It has been six months since the COVID-19 pandemic upended life as we know it. On behalf of the entire SecondTicket crew, our thoughts are with those who've lost loved ones and the citizens on the front lines of our society's response.

There are not many examples of industries being brought to their knees as swiftly and completely as were ticketing, hospitality, travel and other related business sectors. In the first two months of the pandemic, SecondTicket refunded more than twice as many orders due to event cancellations as we had in the previous 13 years. Some concerts and shows that weren't immediately cancelled have already been rescheduled twice. Sports are returning, mostly without fans. Watching an NBA, NHL, MLB or NFL game in an empty stadium is surreal.

Fortunately, SecondTicket remains open. We know there are more important things in your life right now, and it will take a long time for live events to return to their pre-pandemic level, but things are starting to happen. Some teams are doing limited capacity seating with unsplittable or non-transferrable tickets. Outdoor amphitheaters are introducing socially distanced, live concert drive-in shows. And one theater in Massachusetts has already staged what is being called the first professional musical since the shutdown. Strict compliance rules will also be in place, violation of which will jeopardize your admission. So when the time comes, we invite you to step back through the gates of our unique ticket marketplace for the same expert, personal service you've come to expect from SecondTicket. (Please allow additional time for a response as we also prioritize the health and safety of our families.)

Meanwhile, live sports gaming such as fantasy leagues, prediction contests and office pools also came to an abrupt halt in March. For SecondTicket, this matters, because for 13 years, we've enabled fans to save money on tickets and win other cash rewards by hosting a free, multi-sport gaming competition called The Mega Pool. The cancellation of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and MLB's All-Star Game resulted in the cancellations of our Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam and All-Star Ticket Slam. Despite the fact that the NFL is playing games, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 Mega Pool's final contest, the Monday Night Ticket Score. The return of sports is encouraging, but variables such as player availability, game postponements and even league suspensions could potentially make gaming disjointed, irregular, and competitively cockeyed.

We hope to resume The Mega Pool in the future. In the meantime, if you have credits on your account, we've extended all expiration dates until the end of 2021 (and we'll consider extending them again at that time).

We hope you and your families are healthy, safe and comfortable. Thank you, and rest assured… we'll save a seat for you.

Led by a second year pool participant, fans won $890 in ticket credits that may be redeemed for sport, concert or theater tickets during the 13th annual Way Cool Super Ticket Pool. 95% of fans who submitted an entry won credits and won an average of....

The 2019 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) concluded with more than $1,050 in free tickets awarded to 81 different fans. 10 finalists are also scheduled to play for $10,000 by....

The first Monday night upset of 2019 and the end of the longest streak in pool history without an exact score prediction match are the stories of....

For the second consecutive quarter, a fan made history in the 2019 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), and we're announcing a scoring change that will apply beginning in week 9. Congratulations to each of this quarter's weekly winners!

Week 5: San Francisco 31, Cleveland 3
The 49ers were favored by five points, and 69% of fans picked them with average scores of 25.0 - 21.1. SecondTicket fan jredd1970 posted the best prediction of the week, giving her three career wins in 56 weeks, for a 5.4% win rate that is 2nd highest all time among fans who've played at least as often. She and four other fans (Valenti, BeerSlinger, Ticket Scalper and kellyp420) equally split the weekly $50 award.

Week 5 Standings

Q2 Leader: 5-way tie (jredd1970, Valenti, BeerSlinger, Ticket Scalper, kellyp420
Pool leader: jredd1970

Week 6: Green Bay 23, Detroit 22
In a game that was perhaps the best example of why Detroit Lions fans have been so tormented for so long, the Lions snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and made a winner out of midnight4twenty. Had the Lions won the game, the fans who picked them to win would have scored huge points via the winner bonus. Notably, Dread Pirate Dave, the pool's 2nd all-time points leader who finished 5th this week anyway, might have taken the 2019 overall pool lead despite recording zero points in Q1.

The average score predictions were GB 26.8, DET 20.1, a gap larger than the 4 point spread. 89% picked the favored Packers.

Week 6 Standings

Q2 Leader: 2-way tie (jredd1970, kellyp420)
Pool leader: jredd1970

Week 7: New England 33, NY Jets 0
This game illustrates why we're making a slight in-season change to the pool's scoring. SecondTicket fan nina won the week, edging out three others by virtue of an earlier submission. But the best prediction on the basis of point differential belonged to jkulaga23. Beginning in week 9, we are changing the tiebreaker so that lower point differential is applied before the time stamp. In this case, it wouldn't have changed all that much because they still would have scored the same amount of points and credits. But nina is the one who becomes eligible for a shot at $10,000 - although the winning point total of 31.1 probably won't be enough qualify for that either.

The average score predictions were NE 30.7, NYJ 17.1.

According to NFL Scorigami, this was just the 9th time in NFL history that a game ended with the score of 33-0.

Week 7 Standings

Q2 Leader: nina
Pool leader: bbhedrick

Week 8: Pittsburgh 27, Miami 14
This is another game that would have turned the pool standings upside down if the underdog could have sustained its early momentum. Fans BS and heroka finished 1-2 with predictions of 27-13 and 27-15, with BS getting the win on the basis of the earlier submission, but McAdams_Fan and gina5091 led a small group of fans poised to take the overall pool lead if the Dolphins could have pulled the upset. Alas, the Dolphins proved they are one of the worst NFL teams of the last decade.

The average score predictions were PIT 28.3, MIA 14.

Week 8 Standings

Pool leader: midnight4twenty

Quarter 2: Another Fan Makes Pool History
SecondTicket fan nina became the first to win four different quarters, having also won Q1 in 2010, 2015 and 2018. Three other fans have won three quarters (ckmendels, julesschneider and Dirty024). She scores the $16.20 Q2 free ticket bonus. 

Related: Season   Week-By-Week   All-Time   How Credits Work

For these and similar statistics and analysis, follow @themegapool on Twitter.

Q3 begins next week with one of the best Monday night games of the season as Seattle plays San Francisco. All fans begin with zero Q3 points, so make your week 9 prediction now!

The first quarter of the 2019 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) is in the books, and one fan made pool history. This season we're shifting from weekly to quarterly pool updates, and here is the first installment (excluding week 1, which we covered here):

Week 2: Cleveland 23, New York Jets 3
SecondTicket fan Topher, who is also 3rd all-time in MNTS pool points and the 2007 pool champion, became the 15th fan with at least four career weekly wins. On this occasion, he won thanks to the earliest submission tiebreaker, as four other fans also submitted a score that would have been good enough to win but did so after him. Those five fans equally split the weekly $50 award.

74% of fans picked the favored Browns, but they weren't sold on them, as the gap between the average score predictions (CLE 23.3, NYJ 19.1) and the 6.5 point spread was 4.2 points.

Week 2 Standings

Q1 Leader: cathil
Pool leader: cathil

Week 3: Chicago 31, Washington 15
The week's best prediction came from 1Cowboys at 31-13. That's her 3rd career weekly win, giving her a 1.9% weekly win rate which is 9th all-time among fans who've played at least as often (158+ weeks). She won $13 in free tickets. Two other fans (Countrysweet and bobby4768) matched a team score, and fostereli took the the pool lead with a top five finish.

The average prediction score gap of 4.7 points (CHI 22.5, WAS 17.8) closely mirrored the game's 4.5 point spread.

According to NFL Scorigami, this was only the 9th time in NFL history that a game ended with the score of 31-15.

Week 3 Standings

Q1 Leader: fostereli
Pool leader: fostereli

Week 4: Pittsburgh 27, Cincinnati 3
This was the most difficult game of the quarter, as measured by the median (10) and average (11) prediction differentials. Pittsburgh's score was common, and 16 fans picked it, but only one fan submitted the higher risk 3-point prediction for the Bengals - and she was rewarded for it. Congrats to first time winner bbhedrick in just her 18th week. The remainder of the top five was decided by the earliest submission tiebreaker.

Fans generally predicted Pittsburgh to cover the 3.5 point spread, having submitted average score predictions of PIT 24.9, CIN 19.9.

Week 4 Standings

Quarter 1: Fan Makes Pool History
SecondTicket fan Dirty024 became the first to win two consecutive quarters (he also won Q4 of the 2018 pool) and just the 4th with three career quarterly wins. He scores an $18.50 free ticket bonus and obviously has the pool lead heading into Q2. 

Related: Season   Week-By-Week   All-Time   How Credits Work

For these and similar statistics and analysis, follow @themegapool on Twitter.

Q2 begins next week with a suddently interesting game between Cleveland and San Francisco. All fans begin with zero Q2 points, so make your week 5 prediction now!

The 13th season of the Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) began with a new weekly prize structure which paid off nicely for a third year fan as the New Orleans Saints beat....

The 2019 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) features a big change to the scoring and weekly prize awards but still includes the biggest reasons fans play, which are....

A first time SecondTicket pool participant picked two of the three players who hit home runs in the 2019 MLB All-Star Game and rode their backs to a narrow victory in the 12th annual All-Star Ticket Slam (ASTS).

The University of Virginia (UVA) and a 4th year SecondTicket fan were the big winners on Monday night as the Mountaineers defeated Texas Tech 85-77 in overtime to win the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.....

The Final Four of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament is set between Michigan State, Texas Tech, Virginia and Auburn. The chase for the $121 First Prize is also on, and with ALL fans eligible to win up to $100 in ticket credits, the 2019 Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam is really just getting started.....

Very few big upsets occurred in the opening weekend of the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, resulting in 49% of SecondTicket fans participating in the 13th annual Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam winning credits and the first perfect bracket....

Fans won nearly $600 in free tickets during the 12th annual Way Cool Super Ticket Pool, the lowest amount in the pool's past five years, as the New England Patriots....

The stage is set for the biggest game of the year: Super Bowl LIII, between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams, at the magnificent Mercedes-Benz Stadium in SecondTicket's hometown of Atlanta. Will New England's Bill Belichick and Tom Brady continue their domination of the NFL, or will the fresh-faced Rams disrupt the NFL status quo?

We don't know the answer to that. We DO know that....

2018 was a record year for SecondTicket, thanks to you, our ever-growing fan community and corporate clients. We sold more tickets than ever before, and....

Fans won and saved more than $1,250 off any sport, concert or theater tickets in our marketplace in the 2018 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), led by....

One of the rarest plays in the NFL changed the outcome of Week 15 in the 2018 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) and produced the second weekly win this season....

The Seattle Seahawks did not record an NFL Scorigami, but fans won another $60 worth of free tickets in the 2018 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) thanks to....

The Philadelphia Eagles' took care of business with a 28-13 win over the Washington Redskins as fans won another $53 off tickets in....

One fan predicted the exact final score of the Houston Texans' 34-17 win over the Tennessee Titans and another scored just well enough to capture....

The Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs played the highest scoring Monday Night Football game ever, and the Rams' 54-51 win was tied for the most statistically difficult game to predict in the 12 year history of the Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS).

Congratulations to....

The New York Giants pulled a mild surprise in Week 10 of the 2018 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), beating the San Francisco 49ers 27-23. But it was a fan of a different NFC East team who took the overall lead in the pool.....

The Week 9 ballots in the 2018 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) have been counted, and the third upset of this year's Monday Night Football season produced a big weekly winner and a new season leader. With all votes counted, 28 more fans won....

The New England Patriots and Tom Brady continued their dominance of the Buffalo Bills with a win on Monday Night Football that produced more than $75 in free tickets being awarded to fans in Week 8 of the 2018 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS).

Congratulations are in order for....

For the first time in the 2018 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), there's a change at the top of the season leaderboard - but it's neither....

Six fans in the 2018 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) correctly predicted the Green Bay Packers' point total in the Pack's narrow 33-30 win over the San Francisco 49ers, but the pool's week 6 winner....

