Circa Sports Pushes NFL Contest Prize Pool to Record $30 Million for 2026 Season

Circa Sports is heading into the 2026 NFL season with the largest guaranteed prize pool in the history of its football handicapping contests, bumping the combined total from $22.5 million to $30 million across three competitions.

The downtown Las Vegas sportsbook in the Nevada sports betting market will offer the Circa Survivor, the Circa Million, and the Circa Grandissimo this fall, each with notable increases to their respective guarantees. 

The flagship Survivor contest now carries a $20 million guarantee, up from $15 million last year. In 2025, the contest drew 18,718 entries and generated a prize pool exceeding the guarantee at $18.72 million. Five entrants went a perfect 20-0 and each collected $3.74 million.

The Circa Grandissimo, the high-entry version of Survivor requiring a $100,000 buy-in, saw its guarantee jump from $1.5 million to $4 million after its debut season drew 69 entries and paid six survivors $1.15 million apiece.

The Circa Million retains its $6 million guarantee. Last season, the contest drew 5,685 entries, which fell short of covering the prize pool, requiring Circa to cover the shortfall out of pocket. Two entries tied atop the leaderboard at 60-29-1 against the spread. Chris Coyne claimed the $1 million top prize on a tiebreaker. This year, the per-person entry limit for the Million doubles from five to 10.

All three contests carry no house rake. Any entries beyond the threshold needed to cover each guarantee increase the final prize pools. Registration opens Friday and runs through September 12 at several Nevada properties, including Circa, the D Las Vegas, and Tuscany.

NFL presses federal regulators on prediction markets

While Las Vegas sportsbooks continue scaling their traditional offerings, pressure is mounting at the federal level over a different corner of the sports betting landscape.

The NFL has asked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to prohibit specific categories of sports-related prediction market contracts due to concerns about game integrity and consumer risk. 

The league's senior vice president for government affairs, Brendon Plack, sent the letter to CFTC Chairman Michael Selig while the agency remains in an active rulemaking process covering prediction market apps.

The NFL's requested prohibitions target contracts it views as easily manipulated by a single player or official, inherently objectionable, or predictable before a game begins. The league also flagged non-game contracts tied to broadcast commentary or celebrity attendance at stadiums.

Beyond banning certain contract types, the NFL asked the CFTC to raise the minimum participation age on sports-related prediction markets from 18 to 21, the same as that found at most state-regulated sportsbooks. 

The league also called for banning margin trading on sports-event contracts and creating a dedicated certification process for individual player-performance contracts, rather than allowing platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket to self-certify under existing procedures.