Money rules

Stakes and the pot

The stakes are $1, $5, $10, $20 and $50. The stake is per player: in a $5 game you each put in $5.

$1 and $5 games are open now. Higher stakes open one step at a time, after our fair-play checks are calibrated on real games. Until then the lobby shows them as "Opens after calibration".

Which open stakes you can play depends on your level.

Money rules: Levels

When you are paired, both stakes move into escrow for that game, in one step. Neither player can use them until the game ends.

When it ends, escrow pays out at once: to the winner, or back to both players.

You need at least the stake in your balance to look for a game.

The winner gets both stakes, less our 5% rake on the pot. There are no other fees.

Stake $1. Winner gets $1.90. Draw: both stakes back.

Stake $5. Winner gets $9.50. Draw: both stakes back.

The lobby shows this line for your stake before every game.

10% of every rake goes into the fair-play reserve. It pays players back when a cheater's own money is not enough.

Fair-play rules: Then our money

A draw returns both stakes in full. We take no rake.

An aborted game, and a game our server fails to finish, are voided: both stakes come back in full and nobody pays anything. There is no abort fee.

Game rules: Aborting

Every movement of money is an entry in our ledger, from one account to another. Each entry carries a fingerprint of the one before it, so a changed entry shows.

Your balance, the money in escrow, the reserve and our own money are separate accounts. We check every balance against the entries each time our server starts, and every night.

The stake ladder

Higher stakes unlock with evidence about you as a player, not with a high rating.

Level 0, Provisional: stakes up to $1. Everyone starts here.

Level 1, Establishing: stakes up to $5. It needs 20 rated games and a rating uncertainty of 110 or less.

Level 2, Verified: stakes up to $20. It needs 60 rated games, a rating uncertainty of 90 or less and an account at least 7 days old.

Level 3, High trust: stakes up to $50. It needs 150 rated games, a rating uncertainty of 80 or less and an account at least 21 days old.

Stakes above $5 are not open yet, whatever your level.

Game rules: Ratings

Every game played to a result counts, at any stake. Aborted and voided games do not.

The lobby shows what you still need for the next level.

With a verified Chess.com or Lichess history you need fewer rated games: 5 instead of 20 for level 1 and 30 instead of 60 for level 2.

Game rules: A verified chess history

While a fair-play review is open, you can play stakes up to $5 at most, and you do not move up to a level with higher stakes.

Fair-play rules: Holds

The weekly win limit

New accounts can win only so much a week: $20 a week at level 0 and $100 a week at level 1. Higher levels have no weekly limit.

It counts what you won minus what you lost over the past week, at every stake. Once that reaches your limit, your stakes lock until older wins drop out of the week.

The game that reaches the limit still pays in full.

Test credits

You get $20 in test credits the first time you sign in.

Test credits are not real money. You cannot pay money in, and test credits cannot be paid out.

When your balance is under $5, you can add $20 in Wallet.

You can do this at most once an hour, and at most 6 times in any 24 hours. Wallet says when you can add more.

Deposits and withdrawals

Deposits and withdrawals use payment methods in your own name only. We check the name against your verified identity.

Deposits never wait. What you deposited and did not play, you can withdraw at any time, back to where it came from.

Net winnings wait 3 days before you can withdraw them. They wait 14 days while your recent games show some fair-play evidence, well below the line that opens a review.

After a failed face check, winnings wait 14 days for the next 30 days.

Wallet shows one number, "Available to withdraw". It never shows how long your wait is, or why.

Every withdrawal needs a face check first. Withdrawals go only to a payment method in your own name.

Before winnings leave, we check your games of the last 30 days once more, more strictly than the weekly rescan.

There are no withdrawals while a fair-play review is open.

After you add or replace a device, withdrawals pause for 48 hours.

Fair-play rules: Rescans

A new computer you approve from your registered phone does not pause withdrawals.

Fair-play rules: Approving a new computer from your phone

Deposits out any time. Clean winnings out within 3 days. We publish our actual payout times every month.

Trust: A monthly report

You can set daily, weekly and monthly deposit limits, and weekly and monthly loss limits. A lower limit applies at once. A higher one starts after a cooling-off period.

You can also take a time-out, or exclude yourself. We cannot reopen an account before a self-exclusion ends.