Drew Brees became the NFL's all-time passing leader, the New Orleans Saints and Washington Redskins played the first 43-19 game in NFL history, and Week 5 of the 2018 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) produced the lowest winning point total in pool history. Other than that, it was just a normal game.....

The Denver Broncos came close to a Monday night upset of the Kansas City Chiefs that would have dramatically altered the leaderboard of the 2018 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), but....

The Pittsburgh Steelers extinguished FitzMagic in their 30-27 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday Night Football, while a 7th year SecondTicket fan stirred up some magic of his own in winning Week 3 of the Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS).

Congratulations to fan....

Four fans predicted the exact final score of the Chicago Bears' 24-17 win over the Seattle Seahawks in Week 2 of Monday Night Football, only the second time in the 182 week history of the Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) that's been done.

The weekly winner, on the basis of the earliest submission tiebreaker,....

The New York Jets' 48-17 win over the Detroit Lions in Week 1 of Monday Night Football was one of the most difficult games to predict in the 12 year history of the Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS).

Congratulations to ....

Sports betting and the future of fantasy sports changed with the recent Supreme Court ruling enabling states to permit sports betting, but the 2018 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) is still free and now open! Sports fans and anybody who likes to win stuff will love it, because you can score free tickets by ....

A record number of MLB All-Star Game home runs produced a record number of free tickets awarded in the 11th annual All-Star Ticket Slam (ASTS).

Villanova and SecondTicket fan andyrunner88 were the big winners on Monday night as the Wildcats defeated the University of Michigan 79-62 to win the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.....

The defining feature of the Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam is that all fans still have something to play for during tonight's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament championship game between Michigan and Villanova. All fans are playing for $50 in free tickets and 11% of fans are playing for the $114 First Prize.....

As we head into the final weekend of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, 100% of participating fans are mathematically alive in the race for the Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam's First Prize of $114 in free tickets. How is that possible?....

Nearly half of participating fans saved money on tickets during the first two rounds of the 12th annual Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam, but one of the most wide open NCAA Men's Basketball Tournaments in history has, not surprisingly....

The 11th annual Way Cool Super Ticket Pool generated more than $850 worth of free tickets for SecondTicket fans, including $175 to the pool champion, as the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the New England Patriots 41-33 in Super Bowl LII.

Congratulations to first time participant clubs57, of Ohio, who correctly picked the first team to score (PHI), first scoring play (FG), and one team's final score (NE, 33). Importantly, he was also among the 30% of fans who picked....

The 2017 Mega Pool went down to the final week of the football season before 10th year SecondTicket fan gina5091 eked out the narrowest victory in its three year history to score the....

The 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) concluded with fans winning $1,364 in tickets and a long-time SecondTicket fan capturing her first ever pool championship.....

The Atlanta Falcons beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 24-21 in week 15 of Monday Night Football, and two SecondTicket fans predicted the exact final score of the penultimate week in the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS).....

Two long time SecondTicket fans nearly picked the exact score of the Miami Dolphins' 27-20 upset of the New England Patriots in Week 14 of the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS). Only one of them would win the week and clinch a $10,000 berth, but the other one is the new overall pool leader.....

For 59 minutes on Monday night, it looked like the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) leaderboard would get a major shakeup and a new highest single-week score might be posted. But the Pittsburgh Steelers kicked a last second, game-winning field goal to beat the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 and keep things, well, 'normal'.....

The Baltimore Ravens beat the Houston Texans 23-16 on Monday night, making big winners of two SecondTicket fans in Week 12 of the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS).

Congratulations to....

The week 11 winner in the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) narrowly missed a perfect prediction but still likely earned a $10,000 berth, and there's a new 2017 pool leader as the Atlanta Falcons beat the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football.

Congratulations to....

Despite the Carolina Panthers' 45-17 win over the Miami Dolphins in week 10 of the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) being this season's most difficult game to predict, 32 fans won tickets.

Congratulations to....

The perplexing Detroit Lions beat the Green Bay Packers 30-17 in week 9 of the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), so of course the week's best prediction was likely to come from a long-time (and long-time suffering) Detroit Lions season ticket holder with a deep knowledge of the team.

Congratulations to....

Several statistically unique outcomes occurred in week 8 of the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) as the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Denver Broncos 29-19 on Monday Night Football.

First, we congratulate....

The Philadelphia Eagles and a second year SecondTicket fan boldly announced themselves as contenders for their respective championships in week 7 of Monday Night Football and the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS). The Eagles soundly defeated the Washington Redskins 34-24 and fan BADDGUY broke through with....

One fan was 47 seconds away from a perfect score prediction and potential $10,000 berth in the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) when an unexpected play altered the final score of the week 6 game between the Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts on Monday Night Football....

A fan in his 6th pool season won a week for the first time and there's a new overall leader in the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) after the Minnesota Vikings beat the Chicago Bears 20-17 in week 5 of Monday Night Football.....

One of the more unusual conclusions to an NFL game made big winners out of an 11 year veteran and a rookie, and resulted in a historically easy final score to predict,....

Thanks to some questionable time management by the Arizona Cardinals late in their 28-17 Monday night loss to the Dallas Cowboys, SecondTicket and Mega Pool fan Pingouin won week 3 of the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) with a perfect score prediction.....

SecondTicket and Mega Pool fan Jredd1970 won week 2 in the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) and recorded the first perfect score prediction of this year's pool as the Detroit Lions beat the New York Giants 24-10.....

SecondTicket and Mega Pool fan Daddy Rick won the opening week of the 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) with a 28-21 prediction of the Minnesota Vikings' 29-19 win over the New Orleans Saints.....

The 2017 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) is now open! Football fans and live event lovers will love it: Predict the Monday night game's final score to grab your share of free tickets on our unique marketplace and have a shot at Big Money. How big? $10,000 Big.

Robinson Cano's home run in the 10th inning of the 2017 MLB All-Star Game turned the 10th annual All-Star Ticket Slam (ASTS) upside down and made a pool champion of one of the three fans who chose Cano as their AL Reserve.

Home runs are on the rise again in Major League Baseball. That's obviously great for fans who like action and fireworks at the ballpark. It's also great for fans playing SecondTicket's annual MLB All-Star Game pool, the All-Star Ticket Slam. This is the pool's 10th year, and the odds of having a $5,000 payout have never been better.

Congratulations to SecondTicket fan tstuckrath, who dominated the 2017 Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam (BCTJ) to win $225 in free tickets, including the $200 First Prize. 94% of fans won nearly $1,000 overall during the tournament, which ended with the North Carolina Tar Heels' 71-65 victory over Gonzaga in the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. How much did tstuckrath dominate?....

SecondTicket fan tstuckrath is having a dominant run in the 2017 Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam, but three fans still stand in her way from being crowned as this year's pool champion. She and four others will also play for $5,000 during the NCAA Men's Basketball championship game between Gonzaga and North Carolina.....

Gonzaga, South Carolina, Oregon and North Carolina are the last teams standing in the 2017 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, and now is the time for fans playing the 2017 Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam to make a strong move toward free ticket credits and additional pool points.

All fans who submitted an eligible bracket may submit score predictions for up to 150 pool points and $30 in free tickets. Plus, score predictions are certain to determine the five fans who will play for $5,000 ....

The opening weekend of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament didn't go well for high seeds like Villanova, Duke, Florida State or Louisville, but it went great for 45% of fans who won ticket credits in the 2017 Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam. ....

A huge congratulations goes out to SecondTicket fan Lalarayneman, who won $1,000 as a finalist in the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) by correctly predicting the final score in New England's 34-28 defeat of Atlanta in Super Bowl 51.....

The first overtime game - and largest comeback - in Super Bowl history produced a total of $1,767 worth of free tickets for SecondTicket fans in our 10th annual Way Cool Super Ticket Pool. Nobody won the $5,000 jackpot with a perfect prediction, but the $220 First Prize goes to....

A record number of fans played the 2016 Mega Pool and, by doing so, saved a record $6,858 off sport, concert and theater tickets in the SecondTicket marketplace. As we look ahead to the 2017 pool, we first say congratulations to....

SecondTicket's largest pool ever, the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), concluded with fans winning a total of $1,949 in ticket credits and a second year fan winning the season's grand prize of $324 in free tickets.....

For the first time in the ten year history of the Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), three fans tied for the best prediction of the week with three different score predictions. All of them also happened to be first year fans.....

One of the things fans like about Mega Pool contests is that beginners can do well in them, and typically the top of any given weekly leaderboard features a mix of pool rookies and veterans. But for some reason, week 14 of the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) was dominated by long time fans, two of whom predicted the exact final score of the game between the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens.....

The week 13 game between the Indianapolis Colts and New York Jets was the most difficult game to predict of the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) pool, and only one fan correctly predicted either team's score.....

One fan made a big jump to win Q3 and another made a small leap to take the overall lead in week 12 of the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS). Plus 38 other fans....

Monday's game between the Houston Texans and Oakland Raiders was the first NFL game played in Mexico City in 11 years. Since that time, the Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) has built its own 10 year history,....

By now you may have seen ads on our site for FireFan, a hot new sports prediction app coming soon.

WHAT IS FIRE FAN?....

One way or the other, tens of millions of voters will pick the exact winner of the 2016 US presidential election on their ballot today (albeit as a selection rather than a prediction).

Last night on Election Eve, one fan predicted the exact final score of the Seattle Seahawks 31-25 win over the Buffalo Bills in week 9 of the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS).....

Halloween night was spooky in the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), as one fan swooped in like a ghost (playing for her first time) and posted the biggest single week score ever in the history of the pool. She came from nowhere to win Q2 and take the overall pool lead.....

Three fans posted the winning score prediction in the easiest week of the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), as 23% of the pool correctly predicted one team score. But who became the 7th fan to qualify for a chance to win $10,000 in February?....

The week 6 winner in the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) posted her first weekly win in 3 seasons of pool participation to become the fifth fan who will play for $10,000 during the Super Bowl.....

Fans won $101 toward tickets and there's a new pool leader after one fan predicted the exact final score in week 5 of the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS).....

SecondTicket fans won $141 toward tickets and the Q1 winner was crowned in week 4 of our biggest ever Monday night pool, the Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS).....

SecondTicket fans won $117 toward tickets in the 12th most difficult Monday night game to predict in the 10 year history of the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS).....

The Week 2 winner in the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) just barely missed an exact score match and made some noise at the top of the 2016 Mega Pool leaderboard with her 28-14 prediction of the Philadelphia Eagles' 29-14 win over the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football.....

Monday Night Football's TV ratings on ESPN may have declined in Week 1 of the 2016 season, but our 10th annual Monday night pool, the Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) was more popular than ever. And a long time SecondTicket fan topped the field for her 2nd career weekly win.....

The 2016 Mega Pool resumes with the opening of its fourth and final contest, the 2016 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), which features scoring changes that will make it and The Mega Pool competitive to the very end.

Our 9th annual All-Star Ticket Slam (ASTS) was our biggest ever, with 70% more fans playing than last year, and was highlighted by a potential $5,000 8th inning payout and a back-and-forth battle for the $358 First Prize among fans who had chosen Kris Bryant, Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez. Ultimately, First Prize would go to a first time pool participant in a pool that was much closer than the final point totals would indicate.

SecondTicket fan BByers did not pick Villanova to win her bracket, but she wins the $500 First Prize as the 2016 Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam champion. How did she do it?....

SecondTicket fan and Mega Pool contestant mb10 won the largest ever Way Cool Super Ticket Pool to score $518 in free tickets - and he just missed the $5,000 jackpot. How close was he?....

Here are the halftime and final score predictions from finalists in the 2015 Monday Night Ticket Score. A correct halftime score prediction only wins $100. A final score only wins $1,000, and correctly predicting both wins $10,000!....

