Rules & scoring

Overview

thefinal is a real-time football prediction game. Every month you get a budget of 100 Prediction Points. You spend them on Predictions — three points each — for any Fixture in an active League, and they resolve live as real match events arrive. There is no money in and no money out.

Two numbers, and they never mix. Prediction Points are the budget you spend to play. Score is what you earn — and lose — when those Predictions resolve; summed over the Season it is your Rating, the number the leaderboards rank.

Three things worth knowing up front:

• Every Prediction costs three points. 100 a month, no rollover — so the Fixtures you skip matter as much as the ones you predict.
• A correct hard answer returns points. Get a hard question right and 5 of your 100 come back — a net gain over its 3-point cost. Safe answers don't return anything; see Prediction Points.
• Wrong Predictions cost Score. Each answer carries a reward and a smaller penalty, and your Rating can go negative. That is normal, and it is the same for everyone.
• Your Followed Club is a bonus, not a fence. You may predict any Fixture; your Club's Fixtures simply score double when you get them right.

Glossary

These are the exact terms used throughout the game.

Player

A registered person who makes Predictions and appears on leaderboards.

Club

A football team you can predict for, shown as name + short code + colour only (never official crests).

League

A competition that contains Clubs and Fixtures. Multiple Leagues run live at launch.

Fixture

A single scheduled match between two Clubs, with a lifecycle (scheduled → in-play → finished) that drives when prediction windows open, Lock, and resolve.

Followed Club

A Club you have chosen to back. It does not decide which Fixtures you may predict — any Fixture in an active League is open. It grants the Followed Club Boost on that Club's Fixtures. Each Player follows exactly one Club on the free tier.

Followed Club Boost

The x2 your Followed Club grants: Score gained from correct Predictions in that Club's Fixtures is doubled. Penalties are never doubled. The Boost is pinned at Lock.

Prediction Point

The spendable unit of play. Every Prediction costs three, so a Prediction Card costs three times the number of Predictions it holds. A correct hard answer returns some of that cost — see Prediction Points.

Monthly Allowance

The Prediction Points granted at the start of each calendar month (UTC) — 100 on the free tier, granted in full when you register whatever the date, never prorated.

Score

The rating currency. Every answer carries a visible reward and penalty, so Score is both earned and lost at Resolution and a total can go negative.

Rating

Your cumulative Score across the current Season — the number the Season leaderboard ranks.

Season

The global scoring period: 1 August 00:00 UTC to 31 July, named like "2026/27". One boundary for all Players and Leagues. Past Seasons are archived on your profile.

Consistency Bonus

A monthly Score bonus for sustained accuracy on the hard answer classes — see Consistency Bonus.

Prediction Card

The set of Predictions you submit for a single Fixture — before kick-off, or while the Fixture is in play if you have no card on it yet. Any Fixture in an active League counts, not only your Followed Club's. Its cost equals three times the number of Predictions it holds.

Prediction

A single forecast within a Prediction Card — the unit that gets resolved and scored.

Active Card

A Prediction Card still in play: a draft (editable, points reserved), locked (awaiting kick-off), or live (Fixture in-play, Predictions resolving). Resolved cards leave the active set.

Lock

The moment a Prediction Card becomes immutable — at kick-off for a card submitted in advance, or instantly on submission for a card placed while the Fixture is in play. After Lock, Predictions only resolve; they cannot change. Lock is also when the card's reserved Prediction Points are finally spent and the Boost is pinned.

Resolution

Deciding whether a Prediction is correct and awarding or deducting Score, derived from the append-only log of fixture facts. A Resolution can be reversed when the feed revises an event (e.g. VAR).

Annulled

The state of a Prediction, or a whole card, cancelled through no fault of yours — the Fixture was cancelled or postponed indefinitely, or abandoned while the Prediction was still unresolved. Annulment refunds the Prediction Points and never touches Score.

Live Feed

The second-screen, chat-styled stream you watch during a Fixture. It is entirely system-generated in the MVP.

Predicted Fixture

A Fixture with at least one locked Prediction Card — the unit of live processing.

Prediction Points

Prediction Points are your budget, not your score. You get a Monthly Allowance of 100 on the 1st of each month (UTC), and every Prediction you make costs three. A five-Prediction card costs 15 points. Register mid-month and you still get the full 100 — the allowance is never prorated.

Unused points expire at the end of the month; there is no rollover. At zero you cannot make new Predictions until the next grant — so a month is a set of choices about which Fixtures are worth three points, not a race to use all 100.

Annulment covers the cases that are not your fault. A Fixture cancelled or postponed indefinitely refunds the whole card, even after Lock, at what it actually cost you. A Fixture abandoned mid-match refunds only the Predictions still unresolved — the ones already decided stand, Score kept and points spent.

