Pick'em Pool Glossary
Plain-English definitions for every term you'll come across.
Against The Spread (ATS)
A competition format where you pick a team to beat a point spread rather than just win outright. See our Against The Spread rules.
Auto-Pick
When a player misses a pick deadline, the system automatically assigns them a team so the round can still be graded on time.
Bonus Week
In Against The Spread, a reward or penalty for ranking all 8 games in a week: a "perfect week" (all correct) earns bonus points, a "duck egg" (all wrong) costs points.
Competition Admin
The person who created a competition. They manage settings, invites, and payment tracking, but can never see or change another player's picks.
Confidence Pick / Confidence Pool
A pool where you rank your picks by how confident you are, and each rank is worth a different number of points if correct. MyLastMan's Against The Spread format works this way.
Cover (the spread)
When the favored team wins by more than the spread, or the underdog loses by less than the spread (or wins outright) - either way, that side "covered."
Double Week Selection
An Against The Spread feature letting you choose one week in advance to double all the points you score that week.
Duck Egg
An Against The Spread bonus-week penalty for going 0-for-8 on a fully-ranked week.
Elimination Pool
Another name for a knockout-style pool like Last Man Standing, where a wrong pick removes you from contention.
Gameweek / Round
One week's worth of fixtures in a competition - the unit picks are made against and graded on.
Head-to-Head Challenge
An optional Against The Spread side bet between two competition members, scored independently of the main leaderboard.
Invite Code
A short code (or link) a competition admin shares so friends can join a private competition without it being publicly listed.
Knockout Pool
Another common name for an elimination-style pool like Last Man Standing.
Last Man Standing (LMS)
A pick'em format where you pick one team to win each week; a loss or draw costs you a life, and the last player standing wins. See our Last Man Standing rules.
Perfect Week
In Against The Spread, correctly covering all 8 games you ranked in a single week, earning a bonus.
Pick 5
A format where you rank 5 players each round who you think will score, with points based on rank and position. See our Pick 5 rules.
Pick'em Pool
The general category of games where a group of friends each make predictions ("picks") against real sporting fixtures and compete on a shared leaderboard.
Push
When a spread pick lands exactly on the number - neither a win nor a loss against the spread, usually worth partial points.
Safety Net
A limited-use Last Man Standing feature that turns a drawn match into a survival instead of a lost life.
Score Predictions
A format where you predict the exact final score of each fixture, earning more points for an exact score than for just calling the correct result. See our Score Predictions rules.
Spread
The number of points a favored team is expected to win by. Picking "against the spread" means picking whether a team will beat that number, not just win the game.
Suicide Pool
A less common but widely used name for the same elimination-style format as Last Man Standing and survivor pools.
Survivor Pool
Another common name for an elimination-style pool like Last Man Standing.
Unique Pick Bonus
An optional Pick 5 rule that rewards picking a scorer that few other entrants also picked.