Welcome to Football500.com

If you're a football fan and like to pick games against the spread you have come to the right place!

Here is how it works,you first decide if you want to play in the Free Touch Pool or the $25 Tackle Pool when you sign-up. If you select the free Touch Pool you pick the games just for the fun of it, and your not paid any prize money. If you play the Tackle Pool you compete for cash with all the other Tackle players you will be directed to paypal to pay for the Tackle pool if you choose this option.

Everyone starts the year with a balance of $0. Each week you go to the Make Picks tab on website and login and pick whichever game or games you want.  There is no maximum or minimum number of games you need to pick. You theoretically could win the pool without making a single pick if everyone else ended with a negative balance.  Some players pick almost every game while others players pick just a couple each week. 

Not only do you pick only the games you want to pick but you choose the risk amount up to the game maximum.  (See table below for Game Max Bet amounts) There are also two ways to put action on a game you can bet the Line (point spread) or bet the Total (over/under) or both.

I love College football on Saturday's and the NFL on Sundays so I designed the pool that included both. So at Football500 you will be able to pick every NFL game and almost all Division I College games.There will be over 900 games throughout the season to pick from so there will be no shortage of games.

This year we added a feature called Game of the Week. Everyone can vote on the best upcoming NFL and NCAA game. The game that gets the most votes I will increase the maximum bet limit by $100. So for a NFL game it will go to $300 and for a College game it will go to $200 or $300 depending on ranking (see below) I hope you enjoy this new twist and vote each week.

I get my Point Spreads and Total Lines from numerous sources and i take the consensus of them. When it comes to point spreads I dont change the line once I enter it.

The pool uses Vegas rules, so we use a 10% Juice on all bets. If your not familar with that term the Juice is what the house takes in Vegas to make money. We don't collect this at football500 but we still use it. We use it to make the results more realistic. Here is how it works, if you want to win $10 on a game you need to risk $11.  To win $100 you risk $110.  To compute the win amount simply divide the bet amount by 1.1. The idea was to model the pool after a Vegas Sportsbook so we follow their rules.

Make Picks Page: I enter the lines manually each week, usually on Tuesday's. However due to injuries sometimes the lines are not available for all games or in College games sometimes they wait a day or two before releasing the Total number. So you may notice some of the upcoming games missing in the Make Picks page. Until i enter a line the game is not included on this page any game on that page is open for betting. If you want to bet on a game not listed check back in a day or two it will eventually pop up. Once the game starts it will drop off that page because its no longer an open game.  Also keep in mind you can always go back and change or cancel your bet prior to kickoff. 

Picks/Results Page: Once a game has started you can look at everyone elses picks on this page. There are two ways to look at this information. You can look by pool player to see all the closed games selected by that player any given week, or you can select a specific game and see everyone who picked that game and what they picked and how much they wagered.

Final scores can be mannually added by any player in the pool so if you notice a game that is final but no score has been entered please feel free to enter the final score. I check all the final scores each week to make sure they are all correct and then I lock the game so no one can change it down the road. If I find a user is entering incorrect scores i will block that user from entering scores.

Once a final score has been input on Picks/Results Page the Standings Page will automatically update. There are two tables on the page one tracks the season's cummulative standings and the other tracks just the current week's standings.

The Stats Page is just informational you can look at how you or others are doing in numerous catagories, some people do well in the NFL and horrible in NCAA some always pick the favorite some always pick the Over, this page is just a place to dig into all that if your interested.

We added a Chat Page this year so if you want to drop a line of talk some trash or ask a question feel free to here.

I may delete a game if I have entered the point spread incorrectly or if something has happened to drastically change the point spread. If i delete a game any money bet on that game will be returned your account. I used this once last year so it's a very rare event but wanted to throw that out there in case it does happen.

Prize Money is awarded to the weekly winners and top 5 annual players and the worst player each year (see breakout table below) I pay all prize money after the year is over, if your in direct contact with me I see you at work I'll pay you immediately but I mail all checks the day after the Super Bowl. Please fill out a good email address during sign up because that is how i will contact you to get your address if your due money.  This is my 5th year running this pool, I have paid every winner the day after the Super Bowl for 4 straight years. I know that the your trust is vital for this pool to grow so I always turn around the prize money very quickly.

I also want to point out that I dont collect any admin fees for this website. I pay for the hosting and domain name out of my own pocket. There is however a small fee that Paypal charges but i dont see any of that. I also play in the pool each year and I pay the same $25 that everyone else does. I point this out for two reason's

#1)  I want it clear that this isn't a profit center for me for legal reasons

#2)  I'm not a fan of pools where there is a promote, I do this because i like to do it and I'm not gonna try to make a buck off my friends and coworkers.

Good luck everyone!  Welcome back old players, and welcome to all the new players, if you give the pool a try I think football500 will become a annual tradition for you.

Tom Barnes

I've been busy entering the football schedule for the new season, I expect with 4 new college division 1 teams we will have over 1000 games this season.

Please check back in the summer for news about the upcoming year my goal is to have the site ready for sign-up in Mid August.  

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