It sounds like the setup for a great joke, right? Well, it’s no joke, although the barista and the farmer are now laughing all the way to the bank.
That’s because the two finished No. 1-2 in the prestigious SuperContest, the renowned NFL handicapping competition put on by the Superbook, the sportsbook mecca inside the Westgate Las Vegas.
Damon – who works at a Las Vegas Starbucks and asked that his last name be withheld – stormed through the final three weeks of the contest with a 13-2 record on one of his two entries en route to the first-place prize of $895,482. Mark Jorstad, who spends almost all of his fall days in the fields as he grows and harvests corn and soybeans in Illinois, took the second-place check of about $360,000.
You might say the barista and the farmer were the cream and sugar of the bumper crop of 1,854 contestants in the $1,500-per-entry SuperContest. The competition requires entrants to submit five NFL picks against the spread each week of the 17-week regular season. Damon went 54-28-3 (65.8 percent) for a winning total of 55.5 points.
“It’s been a little whirlwind the last couple days,” Damon said Tuesday afternoon, still a bit bewildered by the victory. “I think it’s gonna be in steps. It’s sinking in that I won. When I pick up the check, it will sink in a little more. I think it’s gonna take a while to sink in totally.”
**video
Jorstad, who finished at 54.5 points with a mark of 53-29-3, was beyond jubilant when reached Tuesday.
“It’s been a fun ride,” said the man who drives a combine for a living. “I don’t hardly get to watch a football game until after Thanksgiving.”
How the two of them bested the rest of the record field is as intriguing as their day-to-day occupations.
Damon, who moved to Las Vegas from the East Coast in 2008, was in his third year of the SuperContest and for the first time decided to submit two entries. Starting in January, he did some belt-tightening with his Starbucks earnings to save the $3,000 in entry fees.
“I just wanted to not put so much pressure on one entry,” he said. “But I didn’t want it to go to waste. I wanted to make some money on it.”
Damon didn’t think he had a shot to win until after Week 15, when one of his entries went 5-0, and both entries were tied near the top of the leaderboard.
“So I knew I had an opportunity to make some money. Not necessarily win, but make some money,” he said.
In Week 16, he made certain to stick to his same routine, turning in his picks on Wednesday – which he did on weeks where the Thursday game was among his selections. Both his entries went 3-2, putting both in fourth place heading into the final week.
Then things got really interesting. With his main entry, under the name “pops3284” (his birthday – March 2, 1984), he made what he felt were his five best selections – Houston +3 at Tennessee, Buffalo -3.5 at New York, Baltimore +2 at Cincinnati, Dallas +4 at Philadelphia and Miami +9.5 at home against New England. Then on his second card, he used the same games, but with the exact opposite selections. All were among Sunday’s early kickoffs.
“It’s funny, but my best picks went 0-5, and the opposite went 5-0,” Damon said. “Every time I think about it, what I was trying to do was cash both entries, maybe go 2-2-1 on each, get decent money on both entries. It just broke that I had one great week with entries that I thought were gonna be the losing picks.”
Jorstad was in a more advantageous spot, but with only his one entry, in his fourth year of competing in the SuperContest. He was in first place heading into three of the final four weeks, including Week 17. But that was hardly comforting on Sunday.
“With that contest as tight as it is, you can drop a long ways,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a heart throb every week.”
After barely losing his one play in the early games (Indianapolis -4.5 vs. Jacksonville) and seeing Damon go 5-0, Jorstad knew he’d have to sweep his final four plays to remain in first place. In the afternoon kickoffs, he had Washington -7.5 vs. the New York Giants, Kansas City -6 at San Diego and Seattle -9.5 at San Francisco, with the Chiefs providing his only win. That left him with Green Bay -3.5 at Detroit in the Sunday nighter.
“When the 3 o’clock (Central) games got over, I knew if I won the Packers, I’d be alone in second, or if I lost, a four or five-way tie for fourth,” he said. “There was a lot riding on it, between $360,000 if I won and about $100,000 if I lost.”
Fortunately, Aaron Rodgers & Co. delivered in a 31-24 victory.
