Scientist wins 2019 SportsLine SuperContest Pool in photo finish
Steve Henderson went 155-101 picking every NFL regular-season game against the spread, and now he's headed to Vegas for the 2020 Westgate Las Vegas SuperContest.
The 2019 SportsLine SuperContest Pool came down to inches.
When the 49ers (-3.5) tackled Seahawks tight end Jacob Hollister just shy of the goal line with 9 seconds left, preserving a 26-21 win in the NFL's final regular-season game, it meant Steve Henderson had edged Tim Rogers by one point for the $4,000 prize.
Henderson finished 155-101 (60.5 percent) picking every game against the spread, one ahead of Rogers and Ashwin Iyer, to beat a massive field.
"I had San Fran and [Rogers] had Seattle, and it felt like Seattle had eight shots at it in the last 90 seconds," Henderson, 43, a scientist for Proctor & Gamble who lives outside Cincinnati, said with a laugh. "I didn't realize I could hold my breath that long."
Henderson's reward: a trip for two to Vegas and a $1,500 entry into the 2020 Westgate Las Vegas SuperContest. The world's top football handicapping competition, the SuperContest drew a record 3,328 entries this year and paid $1.47 million to the winner.
Bobby Weir won the inaugural 2018 SportsLine SuperContest Pool with a 151-105 record.
A longtime SportsLine subscriber, Henderson said he's been involved in football pools and Fantasy leagues "since we had to manually calculate scores out of the newspaper. I'm in six Fantasy leagues, a couple of pick'-em leagues, against-the-spread pools and survivor pools -- you name it."
His approach: "Look at as much information as I can. Having access to SportsLine and a couple other sites, I examine all the information, five to 10 different views on each game, and then it's, 'Where does my gut take me?'"
That gut instinct carried him all the way to Vegas.
"I won a survivor pool a couple years ago, but nothing as good as this," Henderson said. "This is by far the biggest win I've ever had."
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