll believed Jones, a longtime client, sent him the pick by mistake.

“I was shocked,” he said. “I went back and forth, do I call him or do I not call him, because our general rule is we don’t say anything to anybody about their picks. I don’t want to influence them in any way. We decided to stick to the rule.”

The Packers upset the Lions, 29-22. It turns out Jones, distraught over the recent death of his mother, did put the pick in by accident. It wasn’t until he got a call two days later from Carroll asking for his next selection that he discovered he had inadvertently survived.

“He said, ‘Tom, 100 percent, I had the Lions, I’m out.’ I said, ‘Greg, 100 percent, I saw your ticket and you had the Packers,’ ” Carroll said. “He starts yelling and screaming. His wife asked what’s going on. He was yelling, ‘I’m alive. I’m alive.’ ”

Jones won with the Titans the next day on his way to a 20-0 finish and four-way tie for first that paid $2.3 million.

“I’m grateful that I stuck to my rule and didn’t call him,” Carroll said, “because he would’ve changed it back and he never would’ve won.”

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