With a week to go before the 2016 Super Bowl between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers, our 9th annual WayCool Super Ticket Pool is on pace to be our biggest ever. Here's why it should be a part of your Super Bowl weekend:....

Office pools and fantasy sports continue to be one of America's fastest growing pastimes, but there's one big problem with them. The Mega Pool fixes that problem - and goes one step further.....

Congratulations to SecondTicket fan Whodatfan, the winner of the 2015 Mega Pool. He led a record number of participating fans in total points between our four recurring sports pools to be....

A weekly win in the Monday Night Ticket Score is big for any fan, but for the week 16 winner in the 2015 pool, who posted his first such win in 32 career attempts, it wasn't even his biggest victory of the day.....

For the first time since week 10 and only the fifth week all season, there's a new overall leader in the 2015 Monday Night Ticket Score, thanks to the Detroit Lions' 35-27 win over the New Orleans Saints in week 15 of Monday Night Football.....

For the second consecutive week, a new fan has jumped into second place overall in the 2015 Monday Night Ticket Score and narrowed the gap at the top of the leaderboard.....

The 4th quarter of our 2015 football pool began Monday night with another strong performance by the 3rd quarter (Q3) champion and a mildly surprising 19-16 win by the Dallas Cowboys over the Washington Redskins.....

The Baltimore Ravens returned a blocked field goal for a touchdown with no time on the clock to stun and disappoint the Cleveland Browns, 33-27, in week 12 of Monday Night Football.

But it was the extra point they didn't attempt that caused the biggest disruption in week 12 of the Monday Night Ticket Score.....

The New England Patriots beat the Buffalo Bills on Monday Night Football to remain undefeated in 2015 and SecondTicket fan Tuckfury posted the first exact score match in the last six weeks of the Monday Night Ticket Score to win week 11 of the pool. Her 20-13 prediction scores her $5 in free tickets, launches her into contention for....

At the same time the Houston Texans knocked the Cincinnati Bengals from the ranks of the NFL's undefeated teams, they also knocked Monday Night Ticket Score pool leader Brannan out of first place in the most difficult MNF game to predict of the 2015 season.

But before we get to that,....

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Other times, it's better to be early and lucky than good.

The Chicago Bears upset the San Diego Chargers 22-19 on Monday night, and four fans submitted the winning 23-20 score prediction in week 9 of the Monday Night Ticket Score.

The Carolina Panthers needed overtime to defeat the Indianapolis Colts 29-26 on Monday Night Football, and SecondTicket fan Jessica Lynn won week 8 of our free football pool by being the only fan to ....

The week 7 winner in the Monday Night Ticket Score made her score prediction last Tuesday, but it was an offseason decision that indirectly contributed to SecondTicket fan Schira69's first career weekly win in the pool.

It's good to be in the "one percent".

20 percent of fans in our free football pool correctly forecast the Philadelphia Eagles' final score of 27 points in week six of the Monday Night Ticket Score.

None of them, however, won the week.

Two fans predicted the exact final score of Pittsburgh's 24-20 win over San Diego in week 5 of the 2015 Monday Night Ticket Score. One of them won the tiebreaker and could score $10,000 in February.

More on that in a minute.

With five seconds remaining in the 4th quarter and the Chargers leading 20-17, Pittsburgh had the ball on San Diego's one yard line. At that point, 11 different fans could have won week 5. Who needed what to happen?

The Seattle Seahawks' Kam Chancellor saved the game by knocking the ball loose from the Detroit Lions' Calvin Johnson at the goal line on Monday night, preserving Seattle's 13-10 victory and making a week 4 winner out of first time SecondTicket fan Secu. He was one of seven fans to correctly pick Detroit with ten points and becomes the 4th fan to qualify for a chance to play for $10,000 during the Super Bowl.

Two SecondTicket fans submitted the winning score prediction in Week 3 of the Monday Night Ticket Score as the Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 38-28 on Monday Night Football.

Unfortunately, only one can win, and the tiebreaker is earliest submission, so congratulations go out to....

Nothing went right for the Indianapolis Colts against the New York Jets on Monday Night Football.

But they went oh-so-right for SecondTicket fan Brannan.

In the Colts' 20-7 loss to the J-E-T-S, all of the following happened:

The Atlanta Falcons surprised the favored Philadelphia Eagles with a 26-24 victory on Monday Night Football, and first time fan Alecdegen123 pulled the rug out from under three longtime SecondTicket fans to win the biggest ever week of the Monday Night Ticket Score.

If you're not already playing the 2015 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool, now is a good time to begin. The fourth game in the Mega Pool, the Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS), is officially open and promises to be our biggest ever.

For the first seven innings of the 2015 MLB All-Star Game, it looked like the champion of the 2015 All-Star Ticket Slam would come from the 28% of fans who picked game MVP Mike Trout as their American League starter.

But then the 8th and 9th innings happened.

As of Sunday morning, July 12th, several roster changes have been made to Major League Baseball's All-Star Game since rosters were announced and our fans could begin choosing their four players in our free baseball pool, the All-Star Ticket Slam. We recommend that fans monitor their player selections and revise them accordingly.

(Note: There are other players who were named as All-Stars but who are not playing, such as ....

Whether you think "fantasy baseball" is a game in which participants compete for awards by managing a simulated roster of players or a way to describe the movie Field Of Dreams, you'll enjoy our 8th annual MLB All-Star Game pool. And as with most fantasies, there's an almost unbelievable statistical oddity heading into this year's contest.

That's one grand slam every 31 games. But those 37 grand slams don't win you anything.

On the other had,....

That's one grand slam every 30.4 MLB games in 2015. Why are we keeping track? Because if a grand slam is hit in the 2nd or 8th inning of the All-Star Game on July 14th in Cincinnati, $5,000 will be split among fans who picked the player to hit it in our free baseball pool.

Through June 1, 2015, there have been 26 grand slams hit in this year's Major League Baseball season. The two most recent were hit by Derek Norris of the San Diego Padres, against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Mark Teixeira of the New York Yankees against the Seattle Mariners.

Chris Iannetta of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim hit the 24th grand slam of the baseball season Thursday night against the Detroit Tigers.

Steve Pearce of the Baltimore Orioles and Justin Upton of the San Diego Padres are the latest major leaguers to hit grand slams this summer, raising the total number to 23. Pearce hit his on May 21st against the Seattle Mariners; Upton's belt came on May 24th against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

With our annual free baseball pool a couple of months away, it's time to get excited about grand slams hit during the 2015 baseball season.

Jace Peterson of the Atlanta Braves, Brandon Crawford of the San Francisco Giants, and Wilmer Flores of the New York Mets are the latest to clear the bases with one swing. Each of them hit a grand slam on May 16th, bringing the total number of slams hit in the 2015 professional baseball season to 21.

SecondTicket fan whodatfan is the 2015 Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam champion after correctly predicting the exact final score in Duke's 68-63 victory over Wisconsin in the 2015 NCAA Men's Basketball championship game.

Despite having picked Kentucky to win the tournament in his bracket, whodatfan was in 22nd place heading into last night's game and was among....

With Wisconsin and Duke ready to play for the NCAA Men's Basketball national championship, most fans are out of their college basketball bracket contests. But fans in our 9th annual Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam, who have already won $783 in free tickets, still have a lot to play for.

Three games remain in our 9th annual Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam, and with Kentucky, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Duke comprising one of the strongest Final Four fields in history, now is the time for fans playing in our free pool to make a strong move toward points and tickets.

All fans who submitted a bracket by the deadline are eligible to submit....

SecondTicket fan bigsis is the only one who correctly picked 14 of 16 games on day one of our 2015 Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam, and she currently leads our largest pool field ever.

At 236 fans, participation in this year's college basketball pool is more than twice as many as in our previous high year; 110 fans played in the 2013 pool.

6.7% of fans correctly picked 13 day one games, which slots them between 2nd and 17th places because of the varying point totals for correct picks. For example, correctly picking the winner of a 7 vs. 10 game is worth more (1.9 points) than correctly picking a 2 vs. 15 game (1.1 points). 17.3% correctly picked 12 games.

At the other end, one fan sits alone in last place after picking just five of 16 games, and 2% picked just six correct. As we'll remind you many times during the tournament, however, your bracket is never really busted in this pool until you are more than 150 points out of first place. That's the maximum number of points you can tally with successful score predictions of the Final Four. We'll write about that more later.

Kentucky is the most popular champion selection, with 53% of fans riding the Wildcats. Wisconsin (11%), Arizona (10.6%) and Duke (7.6%) are the next three favorites. You can view everybody's Sweet 16 picks - and obviously, their champion - and compare them to yours on the Standings By Champion page.

As a result of Kentucky's pursuit of a perfect season and their potential status as one of, if not the, greatest college team ever, more fans chose a #1 seed as their champion (74.5%) than the historical Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam average (67.3%). 20.5% chose a #2, #3 or #4 seed (down from 31.1%).

We hope you're enjoying the pool and encourage you to check the standings frequently! Standings are updated at the conclusion of most games and we invite you to follow us on Twitter for immediate notifications about that. 

Every year, websites introduce new college basketball bracket contests, each trying to create a better game, with bigger prizes, than all the others. Meanwhile, our Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam (BCTJ) continued bouncing along with its unique scoring system, second chance feature and relatively realistic grand prize.

For example, last year at this time, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway announced a $1 billion bracket contest that became the darling of the gaming and college basketball worlds. But nobody won the billion (of course), and this year, you can't play it again. Why? Because Buffett's not offering it. Why? Because the parties are suing each other.

Other websites, including ESPN and CBS, have changed their free bracket contests from rewarding the best bracket to rewarding a random 'good' bracket. Why? Because the NCAA wanted them to. You read that correctly: You can lose the pool even if you won the pool.

But like a well-executed pick-and-roll, the BCTJ never goes out of style, and as of 6pm today, already had more fans playing than ever before. And we're still accepting new brackets, until 12p ET on Thursday.

Why should you play the BCTJ? Because we designed it with fans in mind rather than for shock value.

We knew a long time ago that, while fans love the idea of million and billion dollar prizes, they perceive smaller prizes, such as the $5,000 grand prize in our contest, as more achievable - and more worth their time.

And it's not just the perception of the grand prize that matters; it's also the reality of winning it. Our $5,000 grand prize isn't conditional on picking a perfect bracket, which, although fivethirtyeight's Nate Silver says is technically easier to accomplish this year than last, is still virtually impossible at more than 1-in-1.6 billion. Instead, to win $5,000 in the BCTJ, you just have to be one of five eligible fans to correctly predict the final score of the championship game on April 6. What are the odds of that? Only about 1-in-250. Don't think it can happen? This fan won $5,000 in our 2012 WayCool Super Ticket Pool, and the odds of that were longer than 1-in-250.

Finally, we wanted our pool to have a distinguishing feature and knew that most fans lose interest when a their Sweet 16 or Final Four teams lose. So we built in a unique second-chance-to-win component that keeps an average of about 90% of fans mathematically alive until the end. After the Final Four teams are determined, we'll invite you to make score predictions of the tournament's last three games. 36% of available pool points (and 85% of the tickets you can win) are awarded in this stage of the pool. So like in those pools where a random winner is chosen, our champion isn't necessarily the fan who makes the best game predictions. But unlike those other pools, our winner isn't randomly selected; it's the fan who makes the best combined game and score predictions. It's very unlikely that you can win the pool without making score predictions, and it's possible for a fan outside the top half of the standings to pull off a surprise, last minute shocker to win the pool - kind of like a full court, hail mary shot.

But don't just take our word that we built a better bracket challenge. Submit your bracket now and let us know later, in our post-tournament survey, how much it enhanced your March Madness experience.

So enjoy the tournament, enjoy the games, and just in case, start your list of things you'd do if you won $5,000. Good luck!

