# No-hassle, hands-free, no-skill-needed SDMB Football Pool - interest? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 11, 2003, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222 "2003-06-11T23:14:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2003, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/1 "2003-06-11T23:14:27Z")
(Hope the full title fits…) Ok. It’s June 11. Minicamps aren’t even in full swing, at least not the real, pads-on ones. It’s a wee early for football. But I thought I’d gauge some interest in this. For years, I’ve run a tiny, free football pool online. It’s simple. You pick the winners only, except for the Monday night game, in which you pick the winner and the total number of points scored. That’s it. There’s no handicapping, no guessing the number of turnovers or catches by men named Bob. And most importantly of all, no money. It’s free. Here’s how it would work on here: 1. I’d post the official schedule on Monday or Tuesday for the week’s games. 2. You post your picks in the thread. This way your picks are out there for all to see. Yes, you can change them - but only up till noon Eastern time on Sunday (8 pm Eastern Monday for the Monday game). 3. At the conclusion of each week’s games, I’ll post the winners of the week. If two or more people have the same record, it comes down to the total points scored in the Monday night game. Closest to the actual total wins and therefore gets the tiebreaker for the week. (The total points scored will only be used in the event of a tie.) 4. If a person somehow misses a game while making his or her picks, they don’t get a win or a loss for that particular game. 5. Ah, you say. So then it would behoove me to not pick any winner for the games that are tough to pick. Better not to have picked at all than to have picked wrongly, right? Well, no. Because . . … 6. The standings to date will be posted at the end of each week at the same time as the next week’s schedule. These standings will be listed in order of **wins** , not winning percentage. So if Person A picks 10 games and gets 6 right, he or she is 6-4. If person be picks 9 games (missing one) and gets 5 right, he or she is 5-4. Person A is ahead of Person B, 6 wins to 5. 7. Okay, you say. But Person B could have picked 6 of 9 and would therefore be ahead, right? Yes. But over the course of an entire season, this will even out. Because … 8. Occasionally, people won’t get their picks in on time. So it’s not as if after eight weeks there will be, say, 20 people with the same number of games picked. There may be some with all 128 games, some with 112 (having missed a week), and so on. The cool thing about this is that **anyone** can play it. Don’t know from American football? So what? You have a 50/50 chance of picking the right team. See? No skill involved. Depending on the interest, I am willing to offer a prize. Since there’s no money involved on your end, I don’t think this would qualify as gambling. But before I offer anything, I want to check with the Powers That Be to see if it’s okay. So. As I said at the beginning of this long-winded post, I thought I’d gauge some interest first. Feel free to say yea or nay in here, and ask any questions you might have. ---
**Author:** ![scout1222](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@scout1222](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scout1222)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2003, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/2 "2003-06-11T23:44:20Z")
I’d do this. I was involved in a pool exactly like this at a place I used to work at. Except I had to pony up 5 bucks each week. Didn’t help that my (ex)boyfriend was the one running the pool. He would wrangle me in to playing whether I wanted to or not. So hey, if it’s free, why not? ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/3 "2003-06-12T00:55:36Z")
Hey **dantheman** , we’ve done something extremely similar to this for the past two years called the SDMB U Pick 'Em league. It’s only different in that you “weight” your picks. But we could also have an unweighted league. Nothing wrong with doing it in a thread except that it could run into a LOT of work scoring the picks. I think this has been done on Yahoo! Fantasy Football site in the past. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Mad\_Hermit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5ac83/32.png) [@The\_Mad\_Hermit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Mad_Hermit)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/4 "2003-06-12T00:55:54Z")
This is similar to the game **meek** ran last year. I forget who won; I was doing well then went into a dive and finished 15th out of 22. The game was on Yahoo, and the scoring was a cumulative number of points for the season. You “bet” a confidence rating on each pick, and the total was from these points. For a prize? Count me in. I’m opening my Yahoo fantasy league this year if you’re interested. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/5 "2003-06-12T01:10:29Z")
What I’ve done in the past is use Excel. Oh, it won’t be easy. But fun it will be. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/6 "2003-06-12T01:38:06Z")
You can count me in. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/7 "2003-06-12T10:24:16Z")
Ah, good. I suspect there will be more interest by the time Labor Day arrives. ---
**Author:** ![RickQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@RickQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickQ)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/8 "2003-06-12T23:40:39Z")
I’ll give it a shot. I love watching football but I don’t follow stats or history too much so it will be interesting to see how well I do. Most likely it will boil down to a coin toss for most of my picks. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/9 "2003-06-13T12:32:13Z")
Well, **RickQ** , RickQ very much. Sorry, cheap joke. Moving on. . . ---
**Author:** ![Mullinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@Mullinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mullinator)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/10 "2003-06-13T13:21:17Z")
I’m in. Just be sure to bump the thread as time nears. I imagine you won’t have trouble generating interest for this as the first game draws nigh. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/11 "2003-06-13T13:28:59Z")
I’ll probably begin a whole new thread. Well, either way. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/12 "2003-06-13T20:29:36Z")
Lissen, mister, it’s hard enough trying to play football without using your hands without being expected to do it in someone’s freakin’ _pool_! …what?? ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2003, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/13 "2003-06-13T20:31:51Z")
I just realized that there’s a pun in the title. After all, no-hands football would be… soccer. Which is football everywhere but the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![White\_Lightning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@White\_Lightning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/White_Lightning)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/14 "2003-07-10T19:56:26Z")
I too think this should be done through Yahoo as it has been the last few years. Too messy and labor-intensive otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/15 "2003-07-10T21:57:40Z")
But I’m in either way. ---
**Author:** ![Mayfield\_St.Cloud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@Mayfield\_St.Cloud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mayfield_St.Cloud)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/16 "2003-07-10T22:54:25Z")
Count me in. Just for fun, of course. But, like **ShibbOleth** said, this could run into a LOT of work. Hope you aren’t creating a monster here. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/17 "2003-07-10T23:00:35Z")
Well, if I run into trouble… I’ll know who to call. 😉 I’m kidding! Don’t run! ---
**Author:** ![Muldoon\_s\_Squishiness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Muldoon\_s\_Squishiness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muldoon_s_Squishiness)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-hassle-hands-free-no-skill-needed-sdmb-football-pool-interest/181222/18 "2003-07-14T16:17:51Z")
I’m in, if you’ll allow me.