Frequently Asked Questions

OfficePoolStop.com is a free platform to host and join football pools like Pick'em, Survivor, Confidence, Margin, and more for NFL, College Football, and March Madness. We can also host virtually any sport thanks to our Custom Pick'em, Bracket Maker, and Prop Bet formats

Yes! Almost all features are available for free. Plus Mode is a one-time $10.00 fee for the entire league — not per player. It includes more clones, a higher email send limit, and the ability to edit entries on the Player Accounts page. Premium Mode is also one league fee, based on the total number of players in your league. Premium includes even more clones, additional features, and removes all ads for everyone in the league.

NFL, NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball, and more. With our bracket generator and custom pick'em options, you can run a pool for just about any sport — including NBA, MLB, NHL, PGA, MMA, NASCAR, Premier League, and English Football League (EFL)

Yes. OfficePoolStop includes a Free Bracket Maker for creating custom tournament brackets with single elimination, double elimination, styling, and printable options.

Welcome to OfficePoolStop! Our Quick Start Guide walks you through the essential steps for setting up and running your league, including reviewing your league settings, inviting players, managing your roster, and preparing for the season.

Start here: Watch the New Manager Quick Start Guide.

You can also visit the Help Center at any time to search for answers, tutorials, and instructions for specific league features.

Use the Player Status page to see which players are marked as Pending (after an invite), Active, Inactive, Removed, etc. You can also update their status directly from this page.

Tutorial: How to manage players.
To specifically remove a player: Remove a player tutorial.

Managers can assign a co-manager to help run their league. A co-manager can assist with league management tasks, making it easier to share responsibilities during the season.

Tutorial: How to add a co-manager.

Visit the Invites page in the Manager Control Panel, where you have several methods to use to invite players.

Tutorial: How to invite players.

Some email providers may block or filter league invitations before they reach the recipient. This is especially common with Yahoo, AOL, and Verizon email addresses.

Ask the player to:

• Check their spam or junk folder.
• Search their mailbox for noreply@officepoolstop.com.
• Add noreply@officepoolstop.com to their contacts or safe-sender list.

You can resend the invitation from the Invites page. However, resending may not help if the recipient’s email provider is blocking the message.

Recommended: Also send the player your league invitation link directly by text message, personal email, or another messaging service. OfficePoolStop cannot guarantee delivery to every email provider.

Yes, from the Player Accounts page. You can track fees, add online payment support, enter prizes, and export balances.

Yes, managers can export weekly or full-season data of most pool types.

Buybacks never add lives; they only redeem the player’s ability to continue after a loss by paying the fee. Since a loss always subtracts one life, a pool with only 1 life would eliminate a player immediately with nothing to redeem. Therefore, buyback Survivor pools must be set to 2 or more lives.

Go to Settings → Privacy. In the Profile Policy section, select Use Nickname (Screen Name) instead of full name.

Log in and go to your league’s pick sheet. Options vary by pool type (e.g. confidence points, tie-breakers, props).

Players can view other league members' picks from the Standings page by opening the Picks tab.

Other players' picks are hidden until the league deadline. However, picks for individual games become viewable once those games have started.

For Pick X pools, managers can choose to keep all player picks hidden until the deadline, including picks for games that have already started. This option is available under Page Display & Control in the league settings.

Tutorial: How to view player picks.

Players can use the World Cup standings page to track standings, view picks, and follow scoring as the tournament moves through each stage.

Tutorial: World Cup standings and picks tutorial.

Yes. One account can join or manage multiple leagues.

Clones let one user control multiple entries (e.g. for family members, or to make additional picks to improve their odds of winning). Visit your Clones page to create and join clones in your league.

Tutorial: How to use clones.

Rules vary by league. Some allow auto-picks; others may mark missed picks as losses. Check the Rules page or ask your manager.

Tie-breakers are used when two or more players have the same score or point total in the standings. The league's normal scoring rules determine the standings first; the selected tie-breaker criteria are then applied, in order, only when players are tied.

Weekly Tie-Breakers
Weekly standings are ranked first by the player's points for that week. If players are tied, the league's Weekly Tie-Breaker setting determines how the tie is broken. Depending on the selected option, the criteria may include:

• Tie-breaker game: The player whose tie-breaker prediction is closest to the actual result ranks higher.
• Most Wins for Week: The player with the most correctly picked games that week ranks higher.
• Strength of Victory: The player with the higher Strength of Victory ranks higher.
• Season Winning %: The player with the higher overall season winning percentage ranks higher.
• Chop Ties: Players who remain tied split any applicable winnings.

The criteria are applied in the order shown in the selected setting and stop as soon as the tie is broken.

