NFL Week 1 2026 Vegas contest picks: Top spread selections from proven Las Vegas contest expert
SportsLine NFL expert Brady Kannon shares his top spread plays for Las Vegas betting contests for Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season
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Football is back, football contest season is back, and along with that, our football contest weekly report is also back for what ought to be yet another rollercoaster of an NFL season.
At the time of writing, Circa Survivor is up to nearly 24,000 entries. At a cost of $1,000 per entry, that, of course, translates into a pot of what will likely soon be around $25M. Circa Million, the contest in which one must pick five games against the spread, is up to 5,527 entries. And just unveiled last year, Circa Grandissimo, which requires a $100,000 entry fee, is up to 74 entries – that is five more than what made up the field last season. Circa Grandissimo is a Survivor-style format with a massive entry fee. In total, Circa will payout close to $40M in football contest entries this NFL season. That, folks, is stunning.
Down the street in Las Vegas is the SuperBook – now powered by Caesars – located within the Westgate Resort. This is the home of the OG, if you will – the world famous SuperContest, formerly known simply as "The Hilton Contest" when the property was the Las Vegas Hilton. This is the 39th season of the SuperContest, which started the "pick five games against the spread" format.
The SuperContest was building toward Circa-like numbers not that long ago, but when Derek Stevens opened Circa Sports and the Circa Resort, their contests began to dominate the landscape with millions of dollars in winnings guaranteed by Stevens. Personally, I believe that the more contests there are available to choose from in Las Vegas, the better for everyone – the operators, the bettors, the fans and the overall sports betting marketplace in Nevada.
What do they say, a rising tide lifts more boats? Like Circa Grandissimo, Super Survivor and SuperContest College are now beginning their sophomore seasons at the SuperBook. Both have been well received, and the college contest has really been a big hit.
At a cost of $500, nearly 800 entries are competing in SuperContest College this year. The SuperContest is close to $1M in prize money available with 583 current entries at $1,500 a pop. While it pales in volume to Circa Million, there is a school of thought out there that competing against fewer participants gives one a better chance to cash. The SuperContest pays out to the top-20 finishers. Circa Million pays out the top 100. Both contests offer multiple mini-contests within the overall season-long quest. Super Survivor is a $5K entry fee and currently has 133 signups.
Super Survivor is a completely traditional format, whereas Circa Survivor thins out the herd with the especially challenging holiday caveat that combines Thanksgiving and Christmas games into separate "weeks" from those respective Sunday/Monday schedules. Call it Week 12A and 12B and Week 16A and 16B, respectively. One must have a team available that plays on the special reduced holiday cards, correctly pick an outright winner, and then do it all over again for the full Sunday portion of the weekend. Four games fell into the Thanksgiving bucket in 2025 with three games on Thursday and one on Black Friday. In what was a wild result, all four games were won outright by the underdog. Circa Grandissimo was decided on the spot, that very weekend as no entry advanced past that outlier-type occurrence. All of the entries that remained alive going into the holiday, ended up splitting the $6.9M pot.
So which teams have strong value on the spread for Week 1? ... Join SportsLine right now to see who you should back in Week 1, all from Las Vegas contest expert Brady Kannon!
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