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-Fill
An NFL Boxes feature: if boxes are still unclaimed once the board locks, they're randomly handed out to existing participants instead of staying blank.
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 or NFL Straight Up, a reward or penalty for ranking every available game in a week: a "perfect week" (all correct) earns bonus points, a "duck egg" (all wrong) costs points. Both the amounts and whether they're switched on are set per competition.
Box / Square
One claimed cell on an NFL Boxes grid, identified by a row and column position. Which digits end up on that row/column is only revealed once the board locks.
Checkpoint
One of the four moments an NFL Boxes competition pays out a prize: the end of the 1st quarter, half time, the end of the 3rd quarter, and the final score.
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 and NFL Straight Up formats both work 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 / NFL Straight Up feature letting you choose one week in advance to double all the points you score that week, if your competition has it enabled.
Duck Egg
An Against The Spread or NFL Straight Up bonus-week penalty for missing every pick 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.
NFL Boxes (Squares Pool)
A pool tied to a single NFL game, played on a 10x10 grid of claimable boxes. Numbers are randomly assigned at the deadline, and a box wins by matching the last digit of each team's score at a checkpoint. See our NFL Boxes rules.
NFL Straight Up
A confidence-pick format identical to Against The Spread except picks are graded on which team wins outright, with no spread involved. See our NFL Straight Up rules.
Perfect Week
In Against The Spread or NFL Straight Up, correctly picking every game 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.