MainStreet's Guide to Football Pools

Everybody in the pool!

Not the Phelps pool, the football (betting) pool. With those shoulder-pad clad behemoths all ready banging helmets in preseason, pigskin fans nationwide are looking to up the stakes of their weekend viewing rituals with some side wagers.

Websites like ESPN (DIS), Yahoo (YHOO) and CBS Sportsline (CBS) offer free public and private leagues. In public leagues you play against any number of strangers to see how you stack up. In private leagues you battle friends or co-workers, which allows for more intimate trash-talking and more flaunt-able bragging rights. And, of course, private leagues mean you can put money down, which can make things even more interesting.

But, as with any gambling, there's a line between interesting and excessive. Charles Failla, a certified financial planner at Sovereign Financial Group, says it's important to remember wagering money in this manner is a form of entertainment. "Some people view it as an investment, which is the wrong way of looking at it unless you're Jimmy the Greek." Failla suggests for a single game or weekend of action that you bet whatever you would spend on a night out. "For some people that might be a little, for Donald Trump it might be a couple thousand." And for a pool that lasts the whole season, Failla says, "The fun is spread over the whole year," says Failla. "So maybe bet what your daily Starbucks (SBUX) latte would cost." (But remember, if you're going to bet all that coffee money, you have to give up the latte!) "The general rule is something's got to go."

Whether you choose to bet money or just enter a contest for kicks, make sure you pick the type of pool that's right for you. Below is an introduction to the most popular pigskin betting pools with a little extra advice from veteran pool aficionado and former fantasy football columnist, Ian Soga.

PICK 'EM POOL
With this pool, you take a set number of weekly games, usually the whole NFL weekend slate or a selection of Saturday college football action. Each person chooses which team they think will beat the Vegas-set spread in every game. Scores can either be tabulated weekly so there is one winner at the end of the year, or a weekly winner can take home a small pot and everyone starts fresh the next week.
Soga Says: Stay away from road favorites. That's a dicey proposition in the NFL. Also, try and figure out early who the lucky teams were from the previous season and bet against them. Like didn't Cleveland seem a little too good to be true last year?

CONFIDENCE POOL
This is a variation on the Pick 'Em Pool, but you throw out the spreads and just pick each game's winner. The catch is you have to assign confidence points for each game. If you are picking from a 16 game table, that means the team you are most confident in to win will be assigned 16 points and the winner you are least confident will be assigned one point. Whoever has the highest total number of points from their correct picks, either at the end of the week or end of the season, takes home the pot.
Soga Says: It's like any standardized test: The key is just to eliminate choices. Work backwards from most confident. "Hmm...the Patriots are at home this week against Oakland. That looks like my 16. And I don't even want to touch that Baltimore at Arizona game. There's my 1."

ELIMINATION/SUICIDE POOL
The politically correct media sites that offer this pool cringe at its original hari kari-inspired name, but most football fans know the Elimination Pool as the Suicide Pool. Each week you pick one team to win a game. If your team wins, you get to pick the next week. If your team loses, you're out. Simple. Clean. Efficient. Only catch is, you can't pick the same team twice through the whole season. So once you pick your beloved Giants in Week 1, they're off limits the rest of the way.
Soga Says: If you pick a road team here you deserve whatever happens to you. There's no reason you should have to do that.

Good luck this football season from MainStreet!

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