After 18 weeks of the NFL regular season, the most famous Survivor tournament in the world, the Circa Survivor, has come to a close. The 2025 Circa Survivor drew a record-breaking 18,718 entries, creating a massive $18,718,000 prize pool. The contest is run rake-free, with players able to fire ten $1,000 bullets each.
To win the Circa Survivor, you have to pick a winner of an NFL football game every week. Once you use that team, you’re not allowed to use that team for the rest of the season. That means you have to pick 18 unique outright winners.
In the end, only five entries finished the regular season a perfect 18-0, splitting the prize pool for $3,743,600 each. Thanks to the power of social media and David ‘ODB’ Baker, we know that at least four of the five entries have ties to the poker world.
Poker players clean up
Jason Somerville, Galen Hall, Gabe Patgorski, Casey Diener, and Matt Graham, and potentially more big-name poker players, are involved in several syndicates that each have a claim to one of the five multi-million dollar prizes.
In fact, Hall claimed that he had a piece of two of the winners, meaning he won a decent chunk of nearly $7,500,000.
Hall stirs controversy
Hall admitted online that he had a piece of about 50 entries in this season’s Circa Survivor, which many claim is against the spirit of the rules. While people to submit 10 entries per person, there’s nothing stopping anyone from being a part of a syndicate with tens, if not hundreds of entries, hedging their picks each week.
Hall had a piece of 50 entries, which is just over one-quarter of one percent of all the entries in the pool. It’s unknown what percentage of the pool Hall took home for himself.
Jason Somerville wins big
The former ‘Run it UP’ founder, Jason Somerville, known to many as ‘jcarver’ and the OG poker streamer, picked the Minnesota Vikings to win the final week of the season against the Green Bay Packers after starting quarterback Jordan Love was rested for the playoffs and Malik Willis was injured. He spoke to the Last Men Standing podcast in jubilation after Minnesota beat third-string quarterback Clayton Tune and the Packers 16-3.
“I mostly feel relieved because there’s so much pressure going into the final week,” Somerville told the Last Men Standing podcast. “It’s like… are we really going to walk away with nothing?
“Yeah, we did some hedging, but still, there’s so much anticipation, and it’s anxiety-inducing. We’re relieved and happy.”
Gabe Patgorski, who has nearly $8 million in live career tournament earnings, has a website dedicated to the Circa Survivor contest. He was also a part of the ‘JUICY KEWCHI-7’ syndicate, along with Somerville.
Dan Martin wins around $400,000 from Circa Million
Circa also hosts their ‘Circa Million’ contest, which guarantees $1,000,000 to the winner and $6,000,000 in total prizes. Players are paid based on how they finish compared to the rest of the field, similar to a poker tournament structure.
This $1,000 per entry tournament has each player choose five games against the spread each week for a total of 90 picks. This season, poker player Dan Martin, known to many as ‘Wretchy’, won huge, finishing the season with two top-10 entries.
He had one entry finish sixth, hitting 58 winners and two draws, earning $250,000. He also had a second entry finish in a seven-way tie for ninth, earning an additional $70,000.
‘Wretchy-1’, the same entry that finished in a ninth-place tie, was 17-3 after NFL Week 4, earning him a share of the first-place prize for the first quarter, earning him $66,250. You do have to feel for the 13 teams that finished the first quarter at 16-4, as they only won $769.25, a full 86 times less.
All in all, Wretchy claims to have earned around $400,000, which is a crazy return on $3,000 worth of entries. He nearly cashed all three entries but finished two wins short of qualifying for the $2,331.80 min-cash, which is awarded to the top 100 entries plus ties.
All in all, this year’s Circa Sports Million VII brought in 5,685 entries, which created $315,000 in overlay that Circa needed to cover themselves.
References
Circa Sports: https://www.circasports.com/circa-million