Congratulations to SecondTicket fan Diegobub, who won the 2015 WayCool Super Ticket Pool by correctly picking the coin toss, first team to score, type of first scoring play, and final score of the New England Patriots' 28-24 victory over the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. If he had also correctly predicted the minute of the first scoring play, he would have become the second fan to win $5,000 in the pool. Mjohnson hit the jackpot in the 2013 pool.

In addition to taking home the $252 first prize, Diegobub led all fans in tickets won with $24. Overall, fans won $1,170 worth of free tickets, and every fan tallied at least $1 by virtue of having at least one correct prediction or a final score prediction within 10 points of the team's actual score.

After the coin toss (tails) and first scoring play (a passing touchdown by New England in the 2nd quarter), two fans still had a chance to win the $5,000 grand prize. But Knight32kc and SFASON missed the final score and settled for 7th and 11th place, respectively. They won a combined $35 in free tickets.

Two other fans, dollabills407 and dbpetrel02, also guessed the exact final score but missed at least two of the prediction elements. Among past champions, Mjohnson had the best showing, finishing 25th and scoring $13 in tickets.

A few fans also won bonus tickets by engaging in our #waycool #footballpool game on Twitter. Since we are moving much of our news delivery to Twitter, we recommend following us there.

Within the next 24 hours we'll also be sending you a very short pool survey and would love it if you'd take a minute to share your thoughts with us.

The 2015 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool standings are now live, with Diegobub obviously taking the early lead. Remember that points in all 2015 pools count toward the $400 Mega Pool first prize.

Credits won are available for redemption toward any tickets on our site, although we are currently experiencing credit calculation issues for fans whose accounts have been created since October. Those balances may be displaying incorrectly but we expect to have it rectified later today.

Thanks again for playing! As always, contact us with questions and we're excited about your next chance to win, in March, with our 9th annual Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam!

Whether or not you are playing our 2015 WayCool Super Ticket Pool to win up to $250 in tickets or $5,000 cash, you can win bonus tickets during Super Bowl XLIX by following @SecondTicket and playing #waycool #footballpool with us on Twitter.

At the beginning of each quarter of the game, we'll post a YES/NO question and invite you to Tweet us with your prediction. Each correct prediction wins $2 in credits that may be applied to the purchase of any tickets on our site, subject to our credit terms and conditions.

Participation is free and a free SecondTicket fan account is required. To create one, click here. Credits you win will be posted to your account at the conclusion of the game. Good luck and enjoy the Super Bowl!

NOTE: This post was updated on 1/28/16 to reflect that this bonus applied to the 2015 WayCool Super Ticket Pool.

The current situation with football fans not receiving their Super Bowl tickets is a disaster for everybody involved, and the kind of thing our industry should have figured out how to prevent from happening. Obviously it hasn't, and the time has come for all parties - including well known exchanges such as Stubhub, Ticket Network, Vivid Seats, Razorgator, and Ticket Evolution, ticket futures sites such as TeamTix, and the hundreds of individual brokerages that participate on those exchanges, including SecondTicket - to figure out how to fix it.

The Super Bowl problem, specifically, is about one component of the secondary ticketing industry called short-selling. For a detailed piece about how short selling works, please read this blog from 2010 or this current piece by ESPN sports business reporter Darren Rovell. Generally speaking, short selling provides value for consumers by enabling fans of high demand, late-delivery events such as the Super Bowl, The Masters and the Final Four to buy tickets at whatever time or price they need to in order to achieve cost certainty and initiate planning. And 99.9% of the time, short selling is conducted professionally by sellers.

But as is the case with short selling in other types of markets, when short ticket selling goes wrong, it goes spectacularly, calamitously, heart-breakingly wrong. Everybody loses, especially consumers, and it brings the resale industry overall into the sharp focus of the public, consumer advocacy groups, and legislators.

SecondTicket formed eight years ago with the promise of helping to improve the ticket resale industry. Early on, we experimented with short selling the Super Bowl on a limited scale, taking a one-year-at-a-time view of it. Despite moderate success over a three year period, we discontinued short selling after determining that the risks outweighed the rewards. We saw companies succeed wildly and others go out of business. Ultimately, we did not feel we could add enough customer value or contribute to the improvement of our industry through short selling. It was best left to others.

Many others do it well, and many in the industry, especially the exchanges, do have measures in place to prevent this from happening. We commend the exchanges and brokers who fairly and handsomely overcompensated customers who were willing to accept a buyout. But clearly, there is still work to be done. The time has come for exchanges to self-regulate before government does it for us by requiring bonding and licensure of sellers, reducing the maximum number of allowable per seller short sales, and imposing stronger, scalable penalties on brokers who default. For their part, brokerages need to be more responsible to their customers and each other or get out - and stay out - of the business.

Only then will we be able to stop reading about the disappointment of fans who think they are about to cross off a bucket-list item, only to be told that mysterious 'suppliers' failed to 'deliver'. Enough is enough.

Super Bowl XLIX between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots is this Sunday, and here's what we know for sure:

-The footballs will be properly inflated
-Super Bowl tickets are more expensive than they've been in a few years
-The best commercial will probably feature a baby or animal (although not this animal)
-Americans are expected to make $3.8 billion in illegal Super Bowl wagers
-Our Super Bowl pool is free and completely legal

First things first: Deflate-Gate. Did you know there's a pretty lengthy list of scandals that have taken on the -gate suffix? If we put the Over/Under on the number of items on that list at 100, would you take the Over or the Under? We'll reveal the answer at the end of this blog.

Several fans have asked us why why Super Bowl tickets cost more this year than in recent years. There are a few reasons. For one thing, it's a compelling game, with the defending champion 'Hawks and quasi-dynasty Patriots facing off to lay claim to being the team of the era and one of the best teams of all time. Another is that, while Patriots fans generally always travel well, the fact that it's a West Coast game makes it easier for Seattle fans to make the trip.

But here's the hidden reason for the price escalation. Since Super Bowl demand exceeds supply until a couple weeks before the game, most resale exchanges permit 'zone' seat sales year-round, which means that, at any time, fans can buy tickets within certain stadium areas such as 'Upper Endzone' (most common because it's the cheapest) or 'Lower Sideline'. Zone seats sellers, who are usually licensed ticket brokers but may also be fans operating on the side, take the risk that they'll be able to find seats within those zones, and usually, by scouring Ebay, Craigslist, or arriving in the Super Bowl city a week or two prior to the game, they'll be able to do so. But this year's Super Bowl site, University of Phoenix Stadium, has less upper endzone seating than most other Super Bowl stadiums, so sellers are having a difficult time filling the high number of upper endzone orders they received - and upgrading customers into better locations. That's having an upward spiral affect on the whole market.

In the annual fan poll we ran from 2009 to 2012, commercials were fans' second favorite thing about Super Sunday other than the game. Here are a few of the best, and here is Fansided's best-of list. Since we're fans of live music, we're partial to the best musical Super Bowl commercials. We've brought back the fan poll and welcome you to place your vote (right column), no SecondTicket account necessary.

An account is necessary to play our 8th annual Super Bowl prop bet pool, and it's free, which is a lot better than not free. Just pick the coin toss, first scoring play and final score, and you'll be in the running to win up to $250 in free tickets and $5,000 cash. And #ICYMI, this fan won $5,000 in the 2013 pool. Here are some statistics about the first scoring play, and we'll also be handing out bonus tickets on Twitter (@SecondTicket) during the game with hashtag #waycoolpool.

But if you like 'not free', here are some of the unique prop bets you can place on the game. (Here are some more.) And while you can bet on just about anything in Vegas, you can't bet on whether the balls will be properly inflated. That's because Nevada casinos are limited to bets that can be verified in the box score.

Ok, if you took the Over on the number of -gate scandals, you'd be right. Here are 118 societal scandals since Watergate; not surprisingly, most of them have been coined since the advent of internet.

Enjoy the game, call us if you need help with tickets, and play our Super Bowl pool! You may not win it, but you can't lose!

Our 8th annual free Super Bowl pool and 3rd annual fan of the year competition are officially open and full of improvements in 2015! Just as Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks will attempt to repeat their 2014 victory, SecondTicket fans lily89 and Fgreenslate will attempt to defend their titles in the WayCool Super Ticket Pool and Fan Of The Year Mega Pool, respectively.

First things first. In our unique Super Bowl prop bet pool, all fans are invited to submit a prediction of Super Bowl XLIX's coin toss, first scoring play and final score. Prizes include a $200-500 First Prize (the more fans who play, the bigger the prize), up to $27 in free ticket credits, and a conditional Grand Prize of $5,000 for a perfect prediction. Don't think it can be done? This fan hit the jackpot in the 2013 pool. The deadline for 2015 WayCool Super Ticket Pool entries is 4:00pm ET on 2/1/15.

Everybody who plays is automatically entered into the 2015 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool, which is the umbrella competition encompassing all of our 2015 pools. The fan who collectively scores the most points across all of the pools will score a $400 bonus as the Fan Of The Year.

We're excited about the improvements to each pool. Most significantly, points across all of the pools will be more directly tied to an event's actual odds. Last year we scaled them to more accurately reflect their difficulty; this year we're resetting them to be more commensurate (though not quite exact) with their actual odds.

Here's an example from the upcoming WayCool Super Ticket Pool. In 2013, you earned 30 points for a correct prediction of the minute in which the game's first scoring play would occur, regardless of the minute. In 2014, different minutes became worth different amounts; the 6th minute was worth 20 points and the 12th minute was worth 55. This year the number of points is closer to the actual odds of it occurring. A 6th minute score, with odds of approximately 1:8, is worth 8.5 points; a 12th minute score is worth 22 points. Similarly, points from correctly predicting the coin toss have been reduced from 10 to two (since the odds are 1:2).

The end result of these Mega Pool points adjustments will be a more compelling competition as a result of less point inflation. High point values - but fewer of them - will still be available, especially in the Monday Night Ticket Score.

But don't worry - the number of points is being reduced, but the number of ticket credits you can win is growing! We'll continue awarding bonus credits to fans who engage with us on Twitter (the next hashtag will be #waycoolpool) and later this year we'll introduce at least one new pool.

Maybe the improvement you'll like most of all is the debut of Mega Credits, which are not subject to minimum purchase requirements or expiration dates. For a complete explanation of ticket credits and how to save money using them, please visit our ticket credit terms and conditions page.

Some things won't change. As always, we encourage you to visit our unique supporting content to give yourself the inside edge in any of our pools. For the WayCool Super Ticket Pool, you may find this Super Bowl prop bet information helpful. And you can always find statistics about how often fans have correctly predicted the coin toss (40.5%) or minute of the first score (7.9%) on the pool's All-Time Leaderboard.

One final thought. No youth organizations applied for our 2014 GiVE grant, so the $598 will be carried over and added into the 2015 grant. As a result, the estimated amount of the 2015 grant for a worthy youth organization will be more than $1,000.

Thanks and we'll see you in the pool(s)!

Congratulations to the winner of the 2014 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool, Fgreenslate, who scored the $600 Grand Prize - $500 cash and $100 in free tickets.

Fgreenslate posted one of the most dominant annual performances in the history of our four annual pools (the Mega Pool was born in 2013, but we've operated the four pools annually since 2008). He finished 2nd in three of the four - the WayCool Super Ticket Pool, Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam and Monday Night Ticket Score - by a remarkable total of 25.7 points. His only hiccup, if you want to call it that, came in the All-Star Ticket Slam, when he finished 7th.

His average finish was 3rd place; by comparison, the 2nd place finisher, Valenti, averaged a 19th place finish and scored in the top 10 only once. Three fans - jscohen30, scoochnew, and Huber - placed in the top 10 twice. His year was even considerably stronger than the one posted by 2013 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool champion tbonefl, who averaged a 9th place finish and placed in the top 10 twice. He also won a combined $44 in free tickets in the pools.