Prediction lifecycle

1. Choose a Fixture. Any Fixture in an active League, whether or not your Followed Club is playing. A Prediction Card opens before each one.
2. Fill the Prediction Card. Add one Prediction per type (a type can appear at most once on a card), spending three Prediction Points each. Points are reserved while the card is a draft.
3. Lock. A card submitted in advance becomes immutable at kick-off; a card submitted while the Fixture is in play Locks the instant it is submitted. Either way the reserved points are spent, and the scoring config version and the Followed Club Boost are pinned onto the card at this moment. In-play cards offer only Predictions whose outcome is still open — a passed minute bracket, an already-scored first goal or an already-shown red card are off the card, and nothing can be submitted during a penalty shoot-out.
4. Resolution. As real events arrive, each Prediction resolves and Score is derived from the append-only event log — added when you are right, deducted when you are wrong. Some types resolve mid-match (e.g. first goalscorer), others only when the Fixture is finished (e.g. correct score).
5. Reversal. If the feed revises an event (e.g. a VAR decision), scoring is re-derived from the corrected log — Score can go up or down accordingly.

Scoring reference

Under config v4, the price is on the answer, not just the question: a harder answer is worth more Score. Each answer class below carries a reward when you are right and a penalty when you are wrong. An unresolved Prediction scores 0. A card may contain at most one Prediction of each type.

Penalties are deliberately small — never more than 2, and never more than the reward itself — so a bad month stings without wiping out a good one. They are also never doubled by the Boost.

Correct score +20 / −2

Predict the exact full-time scoreline. Selection: home and away (non-negative whole numbers). Resolves only once the Fixture is finished; correct when both your numbers match the final score. Goals and scored penalties credit the scoring Club; own goals credit the opponent. It is the biggest single reward in the game — and on your Followed Club's Fixture it is worth +40.

First goalscorer +9 / −2

Predict who scores the first goal. Selection: player_id. The first Goal or Penalty in event order decides it; own goals do not count as a goalscorer. If the Fixture finishes with no qualifying goal, the Prediction resolves incorrect — a goalless match resolves against you, it is not an Annulment.

First-goal minute +9 first half +16 second half −2

Predict which 15-minute bracket the first goal falls in. Selection: from and to, which must match one of the six brackets the game offers — 1–15, 16–30, 31–45, 46–60, 61–75, 76–90. Free-form ranges are not accepted.

The two halves are priced differently because they are not equally likely: most matches that produce a goal produce it before the break, so a second-half bracket is the harder answer and rewards +16 against the first half's +9. The first Goal, Penalty, or Own Goal decides it; stoppage time counts inside its half's last bracket, so a 45+2 goal lands in 31–45 and a 90+4 goal in 76–90. No goal by the end resolves incorrect.

Red card? yes +9 / −2 no +1 / −1

Predict whether any red card is shown. Selection: answer (yes or no). A straight red or a second-yellow red resolves it immediately in favour of yes; if the Fixture finishes with no red, no is correct.

This is the one question where the two answers are worth different amounts. Most matches finish without a red, so no is the safe answer and is worth a nominal +1 (losing just 1 when it misses); predicting the red correctly is rare and worth +9. Only the yes side counts toward the Consistency Bonus.

Cards over/under +3 / −2

Predict whether the match produces more or fewer than 4.5 cards. Selection: answer (over or under) and line, which must be the single line the game offers — 4.5. You do not choose your own line. Every Yellow, Red, and Second-Yellow (Yellow-Red) card counts as one. Over wins at 5 cards or more, under at 4 or fewer; the half-line means there is never a tie. Resolves only once the Fixture is finished.

First sub: who goes off +16 / −2

Name the player who is substituted off first, from either Club. Selection: player_id, chosen by name from the squads. The very first substitution of the match decides it — later changes never count. Naming one player out of twenty-two starters is a genuinely hard read (roughly a one-in-ten chance even for a sharp eye on tired legs and booked defenders), which is why it is priced with the hard answers and counts toward the Consistency Bonus. A match that finishes with no substitutions resolves the Prediction incorrect — it is never Annulled. In play, the question closes the moment the first substitution happens.

First sub: who comes on +16 / −2

The mirror question: name the player who comes on first. Selection: player_id from the squads — this one rewards reading the bench and the manager's habits rather than the pitch. Decided by the same first substitution; the same no-substitution and in-play rules apply.

Live Moments

While a Fixture is in play, the match card offers Moments — short live questions with answers known within minutes, not at the whistle. A Moment costs 1 Prediction Point and locks the instant you answer. Get it right and you gain +2 Score, and the Prediction Point comes back priced by how likely your answer was: the side that happens less often (measured under 50%) returns 2 Prediction Points — a net gain of one — and the more common answer (50% or better) returns exactly the 1 it cost. Miss and the Prediction Point is spent, −1 Score. The Followed Club Boost doubles positive Score from Moments too; misses are never doubled, and the Boost never changes how many points come back.

