How it works

The big idea

Every World Cup match is a tiny market. Instead of betting against a bookmaker, you trade against your friendson how “eventful” a match will be. One side thinks the number will end up high, the other thinks it'll be low — and whoever called it better keeps the difference.

No real money is held anywhere. The app is just a shared scoreboard: it records every trade, tracks who's up and who's down, and at the end tells you the simplest set of payments to square everyone up (“X pays Y £Z”).

What a match settles at — the scoring system

When a match finishes, it settles at a single number worked out from three things that happened on the pitch:

• Goals — total goals by both teams combined.
• Corners — total corners awarded to both teams.
• Cards — a yellow card counts as 1, a red card counts as 2. Add them all up.

Because the three numbers are multiplied, the settlement swings a lot. A dull 0–0 settles at zero no matter how many cards there are; a chaotic high-scoring game can settle in the hundreds.

Prices and sizes

Each market has a price, quoted in points— the market's live guess at what the match will settle at. Mexico–South Africa might be trading around 60 before kick-off; the actual settlement turned out to be 72.

When you trade you also choose a size, measured in £ per point. Size is how much each point of difference is worth to you. A size of £2 means every point the settlement lands away from your price is worth £2 to you — up or down.

Buying and selling (bids and offers)

There are two things you can do in any market:

On the board you'll see a Bid and an Offer:

• The Bid is the highest price anyone is currently willing to buy at. If you want to sell right now, you sell into the bid.
• The Offer is the lowest price anyone is currently willing to sell at. If you want to buy right now, you buy from the offer.
• The Markis the market's current fair value — the last traded price, or the midpoint between bid and offer. It's what your open position is valued at before the match settles.

You can either take a price that's already there, or post your own bid/offer and wait for someone to trade against it. When a buy order and a sell order meet at the same price, a trade happens automatically.

A full worked trade

Suppose Mexico–South Africa is marked at 60 and you and a friend disagree:

• You buy at price 60, size £2 / point (you expect a lively game).
• Your friend sells to you at the same price and size (they expect a quiet one).

The match settles at 72. That's 12 points above the trade price, and each point is worth £2:

Every trade is zero-sum: your £24 gain is exactly your friend's £24 loss. The exchange never takes a cut.

During the match, and settling up

• Live marks. Once a match kicks off, scores, corners and cards update automatically, so the running Goals × Corners × Cards value moves in real time. You can keep trading while the game is in play.
• Settlement. At full-time the market locks and settles at the final number. Your open profit becomes realised profit.
• Leaderboard & PnL.The app adds up every trade to show who's up and who's down across all matches.
• Final settlement. When the tournament is done, the app nets everyone off and shows the fewest payments needed to square up. You settle those between yourselves — by bank transfer, however you like.

House rules

• It's invite-only and just among friends.
• No money is held in the app — it only tracks the ledger. Settle up for real at the end.
• There are no exposure or risk caps. Trade responsibly; it runs on trust.