Thanks for making 2014 the biggest year ever for SecondTicket pool participation. By playing, you help us drive down the cost of live entertainment and have some fun along the way. We hope you enjoyed it and we've got some cool announcements coming soon about the 2015 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool. As always, we welcome your feedback by phone, email, or in post-pool surveys. Thanks!

The Cincinnati Bengals' 37-28 victory over the Denver Broncos clinched them a playoff berth and earned honors for three SecondTicket fans in the final week of our 2014 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS).

Lippesq's 34-27 prediction was the best of the week, for which he wins $5 in free tickets and a second entry into the First Prize pool, in which fans can win $10,000 during the Super Bowl. He is the third fan to win twice this season, joining Brannan and melissamd, and this is the first time three different fans have won multiple times in a season. He also takes sole possession of the career lead for weekly MNTS wins with eight, breaking the tie with ckmendels which he set earlier this season.

Week 15 winner Oranget93 claims his first career quarterly win, snatching the $65 Q4 prize from Joegigliotti despite having the 6th highest average point differential (8.625) of a quarterly winner in the eight year (32 quarter) history of the MNTS. But that's not a reflection on Oranget93's picks. It's actually a reflection of the fact that Q4 graded out as the 4th most difficult quarter in the pool's history (based on the average difficulty score of the individual weeks within the quarter, thanks to unlikely game outcomes). By contrast, Q2 of this year's pool was the 2nd easiest quarter in the pool's history; Q2 winner Kenny Powers posted the third best quarterly winner average point differential (3.875).

Congrats to season winner Chrishill_8, who holds on to win the $281.20 Grand Prize over Fgreenslate. But he did so... barely. The 1.7 point margin between first and second place is approximately the equivalent of a half point prediction difference over the course of the entire season. Chrishill_8 becomes the second pool champion to win without having won a week, although he did win Q3 and nobody has ever won the pool without winning at least a week or a quarter. His average weekly finish was 26.1, fifth best of the eight pool champions. The all-time best was Profoster's 17.5 average finish in 2008.

The season win guarantees Chrishill_8 one of 20 spots among fans who will play for $10,000 during the Super Bowl. Joining him are the 16 weekly winners (including three who each won twice), Kenny Powers (Q2 winner), AJNoble12 (Q1 winner) and llbh20 (highest score as a weekly runner-up who lost the tiebreaker).

And finally, congratulations also to Fgreenslate, who wins the 2014 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool. We'll write about that in a separate blog later.

WEEK 16 DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY ANALYTICS
2014 Season: 4th Most Difficult
Eight-Year All-Time: 49th Most Difficult (of 132)
Actual NFL Score Frequencies: 37 (25th most common); 28 (14th most common)
Average Fan Point Prediction Differential: 9.82

The pledge drive for our 2014 GiVE grant concluded on September 30th and we are excited to announce this year's award amount is $598.

The grant will be awarded in December to a youth sport, choral or theater group affiliated with an eligible SecondTicket fan. No purchase is necessary to be eligible; fans simply need a free SecondTicket account and all are encouraged to apply. The application deadline is November 10th and the award will be announced on December 2nd. For more information about GiVE, please click here.

Ticket credits won in SecondTicket pools are generally good for a year and may be donated in their final month of validity. $598 is the total amount donated to GiVE by SecondTicket fans who enjoyed our 2013 pools but did not redeem their credits toward tickets. September 30th was the expiration date of credits won in the final and largest 2013 pool, the Monday Night Ticket Score.

Past winners of the award include the ArtReach Foundation in Atlanta, Saints Peter and Paul School in Buffalo, the Norwich-Oxford Little League in Norwich, NY, and the East Cobb Baseball Astros 9U team of Atlanta.

Meanwhile, fans continue winning new credits in the 2014 Monday Night Ticket Score which may be redeemed for tickets or donated to GiVE in September, 2015. Credits won in the other three pools that compose the 2014 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool may be redeemed anytime through their expiration date or donated to GiVE in each of their respective 2015 expiration months.

Since SecondTicket's launch in 2006, fans have won more than $40,000 in tickets and cash awards.

And now it's time for our most popular football pool preview, the one in which we reveal the most common NFL scores and which scores you should pick more often. This is the last of our 4-part 2014 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) preview.

PART V: Most Common NFL Scores
* * *

PART IV: Most Common NFL Scores

Being aware of the historical rate at which comparable NFL underdogs and favorites have won games and covered the spread, as we outlined in Part III, can definitely help you make smarter Monday night score predictions. They may also help in other football pools. But the MNTS, obviously, is a score prediction pool, so you need to know which scores fans pick too often, which scores they don't pick enough, and how to gain an edge when you may not know anything about the teams in the Monday night game.

As you'll see in the graph below, 20 has been the most common NFL score over the past eight seasons (7%) - but 24 is the most popular score picked by fans (nearly 14%):  

Compare this with the graph from our 2013 preview and you'll see that, during the 2013 season, 20 points overtook 17; 27 surpassed both 13 and 10; 23 became more common than 31; and 21 jumped above 16. These are relatively moderate changes which don't impact the pool very much.

What's more relevant to the pool is the gap between how often fan pick certain scores and how often they actually occur. In this regard, not much changed; the most popular scores were 24, 17, 27, 21 and 31 (represented by the green lines above). Fans typically stick to scores which result from two to four touchdowns and one to two field goals per team; they account for about half of all score predictions. But they only account for about a quarter of all actual NFL scores.

The most underpicked scores are those on the graph above in which the red bar is taller than the green bar, such as 10, 23, 7, 38, 19, 3, 6, 22, 9 and 0.

It may seem awkward picking a team to score, for example, 6 or 22 points, but the Monday Night Ticket Score rewards fans who take risks by submitting unusual score predictions. Matching a common score definitely helps you in the pool, but it doesn't separate you from the pack like matching an uncommon score.

The reason is that the overpicked scores carry negative Team Match Bonus Point equity. Correctly predicting a team's score produces a bonus tied to the number of fans who pick that score. If more fans than expected pick the same score, the bonus is lower; if fewer fans than expected pick the score, the bonus is higher.

If you choose  the strategy of guessing conservative scores, which in the long run can be effective, you should submit your predictions early and make sure you pick winning teams. If you are one of many fans who correctly pick a common score, your odds of winning will depend on your other score and the time stamp on your prediction (earlier time-stamp wins).

But two factors put a premium on hitting on an underpicked score: 1) Doing so is more likely to win you a week, which earns you a berth among the 20 fans who will play for $10,000 during the Super Bowl; and 2) This year's shift of some of the prize money from the Season to the Quarterly Award. Last year, the Quarterly Prize was always $50; this year it will be between $50 and $100 depending on the number of quarterly predictions. Meanwhile, the Season Prize goes from $500 to $250-$500, depending on the number of season predictions.

Hope that helps... good luck in the pool!

WRITER'S NOTE: The NFL's long offseason is nearly over (it's been 209 days since the Super Bowl, but who's counting) and score predictions may finally be submitted in our 2014 Monday night football pool, the Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS). Over this 4-part blog series, we'll introduce this year's new pool features and update previous year posts to help you make smarter score predictions. (Some of the following requires a basic understanding of odds and betting lines).

PART I: Why The Monday Night Ticket Score is Awesome (and How the 2013 Champ Won It)
PART II: Introducing #MNTS2 on Twitter
PART III: New Tools to Help You Pick Upsets and Win Your Football Pool
PART V: Most Common NFL Scores

PART 1: Why the Monday Night Ticket Score is Awesome (and How The 2013 Champ Won It)

Well, we may be biased, but according to this article, office pools in general are awesome. So there.

Aside from that, of the four annual pools we've run since 2007, the Monday Night Ticket Score is by far our largest. 32% more fans have played the MNTS than our next largest pool (the WayCool Super Ticket Pool). Why? Three main reasons:

It's the easiest to play. The pool's fundamental premise is the same: Just guess each team's final score, which takes 30 seconds per week - and this year it might even take less than that. We've built on the NFL win and cover data we began showing last year and added a cool new tool to help you analyze the game even quicker and more efficiently. More on that in Part II.

It offers the most prize money. Fans have won more awards than in all other pools combined - despite the fact that one fan won $5,000 in our 2013 Super Bowl pool. The 2014 pool still maintains the highest payout potential of all four pools. We've shifted some of the Grand Prize cash award into the Quarterly Prizes, but more fans will win ticket credits because we've increased the depth of payouts from 30% to 35% and added an extra credit opportunity (more on that in Part III). Plus, as always, 20 MNTS finalists will play for $10,000 during the 2015 Super Bowl.

Enhanced analytics. Last year's MNTS was the first of our pools to go all Big Data. Fans liked it, and this year's pool leaderboards will continue showing compelling game and prediction stats. We've excerpted some of those numbers into the graph below to show how great of a year the 2013 pool champion ckmendels experienced:

How To Read This Chart:
Ckmendels matched a team score on a whopping 16% (5 of 32) of his picks; the average fan matched 5.4% (1.7 of 32) and the historical average is 5.6%.

He was within 1 point on 19% (6 of 32) picks, within 7 points on 56% (18 of 32), picked the correct winning team 63% (10th best among fans who played all 16 weeks) and correctly picked the underdog to win 50% (also 10th best).

Coming Next: Cool New Tools to Help You Win the Pool (and be the 2014 version of ckmendels).

So you love baseball. Or maybe you just like baseball, but you love the thrill of the most exciting play in baseball: the grand slam. Or maybe you just enjoy small doses of baseball such as the All-Star Game (the rosters for which were announced yesterday). Or maybe you don't even like baseball, but you love competitions such as board games, office pools, or the casual bet with friends. Or maybe you just like the idea of winning $5,000.

If you fit any of the above descriptions, we think you'll love - and we invite you to play - our 7th annual baseball pool, the 2014 All-Star Ticket Slam. As with all SecondTicket pools, it's free to play and there's no obligation to buy tickets on our site. There's a good chance you will win credits toward tickets, but you may either spend them or donate them back to us. More on that in a minute.

For now, what you need to know is that, to win the pool's Grand Prize ($5,000) or First Prize ($250-500), you need to pick four players in the MLB All-Star Game and try to guess how many total runs, hits and errors (RHE) will occur in the game. The deadline for entries is 4:00pm ET on Tuesday, July 15th.

Which players should you pick? The ones you think will hit home runs, or even better, the ones you think will hit a grand slam. There hasn't been a grand slam in the last 30 All-Star Games (the last one was hit in 1983), but so far in 2014, grand slams are being hit once every 26 games.

If a grand slam is hit in this year's All-Star Game, fans who picked the player who hits it will have a great chance to win the First Prize, and if the grand slam occurs in the 2nd or 8th inning, those fans will win an equal share of the $5,000 Grand Prize. So far in 2014, 29% of all grand slams have occurred in the 2nd and 8th innings; the normal odds are 22%. Meanwhile, 24% of this season's grand slams have been hit by players in this year's All-Star Game.

If no grand slam is hit? You'll also be scoring points - and winning tickets - for every hit, run, RBI and stolen base recorded by your four players, with extra value for stats recorded in the 2nd and 8th innings. This introduces some strategy into your selection of one starter and one reserve from each league. Lineups have not been announced yet, but for the purposes of this post, let's assume Derek Jeter bats leadoff for the American League. Obviously, he'll be batting in the 1st inning, so he's not a good candidate to bat in the 2nd inning, but if he does, he would be a good candidate to be batting with runners on base - and to produce valuable 2nd inning stats (or a 2nd inning grand slam). Since this is Jeter's final All-Star Game, he's also a good candidate to play a little longer and receive more at-bats than other American League starters. The 8th inning is impossible to predict, of course, but, for example and for the reasons just mentioned, you may want to avoid picking the American League's backup shortstop.