Every Moment is a genuine fork — the questions are tuned so that neither answer is a sure thing. Most questions still have one side that happens a little more often than the other, which is exactly why that side's return is smaller: a flat return on every answer would let you repeat the more common one for free. A question measured as a genuine coin-flip (like foul in the next 3 minutes, below) prices both sides the same for the same reason — neither side happens often enough to earn the bigger return. Only one Moment per question can be open at a time. Moments never count toward the Consistency Bonus; that stays reserved for the hard card answers.

"Yes" is not always the side that happens less often — a late goal from 75′ is slightly more likely than not, so that "yes" is the more common answer and returns 1, while its "no" returns 2. The return follows what is actually likely, not which side reads as the more exciting answer. Some questions need live match statistics; where a League's feed does not carry them, those Moments simply are not offered. A question whose outcome is already public — a first goal that has fallen, an added-time board already up — closes by itself.

Followed Club Boost

Your Followed Club gates nothing. You can predict any Fixture in an active League, whoever is playing. What following a Club grants is the Boost: x2 Score on that Club's Fixtures.

The Boost doubles gains only. A correct prediction on your Club's Fixture scores double — an exact scoreline becomes +40, a first goalscorer +18. A wrong one costs exactly what it always costs; the penalty is never doubled. It applies to every Prediction on the card and is pinned at Lock, so changing your Followed Club never disturbs a card that has already locked.

You follow one Club on the free tier. The first choice is free; each change after that starts a 30-day cooldown before you can change again.

Consistency Bonus

A monthly Score bonus for being right about hard things repeatedly. Hard answers are the ones worth +9 or more before any Boost: correct score, first goalscorer, either first-goal-minute bracket, red card yes, and both first-substitution answers — the same hard answers whose correct Prediction Points return five. Every correct hard answer counts once toward the month its card Locked in.

You are awarded the highest step you reach, not the sum — 20 correct hard answers is +40, not +60. Low-reward answers such as red card no and cards over/under never count — and never return a Prediction Point either — which is the point: the bonus rewards a specialist who reads difficult things well, and cannot be reached by repeating the safest answer any number of times.

Leaderboards & ranking

Score accumulates into leaderboards at three scopes: a single match, a calendar month, and a whole season.

Score means the same thing at every scope — what your card answers earned plus what your Live Moments earned. So the Score you see on a match is exactly what that match contributes to your month, and your months are exactly what your Season is made of. If you want to check us, you can add it up.

The Season board ranks your Rating — all the Score you have earned since the Season began. Seasons run 1 August to 31 July (UTC) for every Player and every League alike, and past Seasons are archived on your profile. The month board runs on the same rhythm as your Prediction Point allowance: it starts empty for everyone on the 1st, so a Player who joins in March can win March.

Ranking uses standard competition ranking: Players tied on Score share the higher rank, and the next rank skips accordingly. For example, totals of 10, 8, 8, 5 produce ranks 1, 2, 2, 4.

You see your own place however far down the table you are. A board shows the top 100, and if you are not in it you still see your place — a real number, not "outside the top 100". It follows the same tie rule as everyone else: level Scores share a place, and the next place skips.

That place is exact to #500. Below there it is close rather than precise, and we mark it with a tilde — "~#4120" — because a board with hundreds of thousands of Players cannot carry every single position without becoming slow and expensive for everyone reading it. The approximation only ever runs one way: your real place is the one shown or a little further down, never higher than we tell you.

A negative Rating is displayed as it is. Score is lost as well as earned, so a rough month can put you below zero — there is no floor and no protection for new Players, because the same numbers apply to everyone and a single good week moves you back up.

Fairness & recomputation

Scoring is derived deterministically from the append-only log of fixture facts — the same inputs always produce the same result. Recomputation is idempotent: re-polls, replays, and feed revisions (e.g. VAR) simply re-derive the truth from the current log, so Score is never double-counted. When an event is revised, affected Predictions are re-resolved and totals adjust up or down.

The scoring config version is pinned onto your card at Lock. If the numbers on this page change, cards already locked keep scoring under the version they were locked with — a retune never rewrites Predictions you have already made.

Compliance

• No money, ever. You never deposit or win cash. Prediction Points cannot be bought, sold, or exchanged for anything — the only currency here is points and pride.
• Unofficial & independent. Not affiliated with any league, club, or competition. Clubs are shown as name, short code and colour only — no official crests, logos, kits, or player photos.
• Entertainment first. A closed loop of predictions, points, and ranks — for fun and bragging rights.

Changelog