Against the Spread vs. Straight Up: Which Should Your Pool Use?
The real tradeoffs between straight-up and against-the-spread pool scoring: skill, parity, casual-player friendliness, and which formats each one fits best.
Every pick-based pool faces the same setup question: do picks count when the team wins the game (straight up), or when it beats the point spread (against the spread, or ATS)? It's one setting, and it changes who wins your pool more than any other rule. Here's the honest tradeoff.
How each one plays
Straight up: pick the team that wins, period. Favorites win about two-thirds of NFL games, so most of the slate is 'obvious,' and standings are decided by the handful of genuine toss-ups each week. Weekly scores run high — 10-6, 11-5 — and the field bunches together.
Against the spread: your pick has to cover the line, so a 7-point favorite that wins by 3 is a losing pick. Lines exist precisely to make every game roughly 50/50, which means nobody coasts on chalk — a great ATS season is 55–57%, and a casual picker is a coin flip on every single game.
The case for straight up
- Zero explanation needed. 'Pick who wins' onboards the coworker who watches one game a year.
- Casual players stay competitive-ish — they can ride favorites and post respectable weeks.
- Results feel fair to non-gamblers: the team you picked won, you got the point.
- Best for: office pools, family pools, any group where half the field doesn't know what -6.5 means.
The case for against the spread
- Every game matters. There are no free squares on the card, so a 15-game week is 15 real decisions.
- It rewards actual football judgment over favorite-riding. The season winner usually earned it.
- Standings stay tighter and swingier — nobody runs away with an ATS pool by October.
- Best for: experienced groups, bettors, and pools where 'everyone just picks the Chiefs' has gotten stale.
Two details commissioners forget
Line timing: in an ATS pool, decide when the spread is fixed. The clean answer is one line for everyone, set when the week's lines are published, that never moves — everyone picks against the same number, whenever they pick.
Format interaction: the choice ripples through formats differently. Confidence pools get dramatically harder ATS (your '16' is a coin flip). Survivor is traditionally straight up. High 5 and Best Bet cards get swingier against the spread, since even your most confident picks become real decisions.
The short answer
Mixed-skill group or first season: straight up. Football-savvy group or third season of the same pool: spreads. And if you can't choose, run the season straight up with a spread-based tiebreaker — or just run one of each.
Run a Pick'em pool without the spreadsheet
The classic. Pick winners for every game of the week — straight up or against the spread. PikSheet handles picks, locks, scoring, and standings automatically.