The Off Shore Gaming Association (OSGA) is pleased to announce the winner of their 9th Annual College Bowl Challenge. ‘JNoss’ beat out over 100 contestants to win the grand prize of $300. Had JNoss been an OSGA member, he would have cashed for 2X the prize amount, $600.

In its 9th year, the OSGA College Bowl Challenge again had contestants pick 32 College Bowl games against the spread. The spreads were set at half points to eliminate ties. The early Bowl games were worth 1 point but contestants still had a chance right up until the BCS Championship game – BCS Bowls were worth 2 points and the BCS Championship was worth five. In fact, the players who were at the top of the leaderboard for most of the contest ended up missing the prize pool entirely, as all five of the top leaders had LSU being crowned as BCS champion. Instead, ‘JNoss’ and the other prize winners came from as far as 12th place to get in on the prizes.

The contest had several anomalies this year. Four players tied for the top spot on the leaderboard with 27 points and 5 players tied for 5th place with 26 points. Since there was a 4-way tie for first place, we had to go to the tie-breaker. The contest rules state that the player who picks closest to the final score of the BCS Championship game without going over would be crowned champion. The second anomaly was that all but one contestant (who finished 59th) in the Bowl Challenge had their total go over the final score of the game, 21-0!! So, we went with the closest to the final score to determine the winner. The total of 28 was the closest and thus JNoss was determined to be the overall winner! The other three contestants that tied for first place were awarded prizes 2-4 based on their total in the BCS Championship game as well.

This year was also peculiar as we saw the most women EVER hit the top of the leaderboard. ‘bcs wizard gal’ took 2nd place, ‘dp24’ took 3rd and ‘teresad’ and ‘ncyjohnson’1 both tied for fifth place.

The contest oddities continued with 5 players tying for 5th place. The fifth place prize was a FREE $50 bet at OSGA Elite-rated Diamond Sports. Since there was a 5-way tie for fifth place, we would normally go to the tie-breaker. But Diamond Sports stepped up to the plate and offered ALL of the fifth place finishers who tied with 26 total points a Free Bet. This made ‘tks777’, ‘gpatek1’, ‘ncyjohnson1’, ‘KKoz9’ and ‘teresad’ ALL eligible WINNERS of the $50 Free Bet at Diamond Sports.

‘This years’ BCS Contest had several twists and turns and having ‘Bama as the BCS Champ really turned the standings on their head,” stated Jim Quinn from OSGA. “To have such a close contest, with a very different leader board on the last day, than any other day, made this one of our favorite years running the contest.”

This has been another great year for the OSGA College Bowl Challenge and we congratulate everyone who played (except our own OSGAJim who only picked 12 winners and finished in 109th place). We also would like to thank the contest sponsor, Diamond Sports, who really came through for players with the extra Free betting accounts. OSGA is looking forward to their ‘Members Only” SuperBowl contest and the annual NCAA Tourney Contest in March.