Rules & scoring

Overview

thefinal is a real-time football prediction game. Predictions are free to make — there is no budget, no allowance, and nothing to spend — on any Fixture in an active League, and they resolve live as real match events arrive. There is no money in and no money out.

One number matters. Score is what you earn — and lose — when your Predictions resolve; summed over the Season it is your Rating, the number the leaderboards rank. There is no other currency in the game.

Four things worth knowing up front:

• Zero is the level of random guessing. Every answer is priced off how often it actually happens, so blind guessing drifts below zero on every option. A positive Score is not luck — it is evidence you read the game; see How scoring works.
• Wrong Predictions cost Score. Each answer carries a reward and a penalty, and your Rating can go negative. That is normal, it is the same for everyone, and a single match can never cost you more than the loss floors allow.
• Volume has structural limits, not a price. One Prediction Card per Fixture, one open Moment per subject at a time, and at most 30 Moments on one Fixture — you can play every match you watch, but you cannot flood one.
• 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 its name, short code and colour, with its crest where we have one.

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: everything you score in that Club's Fixtures counts double — the losses as well as the wins. The Boost is pinned at Lock.

Bold

A declaration of confidence: three marks per Fixture, spendable on the card or on Moments in any mix. A Bold answer scores double when right and loses double when wrong; on your Followed Club's Fixture it combines with the Boost for x4 each way — see Bold.

Score

The only currency in the game. Every answer carries a visible reward and penalty, so Score is both earned and lost at Resolution and a total can go negative. Zero is the level of random guessing.

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.

Underdog bonus

An extra +5 on a correct exact scoreline that few other Players saw coming — 10% or fewer of the Fixture's pre-kickoff Players named it. See Correct score.

Club board

Any leaderboard filtered to one Club: the Score everyone earned on the Fixtures that Club played — see Leaderboards.

Prediction Card

The set of Predictions you submit for a single Fixture, inside its card window: from the start of match day (never later than twelve hours before kick-off) until ten minutes before the scheduled kick-off, editable throughout. Any Fixture in an active League counts, not only your Followed Club's. One card per Fixture; nothing is taken once the Fixture is in play.

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), 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 — ten minutes before the scheduled kick-off, measured from the timetable, so a delayed whistle reopens nothing. After Lock, Predictions only resolve; they cannot change. Lock is also when 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. An Annulled Prediction never touches Score, in either direction.

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.

How scoring works

Playing is free. There is no budget to spend, no allowance to run out of, and no cost attached to a Prediction or a Moment — the only number in the game is Score. What keeps volume honest is structure, not price: one Prediction Card per Fixture (with at most one Prediction of each type on it), one open Moment per subject at a time, and at most 30 Moments on one Fixture.

With nothing to spend, the numbers themselves have to keep guessing unprofitable — and they do. Every answer is priced off how often it actually happens, so that guessing blindly — always the obvious scoreline, always "no red card" — has an expected Score below zero on every single option. That is the calibration rule of config v7, and it is why the likelier answer of a pair always carries the smaller reward, and why the safest-looking answers carry the sharpest penalties. Read the table as a statement about difficulty: zero is the level of random guessing, and a positive Score means you are genuinely reading the game better than chance.

The downside is bounded. However a match goes, one card's net loss on a Fixture never goes below −15 — counted before Bold and the Boost, so the floor widens with the swing you chose rather than standing still under it: −30 on your Club's Fixture, and deeper again on the answers you also marked Bold — as far as −60 if every one of them is. Each answer widens the floor by exactly what it widened your swing by, so spending one Bold mark costs you a share of the insurance and not all of it. Your Moments on one Fixture are floored too, and that floor grows with how much you answer — and with how loudly: a Bold mark and the Boost count towards it, because they count towards the swing beneath it. Answer up to a dozen ordinary questions and your net never falls below −17; past that the floor steps out to −27, −40, −52, −69 and −91, and at the loudest board the 30-Moment cap allows it reaches −118. The insurance scales with the exposure rather than rewarding a big night out — a fixed floor over a board you choose the size of would pay you to answer everything. Both floors work the same way, and for the same reason: Bold and the Boost double a question's swing in both directions, so the floor beneath it widens to match. A worst-case night is recoverable inside a week, not a hole you dig for a month. Individual penalties are small (−2 to −4 on most answers, −6 at most on an exact score whose outcome missed) — doubled only on your Club's Fixture, where the Boost doubles everything, or on an answer you marked Bold yourself.

