Full Game Rules

1. Starting Out

• Every new player starts with $10,000 in-game money and 500 credibility.
• All money is virtual. No real-money deposits, withdrawals, or trades.
• Credibility ranges from 0 to 1000. It determines which tournament stages you can referee.

2. Tournament Stages

Each stage has its own match fee, bribe cap, credibility weight, and (for knockouts) a minimum credibility threshold:

3. Your Referee Schedule

• Your full schedule is drawn when you register: one fixture for every match day of the tournament, picked uniformly at random from that day's games.
• Group-stage assignments are always yours to referee.
• Knockout assignments are potential — you only take charge if your credibility meets that stage's threshold on match day. An above-tier fixture can't be refereed (and skipping it costs nothing), but it stays locked in the bookmaker.
• All fixtures on your schedule are excluded from betting from day one (conflict of interest).
• Exclusion or arrest voids all of your remaining assignments — those fixtures then unlock in the bookmaker.

4. Making Your Pick

• You predict the goal difference — an integer from -5 to +5 (clamped). A +5 means home wins by 5 or more, -5 means away wins by 5 or more.
• Optionally, predict the exact score (home goals, away goals). This unlocks the exact-score bonus.
• Picks can be edited until kickoff. After kickoff they're locked.
• Result is determined by the 90-minute scoreline. Extra time and penalties do not count — this matches the spec's intent to avoid the "the result is the result" ambiguity.
• If you don't submit a pick by kickoff, you lose 50 credibility (flat, no phase weighting). No fee earned.

5. Bribe & Bonus Formulas

5.1 Bribe per goal difference

For each predicted goal difference d, the bribe is computed pre-match based on the probability p(d) of that outcome (derived from consensus bookmaker odds):

bribe(d) = min( (p_max / p(d)) × 0.5 × match_fee,   cap_mult × match_fee )

Where p_max is the highest probability across all 11 goal differences. The most likely outcome thus pays effectively $0 bribe; longshots pay big, capped at cap_mult × match_fee. All bribes are rounded down to the nearest $100.

5.2 Exact-score bonus

If you also predict the exact score and both diff and score match:

bonus = min( (1/p_score)0.4 × 0.12 × match_fee,   3 × match_fee )

The bonus is capped at 3× the match fee.

6. Credibility

6.1 Credibility changes by pick distance

"Distance" is the absolute difference between your predicted diff and the actual diff:

• Distance 0 (correct diff): +40 cred
• Distance 1: +10 cred
• Distance 2: -25 cred
• Distance 3: -55 cred
• Distance 4: -90 cred
• Distance 5+: -90 cred (or instant arrest if pick was a top-4 longshot, see §7)

6.2 Exact-score credibility bonus

If diff is correct AND exact score is correct: +40 cred extra on top of the base.

6.3 Stage weighting

The cred change above is multiplied by the stage's credibility weight (1.0 in group MD1/MD2, up to 3.0 in the Final). Example: nailing the diff in the Final = 40 × 3.0 = +120 credibility. Missing by 4 in the Final = -90 × 3.0 = -270 credibility.

Credibility is always clamped to the [0, 1000] range. Going below 0 has the consequence in §7; above 1000 is impossible — it caps there.

7. Exclusion & Arrest

7.1 Exclusion (credibility ≤ 100)

If your credibility drops to 100 or below at any time, you become excluded from refereeing. You can still place bookmaker bets and climb the leaderboard, but you'll no longer be assigned matches to referee.

Exclusion is one-way for this tournament — there's no path back to refereeing once you're excluded.

7.2 Instant arrest

You're instantly arrested if BOTH conditions are met:

• Your pick was one of the 4 least probable goal differences for that match (a "top-4 longshot")
• The actual diff is 5 or more goals away from your prediction

Greedy bribe + total miss = jail.

7.3 Accumulation arrest

If your credibility drops below 0 (not just to 0) from accumulated bad picks, you're arrested by accumulation rather than instantly.

7.4 What happens when arrested

• All in-game money is forfeit (balance set to $0).
• All open bookmaker bets are forfeited (no refund, no payout).
• You're locked out of refereeing AND betting for the rest of the tournament.
• You remain on the leaderboard at $0 with status "Arrested".

8. Bookmaker Bets

8.1 What you can bet on

Any match in the tournament, except the one you're currently refereeing.

Markets available in v1: 1×2 (home / draw / away) only.

8.2 Odds & payouts

• Odds reflect consensus market odds at the time you place the bet. They lock at that moment ("captured odds").
• Payout = stake × captured odds, capped at $1,000,000 per individual bet.
• Stake is debited from your balance immediately when the bet is placed.

8.3 Settlement

When the match ends, winning bets are credited (stake × odds, capped). Losing bets forfeit the stake. If the match is cancelled or abandoned mid-play, the bet is voided and the stake refunded. If the bettor is arrested before the bet settles, the bet is forfeited (no refund).

9. Leaderboard & Winning

• The leaderboard ranks players by total in-game money (money + open bet stakes don't count until settled).
• Two scopes: Global (everyone) and Country (your selected home country).
• Arrested players remain visible at $0 to show what didn't make it.
• The tournament ends 24h after the Final. The leaderboard freezes at that moment.
• The top players win... bragging rights. There are no real-world prizes attached to the game directly. (Sponsorship-driven tournaments may offer separate prizes — see specific tournament rules.)

10. Edge Cases

Postponed / cancelled matches and walkovers

These don't occur in Dirty Whistle: results are simulated (a Poisson model seeded from the odds), so every fixture on the calendar gets played and settled about two hours after its scheduled kickoff.

Draws in knockout rounds

The simulator can produce a 90-minute draw in a knockout match. Picks and 1×2 bets settle on the regulation result (a draw means "X" wins); extra time and penalties aren't modelled. For the bracket, the away side advances as the simulator's deterministic tie-break.

3rd-place playoff

Treated as a regular semifinal-tier match: $40,000 match fee, 14× bribe cap, credibility weight 2.4, minimum 780 credibility to qualify.

I think the rules are wrong

The rules above are the canonical specification (v2.4) and what the live game implements. If you observe a discrepancy, please report it: bugs@dirtywhistle.com.