Overview

Each week you may predict where gold, silver, platinum and palladium each settle at that metal’s final regular CME close, using chips. One entry per metal places up to three bets at once: a directional or flat bet, a range bonus, and a shot at the side pot.

Chips are play points only. They have no cash value, cannot be bought, sold or transferred, and cannot be exchanged for money, metal or anything else.

Players, accounts and chips

• Use one username per person. Sign-in needs your password and a code from an authenticator app. There is no email reset: keep your recovery codes.
• A username can hold several prediction accounts. Each new account starts with 1,000 chips. Up to five can be active and up to three can be opened per 24 hours. Deactivation is permanent.
• Every active account receives a 25-chip top-up when the market reopens for the week.
• One entry per username per metal per week, from any one of your accounts. Entries are final once submitted.

Weekly schedule · Central time

When the CME holiday schedule moves the week’s last regular close (for example an early close or a Thursday close), the settle moves with it and betting closes 24 hours before it. The settle time is shown on the game page every week.

The official settle price

Each metal settles from its own feed observations stamped in the final 60 seconds up to that metal’s last regular CME close. Gold, platinum and palladium round to the nearest whole dollar; silver rounds to the nearest cent. Halfway values round up (for gold, $4,245.50 settles as $4,246). The feed records about one observation every 15 seconds.

If fewer than two observations fall in that minute, the final five minutes are used. If there are still fewer than two, the week is void and every stake is refunded. Our feed is the official source; no outside price is used to settle or dispute results.

Making your entry

1. Exact number: your predicted settle, in whole dollars for gold, platinum or palladium and whole cents for silver, within 25% of that metal’s current price.
2. Band width: $5, $10, $20 or $40 for gold, platinum and palladium; $0.10, $0.20, $0.40 or $0.80 for silver. The band is centered on your exact number. A $20 band on $4,250 covers $4,240 to $4,260; the edges count as inside.
3. Stake: whole chips, from 1 up to the account balance.

Entry spot. Your entry spot is the first selected-metal price our feed records after you submit, usually within 20–40 seconds. The page shows an estimate before you submit. If no price arrives within five minutes, the entry is void, the stake is refunded and you may enter again.

How far your exact number sits from the entry spot decides your bet type:

• 1% or more away: a directional bet. Above the entry spot is a call that the metal goes up; below is a call that it goes down.
• Within 1%: a flat bet, a call that the metal ends the week close to where it is now.

With gold at $4,200, 1% is $42, so exact numbers from $4,159 to $4,241 are flat bets and anything outside that range is directional.

Directional bets

A directional bet pays on how far the metal travels from your entry spot toward your band. Reaching the near edge of your band doubles your stake; getting halfway there breaks even.

progress = (settle − entry spot) ÷ (near edge of band − entry spot)
payout = stake × 2 × progress, capped at 2× stake

• Wrong direction (or no move): progress is zero or below, and you lose your whole stake.
• Less than halfway: you get back less than you staked. Exactly halfway: you get your stake back.
• Reached your band or beyond: payout is capped at 2× your stake.
• Settled inside your band: you also earn the range bonus. Overshot past the far edge: you still get 2×, but no range bonus.

Flat bets

A flat bet is all or nothing. If the settle lands inside your band, you get 2× your stake plus the range bonus. If it lands outside, you lose your whole stake.

Range bonus and side pot

The range bonus is paid on top of your 2× payout when the settle lands inside your band: 4×, 2×, 1× or 0.5× the stake for the four band choices, respectively. Silver uses cent-based widths with the same multipliers.

If your exact number matches the settle (to the dollar, or to the cent for silver), you win that metal’s side pot. It costs nothing: every priced entry for that metal plays for it. Each metal’s pot is 50 chips for every priced entry that week, created by the game. One winner takes it all; if two or more match, the earliest submission wins. If nobody matches, there is no pot.

Each payout component is rounded down to whole chips.

Worked examples

In these gold examples, every player’s entry spot is $4,200.00, each stakes 200 chips, and gold settles at $4,245.

Leaderboard and fair play

The leaderboard is posted Saturday at 8:00 a.m. Central. Last week ranks usernames by total chips won or lost across metals that week. All time ranks usernames by net chips won across all of their prediction accounts, including deactivated ones. Starting chips and top-ups never count, so opening a fresh account refills your chips but never erases losses.

Offensive usernames, multiple usernames per person, and attempts to manipulate results or the service can lead to suspension. The operator may void a week, with every stake refunded, if the price feed or market schedule was demonstrably wrong.