Annulment covers the cases that are not your fault. A Fixture cancelled or postponed indefinitely annuls the whole card, even after Lock; a Fixture abandoned mid-match annuls only the Predictions still unresolved. An Annulled Prediction simply never resolves — no Score gained, none lost. The ones already decided stand, Score kept.

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) — free, as many types as you have a read on. If one Prediction is the one you are sure of, mark it Bold: double the reward, double the penalty.
3. Lock. The card becomes immutable ten minutes before the scheduled kick-off — you can create and re-submit it any time on match day until then. The scoring config version and the Followed Club Boost are pinned onto the card at this moment. Nothing is taken during the match: the live questions are the Live Moments.
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 v7, 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, calibrated so that guessing blindly loses slowly on every option — the numbers themselves are the anti-farming rule. An unresolved Prediction scores 0. A card may contain at most one Prediction of each type.

Penalties are deliberately small — −2 to −4 on most answers, −6 at most on an exact score whose outcome missed — and one card's losses on a Fixture are floored at −15 before any multiplier, so a bad night stings without wiping out a good month. A penalty doubles in exactly two places: on your Club's Fixture, where the Boost doubles the whole card both ways, and on an answer you marked Bold — and the floor widens with them, to −30 on your Club's Fixture and further as your Bold marks go on, up to −60.

Correct score up to +19 / −6

Predict the exact full-time scoreline. Selection: home and away (non-negative whole numbers). Resolves only once the Fixture is finished. Goals, scored penalties and own goals count for the Club they are recorded for — an own goal is recorded for the side it went in for.

A scoreline is really four reads in one — who wins, how many each side scores, and the margin — so it scores in parts rather than all-or-nothing:

The parts only ever add — the −6 penalty fires solely when the outcome itself is wrong, never for a missed goal count. A near miss is worth something real: say you predict 2–1 and it finishes 2–0 — the outcome is right (+2) and the home goals are right (+1), so the evening ends at +3, not zero. Predict the winner right and get everything else wrong and you still keep the +2. Only naming the wrong winner costs you.

The Underdog bonus. A correct full scoreline that at most 10% of the Fixture's pre-kickoff Players named earns an extra +5. Difficulty here is measured against the crowd, not against any external source: if almost everyone saw the 2–1 coming, hitting it proves less than hitting the 0–3 nobody saw. The crowd snapshot is taken at the Lock, ten minutes before kick-off, when every card is in.

A full hit is the biggest single reward in the game — and on your Followed Club's Fixture it is worth +38.

First goalscorer +10 / −4

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. The −4 penalty is the second-sharpest on the card because even the most obvious striker scores first barely a quarter of the time — the question invites a name, and the price reminds you the name has to be earned.

First-goal minute +6 first half +12 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 +12 against the first half's +6. 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 +6 / −2 no +1 / −4

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.

The two answers are priced on opposite shapes. Predicting the red is rare and rewards +6 at a gentle −2. Saying no is right most of the time, so it earns a nominal +1 — but when the safe answer is wrong, it costs −4. Being confidently safe and wrong has to hurt, or repeating "no" every match would be free Score; priced this way, "always no" loses ground slowly, and only reading which matches actually carry a red risk comes out ahead.

Cards over/under +2 / −3

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. The line sits near a genuine coin-flip, which is exactly why the penalty outweighs the reward — a fair coin has to lose here, and only a real read on the referee and the fixture's temper beats it.

First sub: who goes off +14 / −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 carries one of the biggest rewards on the card and counts as a hard hit. 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 +14 / −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 seven live questions, one per kind of event: a goal, a card, a corner, a foul, a shot on target, an offside, a save. Each is a single dropdown — pick how soon you think it happens, in 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes — and tap Lock. The answer locks the instant you tap it (5/10/15/20′).

The 5-minute window is always one question: does it happen in the next five minutes. A goal, a card, a corner, a shot on target, an offside, a save — one event, yes or no, never a count (one event at 5′). A goal in the next 5 minutes is the long shot (under a quarter of the time) and pays the most; a goal in the next 15 minutes happens nearly half the time and pays the least — and where a window would happen too often to price, the row simply stops there. That is why there is no 5-minute foul question: a foul in any five minutes is close to a certainty in every competition we serve, so the foul row starts at 10 minutes.

