2026 Circa Survivor Pool: Massive Guarantee of $20 Million to Winner
Circa Survivor for 2026 is still a few months from kickoff, at the beginning of the NFL regular season. But Circa Sports already kicked off registration with a huge announcement of guaranteed money across its three contests.
Circa Survivor is the biggest of those and has a monstrous guaranteed pot of $20 million for the 2026 contest. Circa Survivor Grandissimo, a high-stakes pool, has a $4 million guarantee, while the Circa Million weekly picks contest remains at $6 million.
Read on for the latest on 2026 Circa Survivor and its record payout. And check out VegasInsider for all things NFL odds.
(Feature image: Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
2026 Circa Survivor
Massive Money
Just two years ago, Circa Survivor was already booming as a high-paying NFL survivor-style contest: Picking one team per week to just win its game, and you can only use each team once.
In its fifth year at the time, the guarantee was $10 million, with entrants paying $1,000 per entry (max 10).
But the actual prize pool went well beyond that, thanks to a record 14,266 entries, bumping the number to $14,266,000. That prompted Derek Stevens, who oversees Circa Sports as the owner of Circa Las Vegas, to bump the 2025 guarantee to $15 million.
Once again, the actual pool went well beyond that, with 18,718 entries hiking the prize to $18.718 million. So on May 20, Stevens announced that the 2026 Circa Survivor guarantee will be $20 million.
"It's obviously a natural growth for us. The last two to three years, we've increased by three or four thousand entries per year," Circa director of sportsbook operations Jeff Benson said. "Survivor's growth is very similar to what the World Series of Poker saw.
"Derek Stevens has really continued to put his foot on the gas pedal."
If past performance is any indication of future results, Circa expects to easily surpass the 20,000 entries required to cover that guarantee.
"I think we'll come somewhere between 22,000 and 23,000," Benson said.
That's miles away from the contest's 2020 debut, which had a $1 million guarantee and covered it with 1,390 entries ($1.39 million pool).
"It's surprising and not surprising at the same time," Benson said. "Thinking about where we started in Year 1 – a three-window sportsbook – it's kind of taken on a life of its own. It's something we want to lean into. It's pretty cool to see us get to a number so high, and so quickly."
Circa Survivor Grandissimo
Last year marked the debut of Circa Grandissimo, the $100,000-per-entry Survivor-style contest. Stevens, Benson and the Circa team weren't quite sure how well it would go, setting a $1.5 million guarantee and hoping to get well beyond the 15 entries to cover that purse.
Much like its predecessor, Circa Grandissimo far exceeded the needed entries, drawing 69 to boost the purse to $6.9 million. The contest ended after Week 13, with six entries tying for the win to claim $1.15 million apiece.
Seeing that success, Stevens & Co. bumped the 2026 Circa Survivor Grandissimo guarantee to $4 million. It'll take 40 entries to cover that purse, but the expectation is far beyond that.
"I'd imagine we'd get into triple digits, between 100 and 125," Benson said.
Even the low end of that would hike the winner-take-all prize pool to $10 million.
Circa Million
This is Circa Sports' original picks contest, launching in 2019. Contestants make five NFL picks per week against the spread. It's $1,000 per entry, and the past two years, the guaranteed prize pool was $6 million, including the standard $1 million to the winner.
In both 2024 and 2025, total entries fell a few hundred short of the 6,000 needed to cover that guarantee – 5,817 in 2024 and 5,685. So Circa had to make up the difference of nearly $200,000 in 2024 and just beyond $300,000 in 2025.
That led Stevens to keep the guarantee at $6 million for the 2026 Circa Million, the eighth year of the contest. But there's one notable change this year: Bumping the max number of entries from five to 10.
"If we're able to reach the 6,000 mark, that'll be well-received," Benson said. "Going from five entries to 10 may help us get there."
2025 Circa Survivor Recap
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Survive and Advance
LATEST UPDATE: No matter how much a team is favored by in the NFL, upsets can always happen. The last six entries were certainly mindful of that heading into Week 18.
But just in case, they got some reminders early on in the Sunday games. For example: The Jacksonville Jaguars, riding a seven-game win streak, were 12.5-point home favorites vs. the Tennessee Titans, yet found themselves down 7-0 early, after a Cam Ward touchdown run.
Casey Diener, a part of the Real Bro-3 entry that took the Jags in Week 18, noted that led to a little early sweat.
"The Titans scored a touchdown in the first five minutes, which was a little stressful," Diener said. "But after that, it was easy."
Indeed it was. The Jaguars scored the final 41 points in a 41-7 blowout, giving Diener and his team a $3,743,600 payday, their share of the five-way split.