Plus, you'll receive bonus points based on your RHE prediction, so you may want to review our blog post about the frequency of runs, hits and errors in Major League Baseball. The RHE bonus is important because you could double your points - and potentially win the pool - with a good guess, even if you don't make the best 4-player pick combination. Here's one tip we cover in our RHE blog post: this year's All-Star Game stadium, Target Field in Minneapolis, is the 4th best "hitters park" in baseball this season.

As with all of our other pools, points also apply to our 2014 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool, and as we mentioned earlier, you don't even have to spend the credits you win. If you haven't redeemed them by the end of July, 2015, you may donate them back to us and we will count them toward our 2015 GiVE grant.

So we'll see you in the pool... and we hope you love it too!

The 2014 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool resumes in July with the third of four competitions, the All-Star Ticket Slam, and despite one fan's impressive start, there's a long way to go before the $600 grand prize is awarded.

SecondTicket fan fgreenslate sits atop the Mega Pool standings after being the only fan to finish in the top 10 of each of the first two pools, the WayCool Super Ticket Pool and the Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam; he's the first to achieve that since 2011. He's on a good run, as it's the second consecutive year he's posted two top 10 finishes in the first three competitions, a feat accomplished only seven times since 2011. He's the only one to do it twice; the others are FoldPocketAces in 2013, rolpol and scoochnew in 2012, and julesschneider and Jasonlug in 2011.

Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam winner K-Rich sits 57.3 points behind Fgreenslate, in 2nd place, and WayCool Super Ticket Pool champ lily89 is 19th. But the Mega Pool is a marathon, not a sprint; last year's leader at the halfway point was lippesq, and he finished 28th. The eventual champion, tbonefl, was in 4th place in June. And the pool with the highest winning point total, the Monday Night Ticket Score, begins in September and runs through December.

The All-Star Ticket Slam usually produces the lowest winning point total of the four competitions, but its large point separation potential makes it unique and indispensable to any fan with an eye on the Mega Pool prize. The winning point total is usually low, but because of a point multiplier bonus, it could produce the largest gap between fans at the top of the standings and everybody else. We'll blog more about that as it gets closer; fans may begin picking their All-Stars on July 7th.

The 2014 SecondTicket GiVE grant could be our biggest ever.

Fans who won ticket credits in our 2013 Super Bowl and college basketball pools - but did not redeem them - donated them to GiVE at a record pace this spring. During our pledge drive in April, 21% of eligible fans converted their free tickets into cash for the program, pledging a total of $338. That's the highest total in any single month other than September, when credits from our largest pool (the Monday Night Ticket Score) expire.

On Monday night, the UConn men's basketball team became the first #7 seed to ever win the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament with a 60-54 win over Kentucky while fan K-Rich posted his first ever SecondTicket pool victory and scored the $250 First Prize in our 2014 Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam.

K-Rich finished in the top 25% of fans in three of the first four rounds, but primarily rode a strong round three and semifinal score predictions to the victory. He was one of only two fans to correctly pick 12 of the 16 round three games and one of two fans to pick two final four teams AND at least double-digit round three games.  He then put a stranglehold on the leaderboard by posting the second best semifinal score predictions, matching one score and coming within three points of two others.

The only fan with better semifinal predictions was joe, whose two correct semifinal matches posed the biggest threat to K-Rich going into the championship game. If joe had matched either UConn's or Kentucky's championship game scores, he would have posted the 150 maximum point total and attained an almost insurmountable lead. (K-Rich could still have caught him, but only by matching both scores.)

K-Rich's winning point total of 225.7 was the second lowest winning number in Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam history, higher only than Nina's 2010 win with 215.5 points. This was the first time ever that everybody's bracket was finished after the Final Four games; zero fans picked either finalist. Interestingly, fans had a premonition that this year's tournament would be unpredictable (and therefore, low scoring) because their average Final Four seed was 2.6 (vs. 2.1 historically), and their average finalist seed was 2.1 (vs. 1.6).

Unfortunately, none of the five fans who were playing for $5,000, including K-Rich and joe, correctly predicted UConn's 60-54 win.

Fan fgreenslate also had a good tournament, finishing 2nd and vaulting to the top of the 2014 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool standings. K-Rich comes in at #2; the next opportunity to scale that leaderboard will be in July, with our 2014 All-Star Ticket Slam.

Thanks for playing! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoy giving away money. 93% of participating fans won a total of $492 in tickets, boosting the total amount of awards won in SecondTicket pools since 2007 to over $40,000. As always, we welcome your feedback and hope that you'll follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

The first weekend of the 2014 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament is in the books; how you'd do? It's been a tough year for game predictions in our 8th annual Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam and the final point total projects to be a little lower than usual. Fans correctly picked an average of 22.7 games in round two (vs. 22), but the round three average was 8.4 correct (vs. 9.3) and only 1.9% picked at least 38 correct. The historical average is 3%, and the all-time record is 40 games.

The two fans who got 38 correct are the round three leader, K-Rich, and round two leader jkulaga23. Sandwiched between them in 2nd place, three points out of first, is Fryman. Click here for the standings and here for each fan's Sweet 16 picks.

Fans also expected this year's tournament to be more difficult; the average seed of all fans' Final Four teams is 2.6 - and historically it's been 1.9.  The average championship game seed is 2.1, vs. 1.5.

Remember that rounds two and three feature variable point totals because it's much easier to predict a 1 vs. 16 game than an 8 vs. 9 game, so that accounts for minor point totals between fans who picked the same number of correct games; they just didn't pick the same games. Variable point totals end after round three; the points per round moving forward are 8 in round 4, 12.5 in round 5, 20 in round 6 and 30 for picking the tournament winner.

And don't forget that you can post up to 150 points with score predictions beginning next Monday. So even if you think your bracket is busted, it's not. 100% of fans are still within 150 points of the lead and 91% are within 50 points of the lead. Plus the fan with the best Final Four score predictions becomes one of five fans who will play for $5,000 on April 7th. You will receive an email notification when score predictions may be submitted.

In all, 45.3% of fans won ticket credits on opening weekend; they are valid for redemption immediately, so please contact us if you need assistance or if you have any other questions about the pool.

Thanks and good luck this weekend!

Warren Buffett's announcement of his $1 billion pool officially launched bracket mania into the marketing stratosphere, but he's late to the game - and you shouldn't play it. And it's not just us saying that.

Instead, play our 8th annual Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam (BCTJ), which features several cool differences.

First, our big money prize isn't conditional upon picking a perfect bracket, which is virtually and essentially impossible. (The odds are approximately 1 in 9 quintillion.) To win our $5,000 prize, you just have to be one of five eligible fans to correctly predict the final score of the championship game on April 7. (The odds are approximately 1:200.)

Later today, we'll also share game and score prediction statistics from the first seven years of our pool to help you make smarter predictions. The Buffett pool has no such history.

And did you know you can still win the $250-500 First Prize even if your bracket is busted?! 29% of the pool's points are available with our unique 'second chance' element: Make good score predictions of the Final Four games after those teams are determined, and even if you didn't pick those teams, to pull off a surprise upset. Think of it as a last-second, full court, hail mary shot. Plus, you can score up to $36 in free tickets just for playing; fans have won more than $38,000 since we introduced our pools in 2007.

So click here to fill out your bracket online by Thursday, March 20th at 12p Et.  You may save an incomplete bracket, revise a completed bracket, or print your bracket anytime before the deadline. Our pool requires far less personal information than Buffett's: Just be 21 years of age and provide a valid email address and phone number - so we can contact you if you win!

And that leads us to our final good reason to skip the Buffett pool: If you win, you'll save time! It's much easier to spend $5,000 than $1 billion.

So enjoy the pool and let us know if you have any thoughts or questions!

We're excited to invite all fans to play our 7th annual WayCool Super Ticket Pool! Last year, fan Mjohnson hit the jackpot and won $5,000 by correctly predicting the coin toss, first scoring play and final score of Super Bowl XLVII. Will there be another Grand Prize winner this year as Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos battle Russell Wilson's Seattle Seahawks in the first cold weather, outdoor Super Bowl? We'll see.

What we know for sure is that there are some cool new features in this year's pool. For starters, the First Prize (to be awarded if nobody wins the Grand Prize) will increase from at least $250 to a maximum of $500 depending on the number of players. So invite your friends to play too!

We've also modified the pool's scoring structure to accurately reflect the difficulty of predicting the first type, and the minute, of the game's first scoring play and the final score. For example, prior to this year, you earned 30 points for correctly predicting the minute of the game's first score. Now, if you predict the 6th minute, it's 20 points; if you predict the 12th minute, it's 55 pool points.

We didn't stop there. We also compiled information about Super Bowl prop bets and the frequency of types and times of NFL scoring plays - so you can see all those frequencies and pool points.

On the pool's All-Time Leaderboard, you'll also find prediction statistics such as how often fans have correctly predicted the coin toss (43.8%), type of 1st scoring play (28.6%) and final score point differentials (on average, fans have missed a team's score by 8.1 points).

Over the next two weeks we will update our pool blog series with additional statistics and analysis of these particular predictions and other Super Bowl prop bets to help with other pools.

The WayCool Super Ticket Pool is the first competition in our 2nd annual Fan Of The Year Mega Pool, which will culminate in December and continue featuring the largest award of all the pools.

The deadline for WayCool Super Ticket Pool entries is 4:00pm ET on February 2, 2014. Thanks and we'll see you in the pool!

Congratulations to SecondTicket's 2013 Fan Of The Year, tbonefl, who has won our first ever Fan Of The Year Mega Pool and scored the $600 Grand Prize - a $500 AMEX Gift Card and $100 worth of free tickets.

An Orlando resident, tbonefl had an outstanding Mega Pool year. He finished 6th in the WayCool Super Ticket Pool, 11th in the Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam, 16th in the All-Star Ticket Slam, and 3rd in the Monday Night Ticket Score. He was one of only five fans to post two top-10 finishes; he had the highest average finish (9th) of anybody who played in at least two pools; and his 922.9 points was 86 points better than 2nd place finisher ckmendels. By comparison, 12 fans finished within 86 points of 2nd place.  He also won a combined $108 in free tickets in the pools.

An admitted "glutton for punishment" by way of being a Tampa Bay Buccaneers season ticket holder, he says SecondTicket pools "are fun and give you a lot to root for when your team is nowhere near the playoffs (LOL)." When he's not busy serving as President of the Orlando Chapter of the United States Bartenders Guild or running a pool himself at his local restaurant, you may also find him at a Tampa Bay Lightning game, supporting the new Orlando franchise in Major League Soccer, or enjoying Mumford and Sons, Sara Bareilles and even Frank Sinatra.

He looks forward to defending his Mega Pool title in 2014 but has some unfinished business first. He is one of 20 SecondTicket finalists in the 2013 Monday Night Ticket Score who have a chance to win $10,000 during the Super Bowl by guessing the halftime and final score.  "Hopefully it works out that some of us come out the other end with a smile."

2013 was the biggest year ever for fan participation in SecondTicket pools, so thanks to everybody for helping us build our fan community! Soon we'll announce details about our 2014 pools, which promise to be bigger, more interactive and more engaging than ever. If you have suggestions, we'd love to hear them and invite you to contact us anytime by phone or email.

Happy New Year!

Atlanta-based ArtReach Foundation and Saints Peter & Paul School in Buffalo, New York have been chosen as co-recipients of the third grant made possible by donated credits from SecondTicket fans. The $689 award will be split evenly between the two organizations.

ArtReach Foundation uses various forms of art therapy to help children who have experienced post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It will use the GiVE funds to help kids develop performance based skills, such as musical training, and to secure supplies for endeavors such as painting and writing. According to SecondTicket fan BifferBacon, who serves on the foundation's board of directors and submitted its application, "ArtReach's most important asset is its ability to empower professional caregivers such as teachers, psychiatrists and public health workers to deliver the foundation's programs."