Example: If the league uses “Tie-breaker game, then Most Wins for Week, then Week's Strength of Victory”, players are first ranked by their points for the week. Players tied in points are then compared by their tie-breaker game prediction. If they are still tied, Most Wins for Week is compared, followed by that week's Strength of Victory.

Overall & Final Standings Tie-Breakers
Overall and final season standings use a separate tie-breaker setting. Players are first ranked by their season point totals. If players are tied, the selected Overall & Final Standings Tie-Breaker criteria are applied. Available criteria can include:

• Winning %: The player's overall percentage of correctly picked games.
• Strength of Victory: The player's cumulative Strength of Victory for the season.
• Aggregate Tie-breakers: The sum of the player's weekly tie-breaker errors. Since this measures how far the player's predictions were from the actual results, lower is better.
• Key Games Won: The number of Key Games the player correctly picked during the season.
• Chop Ties: Players who remain tied split any applicable winnings.

Because weekly and overall standings use different tie-breaker settings, players tied for a weekly result may appear in a different order in the overall season standings.

What if my league uses a different tie-breaker method?
OfficePoolStop provides several of the most commonly used tie-breaker combinations. Managers should select the available option that most closely matches their league's rules rather than expecting every possible ordering of tie-breakers to be available.

If a manager needs to handle a weekly tie differently, the Manager → League Controls → Edit Weekly Winners page can be used to manually override the site's automatically determined weekly winners. This allows a manager to apply a custom rule for an unusual situation without changing the league's normal automatic tie-breaker processing.

The Week tab and the overall Standings tab answer two different questions. The Week tab determines the order for that week's results using weekly scores and the league's weekly tie-breaker settings. The overall Standings tab ranks the entire season using season totals and the league's season/final tie-breaker settings. A player can therefore win a tie for one week but still rank below that same player in the season standings.

The Bye Week option automatically removes each player's worst eligible regular-season week from their season point total. Players do not choose their bye week. The Bye column in the season standings shows which week was removed for each player.

Pick'em pools
The eligible week in which the player earned the fewest points is removed from the player's season total. Only regular-season weeks are considered, even when postseason results are included in the standings.

In NCAA Pick'em, a week normally must contain at least 12 scheduled games to be eligible. This prevents unusually short weeks, such as conference championship week, from automatically becoming everyone's bye. If the league has no weeks meeting that minimum, the site falls back to considering all weeks.

Confidence pools
Because the number of games can vary from week to week, the site compares each week's score as a percentage of the maximum confidence points available that week. The week with the lowest percentage is selected, and the actual points earned during that week are subtracted from the player's season total.

Example: Earning 60 of 100 available points (60%) is considered worse than earning 50 of 70 available points (about 71%). Therefore, the 60-point week would be used as the bye, and 60 points would be removed from the season total.

The adjustment affects only total points. Other statistics, such as wins, losses, and winning percentage, remain unchanged. The option applies only to regular-season pools; postseason weeks are not considered when determining the bye.

Premium Pick'em and Confidence leagues can divide the season into custom Standings Segments, such as First Half, Second Half, monthly standings, or a Second Chance competition. Segments create alternate standings for selected week ranges without changing the league's normal full-season standings, picks, schedule, or scoring settings.

Managers configure Standings Segments under League Settings → Advanced Settings. You can create up to 25 segments per season, and segment week ranges may overlap.

Step-by-step instructions: How to Divide Your Season Into Sections.

Strength of Victory (SOV) is based on the margin of victory for the games you pick. For each winning pick, the winning margin is added to your SOV; for each losing pick, the margin is subtracted. For example, if one pick wins by 10 points and another loses by 3, those games contribute +10 and -3, for a net SOV of +7. Higher SOV is better.

Weekly SOV uses only that week's games, while season SOV accumulates across the season. It provides an NFL-style secondary tie-breaker that rewards stronger winning picks and penalizes losing picks by their margin.

Survivor: Survivor standings are primarily determined by survival status, lives remaining, and losses rather than the weekly tie-breaker system used by Pick'em-style pools. In a two-bracket Survivor pool, if every remaining player in the first-place bracket loses in the same week, cumulative Strength of Victory is used to determine the first-place winner. Last Man Standing and second-place-bracket settings can also affect how and when winners are determined.

Bracket pools: Players are ranked first by total bracket points. If players have the same point total, the league's configured bracket tie-breaker order is applied. The available criteria are the player's error on the final-game total-score prediction (lower is better), Strength of Victory (higher is better), and Most Wins (higher is better).

AutoPick is a safety net for players who miss a required pick. It only applies when AutoPick is enabled for the league, and it does not replace a valid manual pick that the player already submitted.

Who chooses the AutoPick method?

