Cash Contests: The Six Games

Coming soon. Cash contests aren't open yet — these rules are published ahead of launch so you can read exactly what you'd be entering. Everything below also appears in binding form in the official contest rules. The free leaderboard runs for everyone, everywhere, always.

Fantasy Joes cash contests are peer-to-peer skill contests. You enter against other players, not against the house: entry fees fund the prizes, Fantasy Joes collects a flat 10% service fee, and we never compete in contests or have a stake in who wins. Every contest is scored by the same accuracy score as the free leaderboard (lower is better — see how scoring works), using the rankings you already built. There is no separate lineup to set.

The rules every game shares

• Entries close at kickoff. Weekly contests close at the week's first NFL kickoff; the two season-long games close at Week 1 kickoff.
• Withdraw any entry before it closes for a full, automatic refund.
• Contests that don't meet their minimum at lock are cancelled and every entry refunds in full, automatically.
• One entry per contest, unlimited contests. You can never enter the same contest instance twice — but you can enter as many instances as you like in a week. All of your entries are backed by the same rankings.
• Payouts are fixed and published before you enter and never change after a contest opens. Field size can change how many entrants land in a payout tier; the multipliers themselves never stretch. Rounding remainders stay with the house rather than inflating any prize.
• Everything settles Tuesday, when the week is scored (6:00 AM UTC, after Monday Night Football). Winnings land in your wallet automatically — see wallet & eligibility.
• Player locks protect every contest. Each NFL player freezes on every board at his own kickoff and is graded at his locked rank, so nobody can edit a board after results start coming in.

Cash Duels (head-to-head)

One opponent, one week, better accuracy score wins.

• Stakes: $5 to $250 per duel (standard levels: $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, $250).
• Payout: winner takes 1.8× their entry fee.
• Exact tie: a push — both entries refunded in full, no fee taken.
• The lobby works like poker tables. Pick a stake, see open tables (one player seated, with their username, leaderboard rank, and head-to-head record visible before you commit), and sit down to match instantly — or open your own table and wait for a challenger.
• Private challenges: create a duel at any standard stake level and send the link to anyone. The challenge is link-only; if nobody accepts by lock, your entry refunds automatically.
• You can never be matched against yourself, and rematches are allowed.
• Late seats (after Thursday): head-to-head is the one game that stays open past the Thursday close — you can post or take a full-week seat any time until the week's last kickoff. Posting pays your entry like any other (every visible seat is a funded seat), open seats never expire mid-week, and anything unmatched at the last kickoff refunds in full automatically. Fairness comes from symmetry: both boards' locked players are already on the record, and both sides see the running locked totals before the match forms.
• The 10-minute confirm: if any game has kicked off or been running since a late seat was posted, the match doesn't form instantly — the seat's poster gets 10 minutes to confirm at the current locked totals (shown to both sides). No confirm, and the table dissolves with both entries refunded in full. If nothing has run since the seat went up, taking it matches instantly, exactly like the regular lobby. Private challenge links follow the same rule.

Double-Up (50/50)

Finish in the top half, win 1.8×.

• Stakes: $5 to $250.
• Field: up to 10 entrants. Runs with 6 or more at lock; fewer than 6 means it cancels and refunds.
• Payout: the top half of the field, rounded down, each win 1.8×. With 10 entrants, 5 win; with 7 entrants, 3 win. (In an odd-sized field, rounding the winner count down means more than the 10% fee stays with the house that week — the winner counts above are exact, so you can see it before entering.)
• When a Double-Up fills, a fresh one opens at the same stake automatically — there's always a seat.

Tables (10-player sit-and-go)

Ten players, three places paid, top-heavy.

• Stakes: $5 to $250.
• Field: exactly 10 — a table only runs full. Short tables at lock cancel and refund.
• Payout: 1st 5× · 2nd 2.5× · 3rd 1.5×.
• Tables also respawn when they fill: a new one opens at that stake the moment the tenth seat is taken.

The 12x (weekly tournament)

The week's big field. Top score in the top 1% pays 12×.

• Stakes: $5 to $100 (standard levels: $5, $10, $25, $50, $100).
• Field: minimum 30 entrants at lock, no maximum. Under 30 cancels and refunds.
• Payout tiers (by finishing percentile, multipliers fixed):

The prize budget is 90% of all entry fees (the 10% fee is the only deduction). The 1.2× tier extends down the standings until that budget is exhausted.