It's actually the second time Diener, from Austin, Texas, has been part of a winning entry. In 2020-21, the first year of of Circa Survivor, he got a piece of a 36-way chop. This was far different, and for miles more money.
"It doesn't feel like real life," Diener said on the floor of a raucous Circa Las Vegas sportsbook Sunday. "The field is a lot tougher now, especially with the way Thanksgiving week went. The last 10 entries were really sharp Survivor players.
"This is the biggest sweat of my gambling career, by like 5X. It's great to be here in this moment and have this experience."
Las Vegas' Fernanda Carriedo was immersed in her first Circa Survivor experience. Carriedo is the official name listed on the Juicy K entry, but she partnered with a few experts who actually run a website called Survivor Atlas.
Juicy K was one of two entries taking the Minnesota Vikings in the final week. The Vikes beat the Green Bay Packers 16-3.
"It's been so surreal. That's the best word I can use right now," Carriedo said. "To work with Jason Somerville and Gabe Patgorski and their team has been amazing."
Carriedo, a nursing student at UNLV, has to split up the $3.7 million payday. But her share will still put her in a very good position
"I get to pay off all my classes at school. It's been amazing," she said.
Patgorski has been working on Survivor Atlas the past three years. The goal is to help contestants in any Survivor-type contest, something he thinks paid dividends this year.
"We tried to help people so much that I think there was some karma for us," Patgorski said. "We helped other people and still won a lot of money."
The entry of Kick Your Knees Up-2 also had the Vikes, grabbing a share of the $18.718 million pot. The other two winners:
- GaryA-10, which took the New England Patriots, who rolled over the Miami Dolphins 38-10.
- DylanW-10, which took the Atlanta Falcons, who edged the New Orleans Saints 19-17.
The one loser of the final six was the entry of Partz1-9, which took the Cincinnati Bengals. That contestant was dealt a heartbreaker, as Cincy lost 20-18 on a final-seconds field goal.
There's no word on whether that contestant hedged to lock in a big profit. But it seems likely that was the case, as others said they had notable hedge bets.
The biggest among them: a $700,000 Packers moneyline +355 bet, from one of the two entries that took the Vikings.
Check back later for more Circa Survivor updates. And for more NFL insights, hit our NFL Wild Card Odds Report report.
Circa Survivor Grandissimo
LATEST UPDATE: Of the 69 entries that ponied up $100,000 apiece, for a $6.9 million prize pool, only six remained in Circa Survivor Grandissimo for Week 13a.
That contest is now over, thanks to the shocking home upset losses by the Eagles and Ravens. In Week 13a, three Survivor Grandissimo entries had Philly, and the other three had Baltimore.
So those six split the pot, winning $1.15 million apiece.
"An unbelievable ending to the first-ever Circa Grandissimo," Circa owner Derek Stevens said. "We never though we would get 69 people to participate in a $100,000 entry-fee contest. With the highest entry-fee football contest ever, we were simply hoping to get 15 entrants.
"The demand for a high-entry-fee contest, under the Circa Sports umbrella, was truly amazing."
Circa Million
LATEST UPDATE: Like 2024, Circa Million remained at a $6 million guaranteed pot. And like 2024, Circa Sports absorbed overlay. The 2025 Circa Million reached 5,685 entries ($5.685 million), so the overlay was $315,000.
Circa Million calls for entrants to make five NFL picks each week against the spread. Coynehop-1 squeaked out the season-long win and $1 million first prize by winning a tiebreaker.
Entering Week 18, Coynehop-1 was alone in first at 58-26-1, but then went 2-3. BisonSportsCards-2 went 3-2 in Week 18 to forge a tie for first at 60-29-1.
However, the tiebreaker is which player had the most winning weeks, which Coynehop-1 won 15-14. Still, BisonSportsCards-2 got a healthy second-place prize of $500,000.
The top eight finishers all cleared $150,000 or more.
Circa Million also pays out $100,000 to the contestant who finishes dead last, and $50,000 to the one who finishes second-to-last, among those who submit all five picks every week. The entry leading the way in being worst was GCIndycate-1 at 25-64-1.
And that group got there in interesting fashion.
"We kept trying to pick winners for a few weeks, but just couldn't get any traction. We got off to a rough start, with some horrendous beats," Ryan Clinton said. "So we decided to go for the booby prize and just got hot."
Or cold, depending on your perspective.
"We had a nice body of work," fellow team member Scott Bucher said. "We started off cold, shifted gears to try to stay cold, and we were able to do that."
There was a two-way tie for second-to-last , with each of those entries splitting the $50,000.