With just five days left before the deadline, Circa Sports is facing a $4.5m overlay in football contests as the Circa Million IV contest has yet to hit its $6m target in guaranteed prize money.
The downtown sportsbook needs 6,000 entries to meet its guarantee, up from $4m last year. On Monday, it had 3,160 entries for a $2.8m overlay or the amount of money the book must add to the prize pool in addition to the entry fees.
Circa Sportsbook Operations Manager Jeff Benson commented: "I have a better chance of making the NBA than we do of reaching the guarantee in the Circa Sports Million.
"Our players can look forward to a huge positive expected-value opportunity, with us not getting anywhere close to the 6,000 required entries to break even."
The sportsbook had to cover $1.7m on Monday for its $1,000-entry Circa Survivor contest for a combined $4.5m overlay.
Last year, Circa paid out $1.9m to cover a Survivor overlay, but Benson projects the contest to draw 7,100 entries in the future. The entry deadline for both contests is 2 PM PST on Saturday.
Circa isn't the only sportsbook that faced an overlay for its contests. William Hill is still facing a six-figure overlay for the second year in a row for its $1,000-entry College Pick’em football contest.
The sportsbook needs 500 entries to meet its guarantee and had only 223 entries on Monday for an overlay of $277,000. The entry deadline is 8 AM Saturday.