ArtReach Video application

Located just outside Buffalo, in Williamsville, NY, Ss. Peter and Paul School serves 400 students in grades 3-8. SecondTicket fan pjotto serves as the president of the school's Home School Association (HSA, or parent-teacher organization) and submitted its application. The school's physical education budget is $100 annually, so the funds will enable them to purchase a Pillo Polo game set to permit kids of all ages to develop hand eye coordination. Pillo Polo nets may also be be used for handball and soccer.

SSPPS Video Application

SecondTicket awards GiVE funds on behalf of its fans and customers who donate back their expiring ticket credits won in free SecondTicket pools. Beginning in 2014, funds will be disbursed upon reaching a minimum of $1,000.

There's no need to shut down the government, but you might want to stop the presses: The next SecondTicket GiVE grant will be our largest ever, at $689, thanks to the generosity of SecondTicket fans who donated their expiring credits won in our 2012 pools at the highest rate ever in September.

Of the $689, 58% of the grant was donated by fans who played in our 2012 Monday Night Ticket Score. The next largest share, 18%, came from fans who played our 2012 Super Bowl pool, followed by 16% from our 2012 college basketball bracket challenge, and 8% from our 2012 All-Star Ticket Slam. SecondTicket pools are always free to play and also include cash prizes and a conditional grand prize element.

Any person with an active SecondTicket account who is affiliated with an eligible youth sport, choral or theater group is eligible and encouraged to review the program's scope and requirements and submit an application by November 1st.

The most recent GiVE recipient is the Norwich Oxford Little League in central New York, which used its $548 gift to pay for renovations and improvements to its fields.  You can follow the league's progress on its Facebook page.

As of this post, fans playing the 2013 Monday Night Ticket Score have won $418 toward future ticket purchases and new fans are welcome to begin playing anytime. A total of between $1,000 and $1,500 is expected to be won, and any unredeemed credits may be donated to GiVE in September 2014.

In a low scoring but competitive All-Star Game pool, long-time SecondTicket fan - but first time All-Star Ticket Slam participant - Ndugu beat 57 others to win the $500 First Prize.

It was Cleveland Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis's 8th inning double that vaulted Ndugu past new SecondTicket fan katpempek, who had held the lead for most of the game. The game's low total of runs, hits and errors (RHE) almost gave her enough bonus points to win; her pool-low prediction of 12 was the closest prediction to the actual number of 15.  Without Kipnis's double, and/or if the total RHE had stayed around 12 or 13, she likely would have dominated the field and won easily.

Fans who chose Kipnis, Detroit Tigers infielders Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder, Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones, New York Mets third baseman David Wright, St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Carlos Beltran and Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt scored highest. Fielder continued his All-Star success, as he's now produced almost twice as many points and free tickets for SecondTicket fans as any other player.

It was a rough night for defending All-Star Ticket Slam champion and GiVE grant recipient PinstripesNY - and for every fan who chose New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano - who left the game early after being hit by a pitch in the first inning.

In addition to the $500 First Prize, Ndugu led all fans with $10 in tickets won.  In all, $207 in free tickets were awarded, or an average of $3.63 per fan.  For the third time in the last five years - but for just the fourth time in 21 years - no home runs were hit in the All-Star Game.  So obviously there was no $5,000 payout for a 2nd or 8th inning grand slam.

We also have a new leader in the Fan Of The Year Mega Pool, as mjohnson recaptured the top overall position. The chase for that $500 award will resume - and conclude - with the Monday Night Ticket Score beginning in September.

We hope you enjoyed the pool and would love any feedback about the new scoring structure and player prediction form. Thanks for playing!

Our 2013 All-Star Ticket Slam is mostly unchanged from 2012. Your goal is to pick players who you think will hit home runs, and the big payoff is if one of your players hits a grand slam in the 2nd or 8th inning of the MLB All-Star Game.

This year's pool has four tweaks:
1. First Prize is $500, up from $200
2. Points count toward our Fan Of The Year Mega Pool; we discuss the impact of that change
3. New and improved standings pages
4. The biggest change is that your guess of the game's total runs, hits and errors (RHE) matters more than in 2012. Bonus points are awarded based on the accuracy of your RHE prediction; in previous years it was only used as a tiebreaker, if necessary.

How are you supposed to know how many runs, hits and errors occur in a baseball game? We did the research for you. Below is a graph showing the percentage frequency of games with specific RHE quantities, bundled into quantity groups of three.

How To Read This Graph
On the blue line, which represents a larger sample size of games*, the highest percentage is 14%, which means that 14% of games had total runs, hits and errors, by the two teams combined, of 25, 26 or 27.  By contrast, about 3% had an RHE between 10-12, and only 1% had an RHE between 52-55. Looking from a wider angle, 62.4% of games end with a total RHE between 19-33.

The red line is the results from the 30 MLB All-Star games between 1983 and 2012. It generally follows the same pattern; 46.6% of All-Star games have ended with a total RHE between 19-33, but there's more variance at the ends. The highest frequency was of RHE between 16-18 (nearly 17%), and nearly 7% fell within 52-55 RHE. 30 games is a much smaller sample size, so we caution you when making judgments from this data, but it might indicate that low or high RHE is a function of the extreme talent that plays in All Star Games. Either quality pitchers limits the number of runs and hits, or quality hitters dominate pitchers who don't stay in the game long enough to find any sort of rhythm.

How You Should Use This Data in Your Prediction
We estimate that the winning pool score will be between 135 and 175, but the maximum possible score is 800. Fans who score greater than 175 have an excellent chance of winning.

Fans who want to play it safe will make an RHE prediction between 19 and 31. Fans who want to take a risk will go outside that range. Bonus points are awarded as a percentage of your base points, so even if you correctly predict an RHE of, say, 45, you only receive a 100% bonus of your base points; if your base points were only 10, you end up with 20. But if your base points were 100, you end up with 200 - which might be enough to win the pool.

The MLB All-Star Game is July 16th; pool entries may be submitted beginning at 10:00am on July 8. As with all of our pools, it's free to play and we encourage you to invite your friends. Good luck and we'll see you in the pool!

*430 MLB games between June 1-17, 2012 and June 1-17, 2013

We're in a fun business. We help people cross items off their bucket lists or the bucket lists of their loved ones, getting them into events like The Masters, the Rolling Stones, or a Broadway show. We're motivated daily by conversations like a recent one with a man who described the Joe Bonamassa tickets he bought for his wife as "an awesome surprise for Mother's Day".

We also run football, basketball or baseball pools which result in a lot of winning - and that's fun too. Fans have won more than $36,000 in cash and credits redeemable toward tickets. Announcing pool winners is fun, and in February we even had the good fortune of announcing a $5,000 winner in our Super Bowl pool. 

But the best part of our business might not be what you think. It's better, even, than giving away $5,000.

About once a year, we announce a winner in our GiVE program - as we did this week with this story about the Norwich-Oxford Little League winning a $548 grant. GiVE is the soul of SecondTicket. Learning more about the youth organizations with which our customers are involved as parents, coaches, teachers and mentors, watching the video appeals from the kids, and calling the SecondTicket fan who does all the hard work which most kids and other parents probably don't even see - THAT is the best part of our job.

To all of our fans and customers who donated expiring ticket credits back to our GiVE fund, THANK YOU. We hope that, at least to a small degree, your soul is also fulfilled as a result of this announcement.

Our next credit donation drive is already underway. We currently have $236 toward our next grant and expect to hit the next $500 minimum goal later this fall.

In the meantime, back to the fun, and Happy Mother's Day!

Atlanta-based ArtReach Foundation and Saints Peter & Paul School in Buffalo, New York have been chosen as co-recipients of the third grant made possible by donated credits from SecondTicket fans. The $689 award will be split evenly between the two organizations.

ArtReach Foundation uses various forms of art therapy to help children who have experienced post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It will use the GiVE funds to help kids develop performance based skills, such as musical training, and to secure supplies for endeavors such as painting and writing. According to SecondTicket fan BifferBacon, who serves on the foundation's board of directors and submitted its application, "ArtReach's most important asset is its ability to empower professional caregivers such as teachers, psychiatrists and public health workers to deliver the foundation's programs."

ArtReach Video application

Located just outside Buffalo, in Williamsville, NY, Ss. Peter and Paul School serves 400 students in grades 3-8. SecondTicket fan pjotto serves as the president of the school's Home School Association (HSA, or parent-teacher organization) and submitted its application. The school's physical education budget is $100 annually, so the funds will enable them to purchase a Pillo Polo game set to permit kids of all ages to develop hand eye coordination. Pillo Polo nets may also be be used for handball and soccer.

SSPPS Video Application

SecondTicket awards GiVE funds on behalf of its fans and customers who donate back their expiring ticket credits won in free SecondTicket pools. Beginning in 2014, funds will be disbursed upon reaching a minimum of $1,000.

The Norwich-Oxford Little League in Central New York has been selected as the recipient of the second grant from SecondTicket's GiVE program. SecondTicket fan PinstripesNY serves on the league's board of directors and led its application process for the $548 award to replace aging equipment and facilities.

The rural league is composed of about 235 boys and girls between the ages of seven and 14 on 20 baseball and softball teams. Its fields are maintained by the league through donations, advertising and raffles which have been hampered in recent years by high county unemployment rates.

Click below to watch the Norwich-Oxford kids appeal to SecondTicket fans for funding.

SecondTicket awards GiVE funds on behalf of its fans and customers who donate back their expiring ticket credits won in free SecondTicket pools. $236 has been raised toward the next grant, which will be awarded upon reaching a minimum of $500.

The winners of our inaugural grant are the East Cobb Baseball Astros 9U Team, of Atlanta. SecondTicket fan Kennedy, a parent of one of the team's players, applied for the $500 award to cover equipment costs, competition entry fees and travel expenses.  ECB's mission is to teach the integrity of the game of baseball and help players learn life lessons associated with baseball.

Below is the team's video appeal to SecondTicket fans and check presentation. We'll follow up with them over the next 12 months to see how they're doing, and you may also visit the team's website.



 

The Norwich-Oxford Little League in Central New York has been selected as the recipient of the second grant from SecondTicket's GiVE program. SecondTicket fan PinstripesNY serves on the league's board of directors and led its application process for the $548 award to replace aging equipment and facilities.

The rural league is composed of about 235 boys and girls between the ages of seven and 14 on 20 baseball and softball teams. Its fields are maintained by the league through donations, advertising and raffles which have been hampered in recent years by high county unemployment rates.

Click below to watch the Norwich-Oxford kids appeal to SecondTicket fans for funding.

SecondTicket awards GiVE funds on behalf of its fans and customers who donate back their expiring ticket credits won in free SecondTicket pools. $236 has been raised toward the next grant, which will be awarded upon reaching a minimum of $500.

One of the best basketball games you'll ever see resulted in Louisville's 3rd NCAA Mens Basketball national championship and long-time SecondTicket fan lippesq's first SecondTicket pool victory. Congrats to him for winning the $500 First Prize during Louisville's captivating 82-76 win over Michigan at the Georgia Dome, which culminated a tournament in which 95% of fans won free tickets in our pool - $540 overall.

Despite recording fewer overall Score Prediction points than scoochnew and sonyawc and being one of only three fans to pick Michigan to win last night after having picked Louisville in their bracket, Lippesq narrowly won out. His victory can be attributed to a few things - obviously, being one of only two fans to pick the Cardinals and Wolverines in the championship was a big part of it - but going higher on Michigan's score last night gave him eight points - and he won by four. Fans who had Michigan in the 70s scored an average of 12 score prediction points; those who put them at fewer than 70 averaged only three - for a 9 point gap. By comparison, going over 70 for Louisville produced only a four point gap. Whether you picked Michigan to win last night or not, their score influenced the outcome more than Louisville's.