Worked example — 100 entrants at $10: prize budget $900. One winner takes $120 (12×), four take $60 (6×), ten take $30 (3×), and twenty take $12 (1.2×) — $900 paid to 35 of 100 entrants. At the 30-entrant minimum ($10): budget $270 — one $120, one $60, three $30, and the budget is spent: five winners.

The Sunday Slate (second weekly window)

Missed the Thursday close? The Sunday Slate is a separate weekly family that exists because the full-week games closed — not a side door into them.

• Window: opens at Thursday kickoff (the moment full-week contests close), entries close Sunday 1:00pm ET.
• Scoring: your same rankings, graded only on players whose games kick off Sunday 1:00pm ET or later (the afternoon slate, Sunday night, and Monday night). Thursday games, Saturday games, and Sunday-morning international games are simply not in the slate — for anyone. The perfect-score floor is computed on the same Sunday-only player set, so the math works exactly like the full week, just on the slate.
• Why it's fair: every entrant faces the identical information cutoff. Nobody carries locked Thursday results in, and nobody can peek at part of their own outcome before entering.
• Formats: head-to-head duels, Double-Up, and a slate tournament, at the standard stake levels, same 10% fee, settled Tuesday with everything else.
• Full-week contests are completely unchanged — the Thursday close stays exactly as published.

The Draft Board Open (season-long)

Your locked draft board against everyone else's, graded across the whole season.

• Stakes: $10, $25, or $100.
• Entry window: opens August 1 and closes five days before Week 1 kickoff — the same moment every entrant's draft board is snapshotted.
• Scoring: the standard draft-board score — full-season totals, breakouts and busts included. Entrants keep the same add/drop swap every free user has, until boards snapshot.
• Standings update every Tuesday all season; the contest settles on the final grade after Week 18.
• Payouts: the same tier structure as The 12x (12× / 6× / 3× / 1.2×). Minimum 30 entrants per pool at lock, or it cancels and refunds.

Last Joe Standing (survivor)

Outlast the field. Each week the bottom third is cut.

• Stakes: $10, $25, or $100.
• Entry window: August 1 until five days before Week 1 kickoff. Minimum 50 entrants, or it cancels and refunds.
• The cut: after each week is scored, remaining entrants are ranked by that week's accuracy score and the bottom third (rounded down) is eliminated.
• The finish: the contest ends when the field is cut down to the published stop size — 3 survivors, or 2% of the starting field for big pools, whichever is larger — or after Week 14, whichever comes first.
• Payouts: survivors at the end win 12×. The entrants eliminated in the final cut — the bubble — win 3×. Everyone else, nothing.
• Ties are never split in survivor. On a tied weekly score: better cumulative score survives; still tied, the earlier entry survives. Cut counts are always exact.
• Skipping a week doesn't eliminate you by default — a week you don't play is scored on the consensus board you started from. Coasting is legal; it just tends to lose to people actually editing.

Example with 50 entrants at $25: weekly cuts shrink the field 50 → 34 → 23 → 16 → 11 → 8 → 6 → 4 → 3, ending around Week 9. Three survivors win $300 each; the one player cut from 4 to 3 takes the $75 bubble prize.

How ties pay (all games except survivor)

Entrants tied across a payout boundary split the combined payouts of the positions they span, equally. Two players tied for 1st in The 12x (where 1st pays $120 and 2nd pays $60 on a $10 stake) each take $90. Five winners and a tie at the cut line of a Double-Up? The two tied players split one winner's share. The only exceptions: head-to-head exact ties are a push (both refunded), and survivor uses the deterministic rules above.

Refunds, in one list

Your entry refunds in full, automatically, when:

• you withdraw before the contest closes;
• a contest fails to meet its minimum at lock (or a Table isn't exactly 10, or your head-to-head never matched);
• a late head-to-head seat goes unmatched at the week's last kickoff, or a 10-minute confirm passes without an answer (both sides refund);
• a head-to-head ends in an exact tie (the push);
• your entry payment confirms too late (more than a few minutes after close).

Contest results are final at settlement. Official stat corrections within 72 hours (automatic sweeps Wednesday and Friday) still update the free leaderboard, season standings, and draft-board standings — but money outcomes never change after payouts go out, and payouts are never clawed back. Full details in the official contest rules.

Eligibility, in one line

18 or older (19+ in Alabama and Nebraska), physically located in an eligible state at entry — the live state list, plus deposits, payouts, and taxes, are on wallet & eligibility. Set your own limits any time: responsible play.