Golden Nugget Friday Football Showdown
The Golden Nugget has made some significant changes to its Friday Football Showdown that are beneficial to the contestants. First, Stage 1 of the contest has been expanded from 8 weeks to 10 weeks. This is welcome news for those who had their contests end after week 8 last year. Second, it appears that they. LAS VEGAS – The Golden Nugget’s $190,000 Friday Football Showdown heads into its second playoff round of head-to-head matches this weekend and we have the picks from the contestants as they try to advance to the next round as the top four seeds await them. ULTIMATE FOOTBALL CHALLENGE 2019 Presented by the Golden Nugget Sports Book (CONTEST REGISTRATION) Registration opens at the Golden Nugget sports book at 12PM on Friday, March 8, 2019. An unlimited number of contestants are allowed to enter for $1,000 each. Each contestant will be allowed to purchase up to three entries. Each entry, regardless. Presented by the Golden Nugget sports book and Las Vegas Review-Journal Hosted by The Las Vegas Sportsline, airing on ESPN Radio (1100 AM) Each Friday throughout the football season, two. In addition to the Friday Football Showdown Contest, the Race and Sports Book recently launched their Golden Nugget Sports Wagering App. Developed with Miomni Gaming, the Golden Nugget Sports Wagering App offers bettors the comfort and convenience of being able to make wagers and bets from anywhere in the state of Nevada.
LAS VEGAS -- The Friday Football Showdown at the Golden Nugget is down to the semifinals after the top four seeds all lost their quarterfinal matches.
The first semifinal match, pitting Anthony Curtis against Michael Wright, will take place on Friday, Dec. 16, with picks being made from 2-3 p.m. PT on The Las Vegas Sportsline radio show (ESPN AM-1100 here in Vegas and online at lvsportsnetwork.com). Each competitor will give their seven best bets on NFL and NCAA sides and totals (with games though Wednesday, Dec. 21 available). We'll post their plays Friday night in the Comments section below. Joe Gaffney meets Christopher Kozak in the second semifinal, which is similarly timed and covered on Friday, Dec. 23; both semifinal winners meet in the finals on Dec. 30.
There were 96 entries in the Friday Football Showdown this year, for a total prize pool of $192,000. All entrants made picks through the first 10 weeks of the season, with the top seven records advancing to the head-to-head playoff format along with a 'wild-card chase' winner from Weeks 9-10).
Golden Nugget Friday Football Showdown Predictions
Wright, playing under the alias 'BBQ Guy,' was the wild-card winner at 13-4-1 ATS, which was best among players who hadn't already qualified for the playoffs. He faced No. 1 seed Randy McKay (aka 'RoughRider39') over Thanksgiving weekend and both went 4-3, but Wright won the tiebreaker as both won with their top two plays while Wright won his third-best bet (the Chiefs +3.5 in their 30-27 overtime win at the Broncos) and McKay lost with Toledo +9 in a 55-35 loss at Western Michigan.
Golden Nugget Friday Football Showdown Schedule
His opponent, Curtis, is the owner of Huntington Press book-publishing house and the Las Vegas Advisor newsletter (lasvegasadvisor.com), who uses his own name on the contest entry along with his partner Frank Betti, the sports betting expert on the LVA sports blog. They were the No. 6 seed and went 5-2 to defeat No. 3 seed Chris Zeniuk (3-4), and they are now the top seed -- giving them the right to pick which weekend to compete.
Next week's semifinal features Gaffney, who was part of the 2007 Hilton SuperContest-winning team of 'Ptshverj Gaffney.' His entry at the Nugget was called 'Hell's Kitchen' and was in the name of Nancy Clark, his proxy. He went 4-3 in the first quarterfinal match as the No. 5 seed to eliminate No. 4 Derek Stevens, the owner of the D Hotel-Casino in downtown Las Vegas. Kozak, the No. 7 seed, went 4-3 games from Dec. 2-5 and beat Frank Perez on the second tiebreaker.
All of the playoff qualifiers earned $3,000 apiece and then the quarterfinal winners each won $2,000 for a total of $32,000 out of the purse. The remaining $160,000 is split up with $96,000 to the eventual champion (for a total haul of $101,000), $40,000 to the runner-up, $8,000 each to the semifinal losers and $8,000 to the winner of a bonus mini-contest held in NFL Weeks 15-17 for all contestants (even those eliminated earlier, so don't forget to put in your seven plays this weekend if you entered).
SuperContest heads into final three weeks
It's crunch time in the Westgate SuperContest, with three weeks remaining in the NFL season for the top contenders and those trying to finish in the top 50 of the famous contest that drew a record 1,854 entrants this year at $1,500 apiece, with first place worth $895,482.
The SuperContest also has a mini-contest with $20,000 (aggregate) for the best record over the last three weeks.
The contestant using the alias Mac Sports Inc. is the leader for the second straight week at 46-23-1 (66.7 percent) with 46.5 points, as players receive one point for each win and half a point for a push. Orange Crush is in second place with 46 points with the sextet of Greybeard, Just Cover Baby!, Unclebobn4brothers, Vegasportsline.com and former leaders Mark Davis and Janknation (who is actually the same person with two separate entries that has been using mostly identical plays all season) at 45.5 -- meaning that the top eight is separated by just one correct pick.
The top five most selected teams -- a point of reference that, when used, usually fares well as SuperContestants play the stale lines that are posted on Wednesday afternoon with final picks not due until 11 a.m. PT Saturday -- were ridiculed as a great fade this year when they were below 30 percent. However, they went 4-0-1 ATS last week (with the push coming on the Ravens +7 on Monday night), and they are 15-4-1 ATS the last four weeks to silence those critics; they're up to 30-37-3 (44.8 percent) on the season.