• The league manager controls whether AutoPick is enabled and selects the league's default AutoPick method.
• If the manager enables player-controlled AutoPick, each participant can choose their own AutoPick method. Otherwise, the same league-selected method applies to everyone.
• If Random is selected, each AutoPick is generated independently. Players relying on Random are not intentionally assigned the same picks.

What happens if I miss an early game?

• In a standard Pick'em pool, AutoPick can fill a missing pick for a game that has already started even when the league's main deadline has not yet arrived.
• For example, if the deadline is Sunday and a player misses the Thursday game, AutoPick can fill the missed Thursday selection while the player may still manually pick the remaining games that have not started.
• Once a game starts, that game is locked. AutoPick does not replace a valid manual pick already made for that game.
• Pick X pools are handled differently: AutoPick waits until the league deadline and then attempts to fill the required number of selections according to the Pick X rules.

How does the AutoPick limit work?

• The manager can limit how many weeks a player may use AutoPick during the season. The limit is not based on the number of individual games AutoPicked.
• If AutoPick is used for only one missed game in a week, such as a Thursday game, that counts as one AutoPick week.
• If AutoPick later fills another missing pick during that same week, it does not consume another AutoPick week.
• Once the player has reached the league's AutoPick limit, AutoPick will not begin in another week. Any future missing picks are left unfilled and are handled according to that pool's normal no-pick rules.

Can I tell which picks were AutoPicked?
Yes. Auto-generated selections are recorded by OfficePoolStop as AutoPicks so they can be distinguished from normal player-submitted picks where AutoPick status is displayed.

Survivor pools
Survivor AutoPick honors the league's Survivor restrictions, including how many times a team may be selected and, when enabled, how many times a player may pick against the same opponent.

If the first Survivor AutoPick choice is not legal:

• Last Home Team: If the home team in the last game is unavailable under the Survivor rules, AutoPick works backward through the schedule, trying the home team from each previous game.
• Biggest Favorite / Underdog: If the first choice is unavailable, AutoPick moves to the next-biggest favorite or underdog based on the point spread.
• Lowest Favorite: It moves to the next-smallest favorite.
• If no team matching the selected strategy is legal, AutoPick makes a final attempt to select another legal team from the remaining games.

Example: What if "Last Home Team" selects a team I already used?
If your league allows each team to be used only once and the home team in the last game has already been used, AutoPick will not knowingly reuse that team. It works backward through the schedule, trying the home team from each previous game until it finds one that is legal under the league's Survivor rules.

For Biggest Favorite, Lowest Favorite, and Biggest Underdog, AutoPick similarly stays with the selected strategy while searching for the next legal choice. It does not simply switch to the other team in the same game.

If no team matching the selected strategy is legal, AutoPick makes a final attempt to choose another legal team from the remaining eligible games. If no legal team exists at all under the league's Survivor rules, no AutoPick can be made.

On weeks that require two Survivor picks, AutoPick also attempts to fill the second missing pick with a different legal team. Both AutoPicks are part of the same AutoPick week and consume only one AutoPick week from the player's limit. A player who was already completely out of lives before the week began will not receive a Survivor AutoPick.

For football pools that pick against the spread, OfficePoolStop maintains a current point spread throughout the week. The exact line used to score a pick depends on the league's line setting.

Variable / Current Line

• The current line is refreshed periodically throughout the week as updated line data becomes available.
• To avoid insignificant line fluctuations, the stored current line is updated only when the spread changes by at least 1 full point from the previously stored line.
• When a player makes a pick, the line available at that time is stored with that pick. This means players who pick at different times can occasionally have different lines for the same game.

Fixed Opening Line

• The opening line is captured when that week's pick sheet becomes available for picking.
• Once an opening line has been captured for a game, later line updates do not replace it.
• Week 1 is opened using the site's preseason pick-opening window. For later weeks, the site advances to the new week after the prior week's final scheduled kickoff plus an internal buffer. This is based on scheduled kickoff times, not on detecting when the final game actually ends.

Closing Line

• If the manager selects the Closing Line option, picks are graded using the final current line available at or near kickoff rather than the line that was available when each player made the pick.
• The current schedule line is refreshed before kickoff and then remains fixed once the game starts, making it the closing line used for scoring.

Where do the lines come from?

• OfficePoolStop obtains both NCAA and NFL point spreads and over/under totals from ESPN.
• If ESPN has not posted a line for a game, OfficePoolStop will show OFF. This is especially common for games in the following week, since lines may not be available that far in advance.
• You can check ESPN's College Football Schedule or NFL Schedule. Once ESPN makes a usable line available, OfficePoolStop will pick it up during a subsequent refresh.

