Aaron Oster
What is Circa Survivor? Circa Survivor is a traditional football survivor contest, but with a twist. Instead of looking to go 18-0, entrants to Circa Survivor are looking to go 20-0, as Thanksgiving/Black Friday and Christmas Day each are considered their own separate weeks. Last entrant, or entrants, standing win the entire prize pool! What is Circa Million? Circa Million is a contest where an entrant picks five games against the spread every week. Winner for the full-season wins one million dollars! The top 100 places full-season pay out, with quarterly prizes as well. So if a player gets hot…
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For the past few years, the Circa Football Preview has become a must-attend for football fans across the country. VP Mike Palm brings in some of the top experts in the football field, analysts, former athletes, handicappers, oddsmakers and more, and they have a discussion about the Circa Contests and the upcoming NFL and college football season. Over the years, some top bets for the year have been unearthed at the panel. Last year, the group consisted of Eric Eager of SumerSports (now part of the Carolina Panthers’ analytics division), Wes Reynolds and Mike Somich from VSiN, and Circa Sports…
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The 2024 college basketball season has gone through many twists and turns to get us where we are today, just days before the tournament is set to start. As the brackets were being released, the team at Circa Sports briefly took down the futures markets to analyze how the bracket would shake out. When the odds came back online, this is what they looked like. To properly look ahead, it’s always good to take a look back. Days after the season ended last year, Circa Sports put out odds on next year’s champion. Here were the favorites at that point.…
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We’re midway through the football season, and we have seen a lot of action. One thing that the oddsmakers at Circa Sports has seen this season, and has seen for several years now, is the growth in appetite for prop betting. For those unaware, prop (short for proposition) betting is a term used for any bet that isn’t a side or total. Instead of betting on full-game, you are betting on an aspect of an event. A player prop bet could be something along the lines of a player going over or under a certain number of yards, or scoring…
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The college football world has revolved around the state of Colorado throughout the season. From Coach Prime and Colorado taking the sport by storm in September to an exciting Mountain West race as we hit the heart of conference play, all eyes have been on the state. At the beginning of the season, Circa Sports Colorado had Colorado’s win total at 3.5. They weren’t expected to do much with a completely new roster, despite the excitement around Deion Sanders arrival. In fact, the odds on Colorado to go over that win total was +110, meaning it was considered more likely…
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It’s week two of the season! And once again we’ll bring you the live look at the various plays in Circa Survivor. This week, we have one team dominating the picks. Buffalo has 40.3% of the picks, with New York at 17.8% 10:09 AM – Early worry for Buffalo. Las Vegas marched downfield and immediately scored for Las Vegas. Obviously early, but not what the 40.3% wanted to see early. 10:16 AM – While the 5th highest pick is a much smaller percentage than last week, 4.8% are on Detroit. Seattle scored on their first drive, as Kenneth…
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It’s been seven long months since the last Sunday with football. Fans have been waiting for this day all summer. It’s here now, Circa Sportsbook is packed, and I’ll be bringing you the scene from the sportsbook live! Of course, we’ll be monitoring the biggest games for the Contests, Circa Survivor and Circa Million. The three biggest games to watch for Circa Survivor are Washington/Arizona, Baltimore/Houston and Minnesota/Tampa Bay. 10:05 AM – We’re off! A huge cheer raised from the book as the first Sunday of the year began. The games have kicked off, the sportsbook is packed. 10:10…
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At Circa’s Ultimate Contest Weekend, VP of Operations Mike Palm brought together a panel of football and gambling experts to help preview the upcoming season. They discussed strategies for both contests and gambling in general, and also got their opinions on aspects of the season. The panelists were: Wes Reynolds: VSiN Host and prior contest winner in Vegas Eric Eager: VP at SumerSports. Previously was at Pro Football Focus Mike Somich: VSiN Host Dylan Sullivan: Risk manager at Circa Sports For those interested, you can watch the entire panel here. Here are some of the highlights from the panel. …
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As the football season gets closer, bettors are are looking closer at their futures bets. Yes, they’ll look at the basic things. Who will win the championship? What win totals are best? But some try to look deeper at unique props to bet their teams of choice this season. Circa Sports has been rolling out more futures bets over the past few weeks towards these bettors. Yes, there are championship, conference, and division winners. And while Circa Sports also has standard win totals, there are also alternate odds for a win total that is higher and lower than the…
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Sometimes in sports, things fall the way they’re supposed to. When Philadelphia met Kansas City in football this February, that was an expected outcome. When Golden State met Boston in basketball last year, nobody batted an eye. However, sometimes in sports, you get a true outlier to make a run. And that’s what we’re seeing in hockey this year as the 2023 NHL playoffs head to the finals with the Florida Panthers vs the Vegas Golden Knights. Panthers 2023 NHL Playoffs Run Florida’s run through the playoffs has been surprising, and has led to the possibility of some…
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With most betting markets, there’s a perception that sportsbooks oddsmakers simply know more. They have models, or they’re the first to get information. They dictate the market, and the old saying that it’s impossible to beat the house gets repeated over and over. Whether or not that’s true in general can be debated for sure. One time a year where it certainly isn’t true, however, is for the NFL Draft. Setting the NFL Draft Markets Nick Bogdanovich was in charge of setting the draft markets for Circa Sports this year. Bogdanovich, a veteran of the industry for nearly…
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A Conversation with Baseball Oddsmaker Chris Bennett Before the Baseball Season Sitting in the risk room on Wednesday afternoon, Circa Sports® Director of Risk Chris Bennett was getting excited while looking over the 2023 baseball season futures. Everyone in the room has their specialties. For Chris, it’s baseball. As he says on his Twitter profile: “Meaningless baseball games are my jam.” When it comes to baseball at Circa, he’s the guy. New Baseball Rules, New Totals Challenges With every new season comes new challenges for oddsmakers. In this case, the biggest question is how the new rules…
