Past Performance

In the first year of our NCAA Survivor Picks product, our subscribers reported

NCAA Survivor pool prize winnings of more than $393,409

That’s just the 12% of subscribers that answered our email survey; total projected customer winnings are significantly higher.

Data we collected via survey shows that our subscribers

Won 60% more NCAA Survivor pool prize money than expected

That’s like winning a 25-person pool once every 16 years, instead of the baseline expectation of once every 25 years (and not splitting the pot with any co-winners).

The performance data tables below reflect customer reported results from 467 real-world pools.

Pool Win Rates By Season

How much prize money have our subscribers won in each individual NCAA Survivor pool they entered, compared to expectations?

Season	Pool Win %	Avg % of Pot Won	Avg Actual Pot Share	Avg Expected Pot Share	Pot Share vs. Expectation
2026	7.3%	39.4%	2.9%	1.8%	1.6x
Total	7.3%	39.4%	2.9%	1.8%	1.6x

On average, our subscribers have won a prize in 7.3% of pools they entered. Accounting for split pots, they have won 2.9% of the prize money in those pools. That is 60% higher than the expectation of 1.8%.

Based on our customer survey, an average of

14% of our subscribers won at least one NCAA Survivor pool prize

Winning a tournament-long survivor pool is tough and our picks certainly won't win every year. But if you're willing to trust the process, the longer term rewards can be impressive.

Subscriber Win Rates By Season

How much prize money have our subscribers won across all the NCAA Survivor pools they entered, compared to expectations?

Season	Won 1+ Pools	Avg % of Pot Won	Avg Actual Pot Share	Avg Expected Pot Share	Pot Share vs. Expectation
2026	14.4%	24.0%	3.5%	1.9%	1.8x
Total	14.4%	24.0%	3.5%	1.9%	1.8x

On average, 14% of our subscribers won at least one NCAA Survivor pool prize. Accounting for split pots, they won 3.5% of the prize money available across all their pools. That is 78% higher than the expectation of 1.9%.

Drilling down into the details of survey responses, we find that

Reported edges hold across a variety of pool types and sizes

It's not just a lucky performance in one type of pool driving the overall success rates.

Pool Win Rates By Format

How much prize money have our subscribers won in each type of NCAA Survivor pool format they entered, compared to expectations?

Pool Format	Won 1+ Pools	Avg % of Pot Won	Avg Actual Pot Share	Avg Expected Pot Share	Pot Share vs. Expectation
1 Pick Per Day	7.7%	49.8%	3.9%	1.4%	2.7x
1 Pick Per Round	44.4%	38.9%	17.3%	7.1%	2.4x
Most Common Splash Formats	5.3%	44.8%	2.4%	1.9%	1.2x
Other	7.0%	12.5%	0.9%	1.7%	0.5x

Our NCAA Survivor picks are optimized for the most popular tournament formats — standard 1-pick-per-day and 1-pick-per-round pools, plus larger public contests like Splash Sports and ESPN's Tournament Challenge Eliminator.

Pool Win Rates By Pool Size

How much prize money have our subscribers won in NCAA Survivor pools they entered, compared to expectations and broken down by the size of each pool?

Pool Size	Won 1+ Pools	Avg % of Pot Won	Avg Actual Pot Share	Avg Expected Pot Share	Pot Share vs. Expectation
100 or fewer	14.9%	66.1%	9.8%	7.5%	1.3x
101 to 250	10.9%	32.7%	3.6%	1.3%	2.8x
251 to 1,000	8.9%	25.1%	2.2%	0.6%	3.7x
1,001 to 10,000	0.7%	25.0%	0.2%	0.1%	1.3x
10,001 to 25,000	7.1%	5.7%	0.4%	0.03%	11.7x
More than 25,000	5.6%	0.2%	0.01%	0.002%	4.1x

As expected, the bigger the pool, the harder it is to win, in an absolute sense. Customer pot share goes down as pool size goes up.

However, the relative edge from using our picks (Pot Share vs. Expectation) tends to go up as pools get larger.

Pool Win Rates By Number Of Entries

How much prize money have our subscribers won in NCAA Survivor pools, compared to expectations and broken down by the number of entries they submitted in each pool?

Number Of User Entries	Won 1+ Pools	Avg % of Pot Won	Avg Actual Pot Share	Avg Expected Pot Share	Pot Share vs. Expectation
1	4.8%	38.3%	1.8%	2.0%	0.9x
2	11.1%	61.7%	6.9%	2.2%	3.2x
3	7.5%	51.3%	3.9%	1.2%	3.2x
4	13.0%	19.8%	2.6%	1.3%	2.0x
5	6.7%	4.7%	0.3%	0.7%	0.4x
6 to 10	7.4%	58.3%	4.3%	1.8%	2.4x
11 to 30	12.5%	14.1%	1.8%	1.8%	1.0x
More than 30	100.0%	2.9%	2.9%	0.5%	6.0x

NCAA Survivor pools frequently allow multiple entries per user, and our picks are designed to help subscribers who take advantage of that — especially in larger public contests where multi-entry play is the norm.

How We Calculate Prize Win Expectations

To calculate how much prize money one should expect to win in an NCAA Survivor pool (called the expected "pot share"), we make the assumption that all players in the pool are equally skilled.

In real life that's not exactly true; usually pools are filled with a mix of more skilled and less skilled pickers. But as long as it's a fairly even mix, this approach serves as a simple and "close enough" benchmark.

We also adjust pot share expectations for the number of entries a subscriber played in a specific pool.

For example, in a 100-person NCAA Survivor pool, baseline expectations would give each player a 1-in-100 (or 1%) expected pot share, assuming they each entered only once.

However, if a player played two entries in the pool, then their expected pot share would be higher than 1%. We account for this in the "Avg Expected Pot Share" numbers in the tables above.