What if a line is unavailable?
If the preferred line is unavailable, the site uses the available fallback where applicable (for example, current line if an opening line is unavailable, or opening line if a current/closing line is unavailable). If no usable spread ever becomes available by the time the game is scored, the game is scored straight up using a 0-point spread.

A push occurs when the final score plus the point spread results in an exact tie.

By default, OfficePoolStop records a push as a Tie. A tie counts as half a win when calculating winning percentage.

Example: If a team is a 3-point underdog and loses by exactly 3 points, the against-the-spread result is a push and is recorded as a Tie.

If the league manager enables Count Tie as Loss, however, a push is recorded as a Loss instead.

The deadline set by your manager is a HARD deadline. Once this deadline hits, you cannot make or change picks for that week.

• Each game has its own cutoff — you can't pick a game once it starts, even if the league deadline is later.
• Example: If a Thursday night game kicks off at 7:15 PM, you must pick it by then. After kickoff, it is locked and grayed out on the pick sheet.
• If you previously picked a game that has now started, that pick is locked in and cannot be changed.
• Even if the game hasn’t started, you might be blocked from picking it if the manager sets a timer that begins when you first submit picks and eventually expires.

What happens when the league deadline hits?

• All remaining games are locked out — even if they haven’t started yet.
• All picks are now visible to everyone on the Standings page.
• This is true for all pool types: Pick'em, Survivor, Confidence, Bookie, etc.

Special Case: Early Games
For games played early (like 9:30 AM London games), players must submit those picks before kickoff. You do not need to adjust your main league deadline. Those early games will simply gray out once they start. Can players see each other's picks?

• Before the league deadline: Only picks for games that have started are visible.
• After the league deadline: All picks are visible to everyone.

Can managers override picks?

• Yes. Managers can submit or change picks via the Manager → Submit Picks screen — this action is logged and visible on the Settings → League Settings page.

In a Survivor pool with buybacks enabled:

• A loss always subtracts one life.
• To remain in the pool after that loss, the player must pay the buyback fee.
• A buyback does not add a life — it only lets the player continue with whatever lives remain.

Example: Start with 5 lives → lose once → you have 4 lives. You must buy back in to stay active, but you still only have 4 lives.

Important: Because a single life can’t be “bought,” buyback Survivor pools must be configured with at least 2 lives.

Each league has a default time zone set by the league manager under League Settings → Basic Settings. This time zone is used for league settings such as pick deadlines and manager schedule displays.

Players can also set their own preferred time zone in their account settings. When available, OfficePoolStop displays game times and deadlines in the player's preferred time zone. If a player has not selected one, the league's default time zone is used.

Managers: The Time Zone setting next to the weekly pick deadline also sets the default time zone for the league.

Yes. OfficePoolStop is fully mobile responsive.

Yes. Upload a logo and theme colors for $18.50. Discounts available for renewals or multiple leagues.

We send pick reminders before deadlines. Managers can also send reminders for players who still have picks due.

Yes. Go to Privacy Settings to change your email delivery preferences.

Check your spam/junk folder and whitelist noreply@officepoolstop.com. You may also have unsubscribed.

Premium pricing is per league (pool), not per player or per account. If you manage multiple pools, each pool has its own Premium fee based on the number of players in that pool.

Premium is a one-time fee for the season — it is not a monthly subscription. For example, if you run a 400-player Survivor pool, a 200-player Pick'em pool, and a 150-player Pick'em pool, each of those three pools would be priced separately based on its own player count.

When upgrading, enter your estimated number of players. Feel free to underestimate initially; we reconcile the final player count after Week 1 of the season.

Plus Mode works a little differently: it is a one-time $10.00 fee per league, regardless of the number of players.

Premium Mode is purchased once for the entire league, with the fee based on the league's total player count. Premium Mode removes ads for players while they are logged in and accessing the Premium league, and includes additional features such as more clones and the ability to make future picks.

Premium removes ads for players while they are logged in and accessing your Premium league. Players may still see ads on OfficePoolStop before they log in or while visiting other public areas of the site.

If you want to give your players a clean, ad-free access point, use your league's logged-out MyPool page. That page is ad-free and takes players directly to your league. You can find the MyPool URL on the Manager → Invites page or the Branding page.

We recommend using that MyPool link in emails, bookmarks, or other communications you send to your players.

The Premium fee you pay to OfficePoolStop is separate from any player fee or league dues that you collect from your players.

To change or remove the amount your players are shown as owing, go to Manager → League Settings → Fees & Prizes and set the player fee to the amount you want, including $0.

If you simply don't want the fee message displayed on your players' Home page, you can hide it under Manager → League Settings → Page Display & Control.

Branding is 18.50 per league. Discounts apply for renewals and multiple leagues.