Jeff Gryczkowski entered Station Casino’s Last Man Standing pro football contest for a family fun competition.
“It was kind of like a family competition, ‘Let’s see who gets the farthest,'” he said. “No one ever expected to win.”
Gryczkowski, 52, not only outlasted his son Jesse, sister Jaime Holden and ex-brother-in-law Brent Holden, but he also outlasted a field of 7,141 contestants to turn his $25 contribution into $150,000 after winning the elimination contest.
In Last Man Standing, entries choose a game against the spread each week and are eliminated with a loss. Posts are $25 each, with a maximum of five for $100.
Gryczkowski picked off 14 straight winners ATS, clinching the title in Week 14 when the Rams (-8½) erased an early 7-0 deficit en route to a 45-17 rout of the Cardinals. The other remaining grant had already been eliminated by the Ravens (-5½), who lost 27-22 to the Steelers, but Gryczkowski didn’t find out until his son saw the pick on the X during the Rams-Cardinals game.
“When I knew the game was out of play, I told my son, let’s go ahead and look and see what the other guy’s got,” he said. “I was like, ‘I just won this thing.’ It was unbelievable. I still can’t believe I won.”
Welcome to Las Vegas
A native of Buffalo and a lifelong Bills fan, Gryczkowski’s family moved to Las Vegas when he was 10. He became interested in handicapping NFL games a few years later when his father won $1,000 in a free football contest in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which Gryczkowski delivered on his paper route.
“There was a contest in the sports section of the Review-Journal and you cut it out and you’d pick your outright winners and send it in, and if you went 16-0 you’d win a thousand dollars,” he said. “My father sent it in and one time he went 16-0 and won a thousand dollars. That’s when I thought, ‘How does this work?'”
Close call
Married with two children and working in grocery for Schwan’s, Gryczkowski began the season with the maximum five assists but was down to just one after Week 4.
He survived his closest call in Week 5, when the Vikings (-3½) rallied for a 21-17 win and covered the Browns in London on Carson Wentz’s 12-yard touchdown pass to Jordan Addison with 25 seconds left.
He was one of only four contenders left in Week 11, when he had the Packers as 6½-point favorites over the Giants. Green Bay missed two extra points and led by six before New York went ahead 20-19 on Jameis Winston’s 1-yard run with 7:22 left.
Needing a Packers touchdown and 2-point conversion to cover, Gryczkowski got it when Jordan Love hit Christian Watson for a 17-yard score with 4:02 left and found Emanuel Wilson for the 2-point conversion for a 27-20 lead.
But it still wasn’t over. The Giants drove to the Green Bay 14 in the final minute before Winston threw an interception and Gryczkowski could finally exhale.
“That’s why I took the Packers. I expected Jameis Winston to get two interceptions. He ended up throwing one at the end of the game,” he said. – It was a nerve-wracking match.
“It was pretty nerve-wracking towards the end (of the competition). I wanted it to be over one way or another. I didn’t want to go through the agony anymore.”
Secrets to success
He advanced with the 49ers (-7½) in a Week 12 win over the Panthers, then won in Week 13 at Carolina, which beat the Rams 31-28 as a 10-point underdog.
“I would always look at ‘home’ dogs and try to make a case for it,” he said. “I looked for powerful historical trends. It was one of my favorite things. And I tried to avoid divisional matches because you never know what’s going to happen in those.
“That was kind of my strategy – home dogs, historical trends and avoid divisional games if possible.”
Keep the faith
With the field down to two after Week 12, Gryczkowski said he had conversations with his family and friends about whether he would gobble up the $75,000 pot each if the other finalist reached out to him. But the born-again Christian decided to keep faith in his own choices.
“I didn’t really want to find him,” he said. “All the glory goes to God. All of this is possible only because of Him. I’m nobody. I’m a square. I do this for fun, and there were so many choices that I should have made that I didn’t make. I trusted God.
“Then I thought about hedging. Should I at least get something out of this if I don’t win the whole thing? Should I put a couple thousand on the other side? But I stuck to my rifle and I trusted God and went all the way.”
Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@ theplayerlounge.com. Follow @tdewey33 on X.