“The last game of the 85 games. It’s comical,” Jorstad said. “In my first year, I got 11th or 12th place. My sons and some buddies said I shouldn’t do it again. I got paid (about $12,000), and the chances of that happening again were slim, especially with so many more people in the contest. But this time, I got hit by lightning crossing the street!”
Jorstad and his family and friends reveled in the contest all season long, particularly the last couple of weeks, with a six-figure payday on the line. That wasn’t quite the case for Damon, whose Sunday was interesting far beyond what took place on the football fields.
“I couldn’t watch the later games because I had go to work at 1, and it was New Year’s Day, so it was really busy,” Damon said. “Everybody’s waking up late because they were out partying the night before, so 1 to 2 o’clock was a really busy time. I didn’t know I clinched until my lunch break.
“Then, I was just being as calm as possible, doing my job, not trying to give anything away – just wait ‘til I get home to celebrate.”
In fact, at that point, nobody was aware that he was even in the contest, let alone in position to win.
“The first thing I did was I called my brother, and then called my parents. They didn’t know. I didn’t really tell them about the contest,” said Damon, who plans to fly family members out for the check presentation. “When I told them, they were very happy for me. Even the next day, they said they couldn’t sleep because they were so happy for me.”
Damon’s celebration was a muted one, more of just relief and trying to get his head around what had happened.
“Honestly, almost blown away. Incredulous, just saying ‘wow, wow,’ over and over again,” he said of his demeanor after getting off the phone with his parents. “Then the next day, I get the call from Jay Kornegay, and I’m even more amazed, thinking, ‘This is just crazy.’”
Kornegay runs the Superbook as the vice president of race and sports for Westgate Las Vegas. He never tires of the amazing stories behind the winners of the contest each year.
“Anybody can put up a nice season, with a certain strategy, certain work and a certain amount of luck,” Kornegay said. “That combination has proven over the last few years that anybody can win it. I still see the sharps cashing out and doing well, more of the fine-tuned handicappers on the first page of the leaderboard. It’s just more difficult to win.”
That’s due to the explosive growth of the contest, going from 300 or 400 entrants just a few years ago to pushing 2,000 now. Kornegay likened it to the World Series of Poker, in which you used to know at least a few – if not most – of the final-table players, the Doyle Brunsons of the world and such.
“Now, you might know one, and maybe none,” Kornegay said as he drew the parallel to the SuperContest. “The novices certainly have a lot of hope, as well. Just put a season together and have something happen for you.”
Kornegay and the Superbook drew high praise from Damon and Jorstad. The Illinois farmer also had to give a shout-out to his proxy service, vegasfootballproxy.com – “Without him, I couldn’t be in it, because you can’t do it from Illinois” – and especially lauded Damon for his sensational three-week run to the top prize.
“I’d love to meet the guy who won. He went 13-2 the last three weeks. It’s not like he backed in. My hat’s off to him” said Jorstad, who got a laugh out of hearing how Damon’s top choices went 0-5 while his opposite picks went 5-0. “I love it. And he’s honest enough to tell you that. That’s awesome.”
Jorstad is surely going to keep farming his land, about an hour outside Chicago, while Damon will take some time to think about his future. Along with his huge first-place check, Damon also pocketed $10,000 in a mini-contest, tying for the best record over the last three weeks, and his second entry finished 40th, for another $2,217, since the SuperContest pays out to the Top 50 finishers and ties. After a $900,000-plus payday, he said he will continue as a Starbucks barista for now.
“I plan to stay there, keep everything as normal as possible for a few months,” Damon said. “No emotional decisions. I’ll wait, and make a sane, rational decision. I don’t know how I’ll tolerate crazy coffee guy. They love their Starbucks. But I think I can handle it.”
And both will get a grin for years to come telling the tale of when a barista and a farmer walked into the Superbook – and walked out with more than $1.2 million between them.
Said Jorstad, “That’s gonna drive the sharps crazy!”
Patrick Everson is a Las Vegas-based senior writer for Covers. Follow him on Twitter: @Covers_Vegas.