Lippesq's win also vaulted him to #2 in the 2013 Fan Of The Year Mega Pool, behind the new leader, conehead433.

We hope you enjoyed the pool! We've already got some ideas for improving it in 2014 and would welcome your input and feedback on our Facebook page. If you're not already a fan of ours there, we'd love it if that changed today.

Syracuse and Wichita State earned their trips to Atlanta for the 2013 Final Four yesterday and we're already getting requests for tickets. SecondTicket is a nationwide resale marketplace (which happens to be based in Atlanta) and a State-of-Georgia licensed ticket brokerage. Of course we would love to set you up with tickets, but there are many sources for Final Four tickets. As a service to our fans, below is a preliminary review of the Final Four ticket market; you may also be interested in our blog from last week which provided some higher-level insight into the overall NCAA Tournament ticket marketplace.

Right now, depending on seat location, quantity, delivery method and whether you want a strip of seats for both days or just the Saturday games, pricing ranges from about $200 per ticket to several thousand. If you don't want to be in the 300 level, seats in the 100 or 200 level endzones start between about $375-500. Those seats are fine, but as we wrote in last week's blog, remember that the entire game occurs between what would be the 30 yard lines on a football field. The sight lines are fine, and of course you can see the players, but none of the action ever comes to your endzone and there are fewer players than in a football game. So if you'd like to get out of the endzones to be a little closer to the game, you can expect pricing to be about $500+.

Pairs are the cheapest; larger blocks of seats will cost a little more. Many of this year's tickets are only available electronically through a closed marketplace like Flash Seats; generally those cost a little less, but the ticket is stored on your credit card or driver's license and reselling it or transferring it to friends if your plans change - or if your team loses on Saturday - is more complicated.  But it CAN be done, and in fact, buying a strip of tickets (which is the same seat for Saturday AND Monday) might be more cost effective.  About 75% of the cost of the strip is tied up in the Saturday games.

And remember that pricing is dynamic - so it could change depending on the outcome of today's games and as next weekend gets closer. Wichita State's victory over Ohio State will probably have the effect of reducing overall demand and lowering pricing; but we're unsure whether the outcome of either Louisville/Duke or Michigan/Florida will have the same effect. Louisville and Duke fans both travel well and are close enough to Atlanta to do so. There's obviously a higher concentration of Florida fans around Atlanta, but its recent Final Four (and, for that matter, BCS Championship) success might dilute some of the Florida faithful's price tolerance; on the flip side, Michigan's fans are farther away but that school's Final Four drought might compensate for that - and drive prices up.

The bottom line with any ticket buying decision is that you should buy tickets whenever the time is right for you. Like with financial planning, timing the market isn't usually a successful long term strategy. To that end, we're happy to help you anytime.

Please let us know if you have questions, and thanks!

This is the time of year when fans ask us how and when they should buy NCAA Basketball Tournament tickets. March Madness isn't limited to the basketball court; it also applies to the ticket mayhem created by the combination of passionate fans, short purchase windows, last-minute scheduling, a ticket distribution model that forces fans to buy unwanted tickets, paperless tickets that are difficult to transfer, and the NCAA's current decision to stage all Final Fours in football stadiums.

"When Should I Buy?" and/or "Will Prices Go Down Later?"
In resale markets, prices generally decrease as events near, but not always, and the NCAA Tournament is a good example of "not always". Pricing is dynamic; after the teams are announced, or after any particular weekend of games, pricing increases or decrease depending on the teams playing at each venue. In the first two rounds, the top teams are assigned to venues close to home, but an unknown number of other teams may also be close to home, so it's difficult to project demand and pricing. For corporate clients who need tickets for a specific venue regardless of the teams, we generally recommend minimizing your risk and buying tickets before teams are confirmed. If you are buying tickets specifically to watch your team, we recommend waiting until you know where your team is playing. The cost may be higher, but you won't end up with unwanted tickets.

Tickets are sold through the schools, venues and sponsors as strips (the same seat for every game at a venue), sessions (the same seat for multiple games within the strip), and, after they've sold as many strips and sessions as possible, as individual games on Ticketmaster. The problem for fans is that individual game sales are not guaranteed to occur, and if they do, Ticketmaster is not required to disclose how many seats are available.

As a result, fans look to resale markets like ours (or Ticket Liquidator, or Stubhub), that are populated with individual game tickets that have been split off from strips and sessions by fans and brokers. Resale markets provide a valuable service for fans because they enable fans to buy exactly the games, locations and quantities you want or need, when you want to buy them.

If prices are still giving you heartburn, and/or if you don't have specific seat location or quantity needs - and if you have a high risk tolerance - you could try to buy tickets outside the stadium. An ample supply of tickets hit the resale market when fans of losing teams walk out and sell their remaining game tickets to street resellers and other fans. Of course we don't recommend buying from an unlicensed seller, but we also don't like hearing from fans who couldn't afford to see their team play. As we have written before, 40% of ticket resale occurs below cost; most of the below-cost opportunity with the NCAA Tournament occurs in the 24 hours before the game.

"Why Are Some NCAA Tickets Paperless?" and/or "What Are Paperless Tickets?"
Compounding the madness is paperless ticket technology, which means the ticket's bar code is stored on a credit card or driver's license. This isn't necessarily bad for fans, but it's not as good as the purveyors of paperless technology would have you believe. They say it's good because there's no risk of fraud and you can't lose your tickets. But the reality is that buying through any regulated and transparent marketplace carries no fraud risk either because purchases are fully guaranteed. And if you've ever misplaced your wallet, then you are aware that you can, in fact, lose your tickets. Furthermore, restricting ticket resale and transfer to a closed-loop resale ecosystem like Flash Seats reduces supply and choice - and drives prices up, not down.

"Are These Good Seats?"
Now that the basketball court is placed at midfield of the football stadium, customers ask us where the best seats are. Our take is that it's no different than in a traditional basketball arena; courtside and sideline seats are the best. The difference is that, in a football stadium, there are more seats up high, in the corners and behind the basket. So imagine a 5-on-5 football game played entirely between the 30 yard line; you can still see the players, but none of the game will occur close to you, in the "endzone". Most seats won't be intimate, but unless you are sitting behind the basket, which is no different than in an arena, the sight lines are generally fine.

One Final Recommendation for Enjoying the NCAA Tournament
A safer, less stressful way to save on tickets AND participate in this month's action would be to play our free Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam. Between Monday, March 18th and Thursday, March 21st, fill out your bracket here to win up to $5,000 cash and credits that may be applied to any tickets (not just college basketball) on our site. SecondTicket fans have won more than $35,000 in cash and tickets since 2007 in our free pools and with no obligation - and that's some madness that's definitely good for fans.

Who took home the top prize at The Grammys? Someone who wasn’t even nominated.

Justin Timberlake won big even though he left Hollywood without a Grammy in his hands. How? His performance had a simple purpose…to launch his return to the music stage. And it worked. It will catapult ticket sales for a tour that hasn’t even been announced yet.

The Grammys opened up their stage to a pop culture superstar who wasn't even nominated - despite the fact that other nominated artists were sitting in the audience! Justin Timberlake’s big band Suit and Tie performance alongside Jay-Z was one of the highlights of the night.

While tour dates have not formally been announced, the impending tour has been carefully leaked so that the buzz will continue. And you can bet that The Grammys will reap the benefit of continued coverage of their breakout performance. Here’s an interesting article on Justin Timberlake's brilliant campaign. 

This is Music Marketing 2013. Artists use performances at major events as platforms for the sale of tickets to their upcoming concert tour.  Put Justin Timberlake in the same class as Beyonce, who used her Super Bowl performance to set album sales records.  Successful artists also weave their way into our cultural fabric in other ways, such as Justin Bieber's host and musical guest appearance on Saturday Night Live

These performances, in concert with well-choreographed social media campaigns, are a catalyst for substantial increases in album and ticket sales. It’s smart, will be repeated often, and will certainly influence ticket resale value, causing angst among fans who were unable to buy tickets immediately.  If you are wondering when you should buy tickets in a resale marketplace, there's no simple answer, but as we wrote in this 2009 post, tickets sell below their original cost far more often than many people realize.  We encourage you to do your research before buying tickets for such big events. If the box office or Ticketmaster does not have tickets you like, a resale marketplace is a good alternative for you. If you have any questions, call us; we'll be happy to help analyze the situation so you can make a smart ticket buying decision.

Congratulations to SecondTicket fan mjohnson, who won the $5,000 Grand Prize in our WayCool Super Ticket Pool by correctly predicting the coin toss, first scoring play, and final score of Super Bowl 47! Against odds of 16,800-to-1, he won the pool's Grand Prize thanks to one of the most unlikely plays in Super Bowl history.

His path to success began when 'Heads' came up on the coin toss. Obviously, these odds are 1:2, but SecondTicket fans continue to favor 'heads' over 'tails' at a greater rate than other fans, as 64% of the pool was still alive for $5K; only 36% chose 'tails'. The industry average is about 51%-49% in favor of 'heads'.

It continued on the first scoring play, where the odds become longer. The odds of picking the first team to score (1:2), first type of scoring play (1:3), and minute of the first score (1:7) are approximately 1:42. Combined with the 1:2 coin toss odds, they become 1:84.  With 132 fans in the pool, 132/84 is about 1.5, meaning, mathematically, one or two fans would survive past this play. But after a short opening possession by San Francisco, Baltimore scored with a passing touchdown in the game's 5th minute (10:36 remaining on the game clock in the first quarter). Mjohnson and three other fans (conehead433, theABE, and Seraph1sin) correctly picked those three elements.

If any of those four fans would go on to match the exact final score, they would win $5,000. Seraph1sin was the first to miss out on her score prediction; her low 16-12 prediction became impossible when Baltimore went ahead 21-3 in the 2nd quarter.

Baltimore's return of the 2nd half's opening kickoff for a touchdown to put Baltimore ahead 28-6 wiped out theABE's 24-21 prediction.

Late in the 3rd quarter, with Baltimore leading 28-20, Conehead433's 34-28 prediction was still alive, but when San Francisco kicked a field goal to make it 28-23, he was in trouble, and when San Francisco scored an early 4th quarter touchdown to make it 31-29, his Grand Prize hopes were dashed.

That 4th quarter touchdown put the Grand Prize within reach of mjohnson, but when San Francisco missed the 2-point conversion, he was really only alive mathematically. Logistically, he needed a Baltimore field goal and an unlikely San Francisco safety to win $5,000.

Sure enough, that's exactly what happened. Baltimore kicked a field goal with 4:19 remaining, and when the Baltimore punter took an intentional safety - one of the rarest plays in football - to make the score 34-31, mjohnson hit the jackpot. Had it not happened, he may or may not have even won the guaranteed First Prize; Conehead's prediction might have held up.

He wasn't the only winner last night. A total of $1,000 in free tickets was awarded.

Mjohnson also takes the early lead in our new Fan Of The Year Mega Pool. The fan with the most combined points in our four 2013 pools wins a bonus: a $500 AMEX Gift Card and $100 in free ticket credits.

Every SecondTicket pool has a guaranteed First Prize winner if there is no Grand Prize winner. We take out an insurance policy on the Grand Prizes, so we WANT somebody to win.

We hope you enjoyed the pool!  Our next one is the Bracket Challenge Ticket Jam in March.  The continued growth of our fan community helps bring down the cost of live entertainment.

WRITER'S NOTE: This post, about betting the final score of the Super Bowl, is the last in a series about gaming and gambling leading up to Sunday's game, with supporting data from the six years of our free Super Bowl pool and our free Monday Night football pool.