📖 Player Playbook
Everything you need to know. Read it. Then lose credits anyway.
Rumour has it someone spent 80 credits on Kazakhstan in Week 1. Reliable sources confirm they are no longer making eye contact.
What Even Is This?
Each match day you get 100 free credits to make picks on whatever World Cup outcomes your football brain conjures up. Place your picks before the Referee locks the day. When results come in, the Referee enters the outcomes and your dividend is calculated.
The player with the most effective credits at the end of the tournament wins. (Effective credits ≠ just your winnings. See The Decay Tax below.)
Your Credit Budget
| Type | Credits | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Regular match day | 100 | Per day — resets every match day |
| Tournament long picks | 200 | Once only — shared across all tournament picks |
Credits are only unlocked from 00:00 HKT on the match date (the Referee may set a later time for days where all games kick off in the afternoon).
The Tournament day is a logging date only — it does not award daily credits and
does not count toward your participation rate or decay. Your 200 tournament credits are a
completely separate pool from your daily 100.
⚠ Daily spending cap: 500 credits per match day.
You can stake at most 500 credits across all your picks on a single match day,
even if your effective balance is higher. The credit bar on the picks page shows how much
of your daily cap remains. This cap resets every match day.
How to Place a Pick
- Go to Home → click a match day card with a ✅ Open badge
- Select your name from the dropdown
- Enter your PIN (the Referee gave you this privately)
- Type your pick description, e.g. Brazil WIN, Mbappe 1st goalscorer
- Enter the Odds (e.g.
2.50) — the payout multiplier if you win - Enter your Stake (how many of your credits to risk)
- Hit YOLO – Lock In My Pick 🎯
You can place multiple picks on the same match day as long as you have credits left.
Odds, Stake & Dividend
Dividend = Stake × Odds × Winning Unit Net = Dividend − Stake
Winning Unit (WU) is set by the Referee after the match:
| Winning Unit | What It Means | Example (Stake 20, Odds 1.80) |
|---|---|---|
0 | Your pick lost. RIP your credits. | Dividend = 0 · Net = −20 |
0.5 | Half-win / partial void (e.g. draw no-action). | Dividend = 18 · Net = −2 |
1.0 | Full win — full dividend paid at quoted odds. | Dividend = 36 · Net = +16 🎉 |
Example:
You stake 20 credits on Brazil WIN at odds 1.80.
Brazil wins → Referee sets WU = 1.0 (full win)
→ Dividend = 20 × 1.80 × 1.0 = 36 credits → Net = +16 credits 🎉
You stake 50 credits on Saudi Arabia to win at odds 5.00.
Saudi Arabia loses → WU = 0 → Dividend = 0. Net = −50 credits. Your colleagues will remember this forever.
It's a draw and the Referee rules the pick half-void → WU = 0.5
→ Dividend = 50 × 5.00 × 0.5 = 125 credits → Net = +75 credits.
How to Delete a Pick
Changed your mind? You can delete a pick only while the match day is still Open.
- Go to the match day picks page
- Find your pick on the Wall of Truth
- Click the 🗑 button and enter your PIN to confirm
Once the Referee locks the match day, picks are frozen. No refunds. No appeals.
The Wall of Truth
All picks are publicly visible to everyone.
Yes, everyone can see the picks you made on North Korea to win Group A. Own it.
📉 The Decay Tax
"The idle rich get poorer." — This game, specifically.
The leaderboard ranks players by Effective Balance, not raw credits. Credits you never use decay based on your participation rate.
Effective Balance = Dividends Returned
+ Regular Idle × (Participation Rate ^ 2.0)
+ Tournament Idle (full value until Conclusion Date, then 0)
- Regular Idle — regular-day credits you were granted but never staked
- Tournament Idle — tournament credits not yet staked (expires after Conclusion Date)
- Participation Rate — regular match days you submitted picks on ÷ total dividend-declared regular days
- decay_power — 2.0 (set by Referee)
Only regular match days count for participation. The Tournament day is excluded.
⚠ When does decay kick in?
Decay does not apply the moment a match day passes.
A day only counts toward your participation rate after the Referee presses
"📣 Declare Dividends" for that day — confirming all results are final.
Until then, the day is pending and has zero effect on your score.
⚠ Tournament credits behave differently — they don't decay gradually. They are full value until the Conclusion Date, then hard-zero. Use them or lose them.
| Participation Rate | Multiplier on idle credits | 300 idle credits → worth |
|---|---|---|
| 3/3 = 100% | 1.00² = 1.000 | 300.00 |
| 2/3 = 67% | 0.67² = 0.444 | 133.33 |
| 1/3 = 33% | 0.33² = 0.111 | 32.22 |
| 0/3 = 0% | 0.00² = 0.000 | 0.00 |
Returns from actual picks are never decayed. Sitting out and hoarding is punished. Get off the bench. ⚽
📊 Decay Illustrated — Two Players, Three Match Days
All three match days are settled and dividends declared. Both players received 100 credits per day = 300 total.
⚽ Marco — Active Player (submits every day)
| Day | Stake | Odds | Result | Dividend | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MD1 Jun 12 | 80 | 2.50 | Win (WU=1) | 200.00 | +120 |
| MD2 Jun 15 | 90 | 1.80 | Loss (WU=0) | 0.00 | −90 |
| MD3 Jun 18 | 70 | 3.00 | pending | — | — |
days_with_picks = 3 past declared days = 3
participation = 3/3 = 100%
idle_credits = 300 − 240 = 60
Eff. Balance = 200.00 + 60 × (1.00²)
= 200.00 + 60.00
= 260.00 ⭐
👻 Jamie — Ghost (picked only once)
| Day | Stake | Odds | Result | Dividend | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MD1 Jun 12 | 10 | 1.50 | Win (WU=1) | 15.00 | +5 |
| MD2 Jun 15 | — | — | — | — | — |
| MD3 Jun 18 | — | — | — | — | — |
days_with_picks = 1 past declared days = 3
participation = 1/3 = 33.3%
idle_credits = 300 − 10 = 290
Eff. Balance = 15.00 + 290 × (0.333²)
= 15.00 + 290 × 0.111
= 15.00 + 32.22
= 47.22 ⭐
Jamie has 290 idle credits — but they're worth only 32 after decay. Marco staked more, won some, lost some, and ends up with 260 effective credits. The decay is quadratic: skipping 2 out of 3 days doesn't halve your idle value — it cuts it to 1/9th.
🌍 Tournament Long Picks
Tournament days are logging dates — they record long-range predictions whose outcomes are decided when a specific stage concludes (e.g. end of Group Stage → qualifying teams known).
Each tournament day has two dates:
| Date | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Picks Open Date | Credits unlock; you can start placing picks (may be weeks before conclusion) |
| Conclusion Date | Stage ends; Referee settles results; unused credits expire |
You have 200 credits for tournament picks — completely separate from your daily 100.
Unused tournament credits expire to 0 after the Conclusion Date. Once the stage ends, unplaced credits are gone — no carry-over, no decay, just gone. Use them or lose them.
How to Lose Without Playing
Easy. Just sit out every match day and hoard your 100 daily credits. By the end of the tournament, your effective balance will be:
Effective Balance = 0 (returned) + N (idle) × (0.0 ^ 2.0) = 0
Congratulations. You kept all your fake credits safe by turning them all into dust. ⚰️
The game rewards participation, not hoarding.
Leaderboard
Visit 🏆 Leaderboard at any time to see standings. Ranked by Effective Balance. Updated live as picks are settled.