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The Circa Sports risk room was fairly quiet on Sunday afternoon, one hour before the college basketball tournament bracket was set to be released. There were only a handful of games going on. The Big Ten and AAC Championship games were winding down, it was a light slate for the NBA, and the Players Championship was finishing the weekend. The Big Ten game started catching major attention as Purdue had a number of turnovers down the stretch. “Well that’s disappointing,” was heard as Penn State traveled before a possible game-winning shot. In the midst of this, Nick Bogdanovich and Richie…
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As we head into March, it’s a perfect time to take a look at how we got to this point in the college basketball season. To properly put into context some of the aspects of the season, it’s important to start where we are now. Read on to see the current 2023 college basketball tournament odds so you can keep your eye out on your favorite teams leading up to and during the exciting tournament starting March 14. Current 2023 College Basketball Tournament Odds Here are the current top 10 teams with the lowest odds to win the…
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The NFL Championship game just ended, and the Kansas City Chiefs are your new champions. However, despite the season just ending, the football betting season never ends. Circa Sports has already released 2024 NFL Championship odds for those who either can’t wait until next season to make a bet, or those who think they have an angle before the offseason truly begins. Read on to see the current odds, favorite teams, and some insight into which teams to keep an eye on in the upcoming season. Current 2024 NFL Championship Odds First, let’s take a look at the…
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We’re down to the divisional round of the playoffs and Circa Sports still has plenty of way to bet the NFL Playoffs. While a lot of the value in betting individual teams has disappeared, there’s still at least one interesting way to bet the playoffs while getting a big potential payout while just making one bet. And that’s betting the possible NFL Championship Exacta. Instead of simply betting the Chiefs to win it all at +290, if you think the 49ers are going to be their opponent in the Big Game, you can bet that a much juicier +825. Every…
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Greetings from the world’s largest sportsbook at Circa Resort and Casino. Today is the final day for sweating out games in both Survivor and Million. I’ll be bringing you all the live action, where some of our contestants will be sweating out their final day of games as they look to bring home the prize. You can find the games that our leaders are on in Million here: Circa-Sports-Million-IV-Week-18-Leader-Selections-1.pdf (circasports.com) 8:24 – Utter jubilation. What little restraint that was left completely disappeared after DJ Chark caught the 4th down pass for a first down. Hugs, jumping. I think I’ve…
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The year was 1995, it was the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, and I was a novice bettor who wanted more than anything to figure out how to make big money betting sports. I loved betting basketball, but I was awful at the objective, winning bets. I watched college sports nonstop, had tons of opinions, and more than anything I believed in luck. The luck part of this equation was made substantially worse due to what I now recognize as a moderate case of OCD. This was made extremely evident by the fact that I wholeheartedly believed that lining up my…
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Circa Sports led the charge into this year’s March Mayhem by posting the first lines in the world on the opening round of games. As America tuned in to watch Selection Sunday, Circa Sports instantaneously posted lines on all 32 games for wagering and proceeded to accept limit bets of $10,000 on both the mobile app and over the counter. The action was fast and furious, and when things calmed down, we had written enough in wagers to help shape the lines for most of the country and the world. Raising the Limits on Basketball Betting The key…
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The Favorites In regards to this year’s top teams, Gonzaga and Baylor have been the cream of the crop for most of the year. They have pretty much had the top 2 spots to themselves the entire year. We had Gonzaga and Baylor both between a 100.5 and 102.5 power rating for a majority of the season and have had trouble distinguishing between the 2 teams. Recently, Baylor has gone on pause for COVID 19 which has caused us to drop their ratings 2-3 pts once they returned to play. Michigan has made quite a leap over the course of…
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Every few months the subject of sportsbook limits seems to pop up on Twitter and much debate usually follows. Having been in Las Vegas for the better part of 20 years, both as a bettor and a bookmaker, I feel I’m as qualified as anyone to offer my take on the matter.
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For a little over a year Circa Sports has existed in 2 locations, Golden Gate Hotel & Casino and the D Las Vegas. We opened the doors on June 1, 2019 and for the most part have not looked back. A lot of our thought process in starting our hole-in-the-wall sportsbook located in the oldest hotel in Las Vegas was to make as many mistakes as we could as quickly as we could. The importance of making these mistakes is that this is usually the best way to learn – and the often the only way to grow. We knew…
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When we opened the doors to Circa Sports a little more than a year ago, we had a few ideas about what we were bringing to the sports betting landscape. Part of the reason we felt qualified to take an honest look at what was missing in the sports betting world was our experience on both sides of the counter.
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With the recent events regarding COVID-19, bookmakers around the world have been forced to become resourceful in their efforts to find additional sports to add to their betting menu. This has created a unique situation for bettors and bookmakers all around the world.
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If you hang around sportsbooks long enough, you will overhear countless conversations between bettors speculating about why a certain line has moved. Betting lines move for a variety of reasons and for the most part are in a constant state of flux. In this article, we will run through some of the main reasons why a betting line might move between the time the line opens and the start of the game.
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College football bowl games have become a national pastime and typically generate a lot of interest from sports bettors. A number of factors can influence the point spread for bowls, creating an entirely new challenge for bookmakers relative to the regular reason.
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The opening line can be a term that is thrown around pretty loosely when it comes to sports betting. You will often hear media outlets say “Vegas” opened the line this or “Vegas” has the line at that. But what does that really mean when we hear these expressions?
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