Rules for a Football Pool
with Point Spreads and Confidence Rankings

point spread - This is the number of points that a team is expected to win or lose by. See below for more help on point spreads. covering a spread - When a team surpasses the expectations of a point spread set by football experts. For instance, if a team is expected to win by 10 points, and they actually win by 11 or more, this is called 'covering' the point spread. If the team wins by nine or less, or they lose the game, this is called NOT 'covering' the point spread. If the team wins by exactly 10 points, this results in a push or tie. confidence ranking - This measures how confident (or unconfident) you are that the team you chose to cover will in fact cover. This is a number between 1 and the number of games played in a week. When making your picks, you can not specify the same number more than once. See below for more help on confidence rankings.

This football pool covers the regular season of the American professional football league. There are 18 weeks in the regular season, and this football pool spans all 18 weeks. Each week you'll submit who you think will cover each football game based on the point spread entered by your pool administrator (see below for an explanation of point spreads). For the last game of the week (usually Monday night) you will specify the total number of points you think will be scored in that game. For each pick you make, you will enter how confident you are that the team you picked will win. This 'confidence ranking' is any number between 1 and the number of games played for that week, with one (1) being the least confident (see below for a further explanation on confidence rankings). For each game you choose correctly, you will receive the confidence ranking score that you specified for that game. The confidence ranking score will be added up for each game you get correct. The player with the highest score will win the pool for that week. If there is a tie, the player that is closest to the actual total points scored in the last game of the week will win the tiebreaker. If there is a tie after that, the winnings will be split up between those players.

Picks are due at the start of the first game of each week.

All point spreads are set by the pool administrator. NOTE: The administrator has the power to change the point spreads at any time up until 15 minutes before the start of the first game, so make sure you know when the administrator will make the final changes. For your own information you should also find out where the administrator is getting their point spreads. Point spreads are determined by football 'experts' to even the playing field between two teams. Normally one team will be favored to win over another team. These 'experts' determine the number of points that one team will beat another team by. For example, Chicago is favored to beat Minnesota by 10 points. On the web site it will appear like the following: (-10) Chicago vs. (+10) Minnesota If you think Chicago will beat Minnesota by more than 10 points, you should pick Chicago. If you think Chicago will only win by 9 or less or if you think they'll lose, you should pick Minnesota. If Chicago does win the game by exactly 10 points, then everyone will get it wrong regardless of who they chose.

Confidence Rankings are used to determine how confident you are that a team you choose will cover the point spread. For each game you will enter a number between 1 and the number of scheduled games for that week. You can not use the same number more than once. The confidence ranking is actually the number of points you will score for correctly picking the team that covers. For each game that you correctly pick, your points will be totaled up. The player that has the highest point total will the pool for that week.