The longer windows ask for more of a frequent event — "2+ cards in 10 minutes", "3+ corners in 10 minutes", "4+ fouls in 10 minutes" — so every rung is priced from how often it really happens in that competition. On those busy rows the plain 5-minute question is the likely one and pays less than the 10-minute rung beside it (a card in the next 5 minutes happens more often than two cards in the next 10), while on the rarer events — goal, offside, save — the shorter window pays more all the way down the row. Every miss costs −2. Prices differ between competitions because the rates do; the app shows the exact price in the dropdown, and the Followed Club Boost doubles both the reward and the miss.

One question at a time per subject. While your goal answer is open you cannot open another goal window — it frees the moment the answer resolves: instantly when the event happens, at the end of the window otherwise (one open Moment per subject). At most 30 Moments fit on one Fixture, and the app counts them down for you. Any of the Fixture's three Bold marks can be spent on a Moment.

The substitution call. Name a Club, who goes off and who comes on. It lands only when the official substitution pairs exactly those two — and only if it happens ten or more whole minutes after the minute you called it: a call made in the 62nd minute counts from the 72nd, and never expires before the whistle. It misses the moment either player is used in a different substitution, if the pair comes too early, or at full time. You may make as many calls as you like on a Fixture, but each player can be named once by you, off or on, for the whole match — and every miss costs.

Red card and VAR review left the live board with the ladder — too rare in a 5-to-20-minute window to price honestly — and offsides and saves joined it. Some questions need live match statistics; where a League's feed does not carry them, that Subject simply is not offered.

Bold

Bold is how you say this one I'm sure of — and be held to it. Each Fixture gives you three Bold marks, and they are yours to spend where you like: all three on the card, all three on Moments, or any mix. A Bold answer scores double when it lands — and loses double when it does not. Both directions, always: Bold is a declaration, not a discount, and an answer you would not double the downside on is an answer you were not actually sure of.

Bold combines with the Followed Club Boost: a Bold answer on your own Club's Fixture counts x4 — four times the Score when it lands, four times the loss when it does not. The two used to be exclusive, back when the Boost doubled wins only: a doubling that never touched the downside could not be allowed to compound with one that did. Now that both count each way, compounding them changes how much is riding on the answer and nothing about whether it is worth making.

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, both ways on that Club's Fixtures.

The Boost counts both ways. A correct prediction on your Club's Fixture scores double — a full exact scoreline becomes +38, a first goalscorer +20 — and a wrong one costs double too: the same goalscorer missed is −8, an exact score whose outcome missed −12. That is the whole point of it. A multiplier on the wins alone would pay you for answering everything on your Club's match whether you read it well or not, and the game is a test of judgement, not of how many questions you can reach. It applies to every Prediction and Moment on the Fixture except a Bold one (which combines with it for x4) and is pinned at Lock, so changing your Followed Club never disturbs a card that has already locked. An answer you also marked Bold counts x4 — the two multipliers combine.

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.

Monthly achievements

Being right about hard things repeatedly is recognised on your profile, not on the scoreboard. A hard hit is a correct answer worth +9 or more before any multiplier: a full exact scoreline, a first goalscorer, a second-half first-goal bracket, and either first-substitution answer. Every hard hit counts once toward the month its card Locked in — and Bold does not double the count, nor does the Underdog bonus change what counts as a hit.

Achievements pay no Score — deliberately. Earlier versions of the game paid a monthly bonus for the same milestones, and a leaderboard number that partly measures attendance is a worse leaderboard; the full badge set lands on profiles as it is built out. Low-reward answers such as red card no, first-half brackets and cards over/under never count, which is the point: the milestones recognise 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. Each can be filtered to one Club — a month or a season of that Club's Fixtures, and on a matchday the Fixtures it played (below).

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 starts empty for everyone on the 1st, so a Player who joins in March can win March.

A Club board is the same board with one Club picked: the Score each Player earned on the Fixtures that Club played in the month or Season — cards, Live Moments and the substitution call alike, counted once each — ranked by the same rule. It is a filter on Fixtures, not on sides: picking a Club never means "backed that Club to win". A Player with nothing on the Club's Fixtures is not on its board; the boards of every Club and the unfiltered board agree Fixture by Fixture. Pick a Club with the search box above the board; it stays picked across the month, the Season and the matchday.

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. Playing is free, and Score cannot be bought, sold, or exchanged for anything — the only currency here is Score and pride.
• Unofficial & independent. Not affiliated with any league, club, or competition. Crests, competition logos and player photographs belong to their owners and are shown to identify real matches; tell us if one should not be here and it will be gone.
• Entertainment first. A closed loop of predictions, points, and ranks — for fun and bragging rights.

Changelog