Contest Rules
These Contest Rules govern all fantasy trading Contests on OpposingTrade, including entry requirements, lineup construction, scoring, settlement, payouts, cancellations, and disputes. Contest-specific details — including entry fee, prize structure, lineup size, contest type, and lock time — are displayed on each Contest's detail page and may vary. In the event of any conflict between these general rules and Contest-specific terms, the Contest-specific terms control. Last updated: March 20, 2026.
1. Scope
These rules apply to all real-money and free Contests offered on the OpposingTrade platform. By submitting a Contest entry, you confirm that you have read and agree to these Contest Rules as well as OpposingTrade's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. All three documents form a single binding agreement.
2. Geographic Eligibility
Real-money Contest entry is available only to users physically located in jurisdictions where participation in skill-based paid fantasy contests is lawful at the time of entry. You may not enter a real-money Contest if you are physically located in or a resident of Washington (Washington law generally prohibits internet gambling; knowingly transmitting or receiving gambling information over the internet is a Class C felony under RCW 9.46.240, except where state law expressly authorizes the activity), Idaho, Alabama, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, or any other jurisdiction where paid skill-based fantasy contests are prohibited or cannot be legally offered. You are solely responsible for confirming that your participation is legal in your jurisdiction. OpposingTrade does not represent that its geographic eligibility rules are the same as any other operator's rules. OpposingTrade may use IP geolocation and GPS verification to confirm eligibility. By submitting an entry you represent that you are not located in a restricted jurisdiction at that time. Circumventing geographic restrictions through VPNs, proxies, falsified location data, or other means is prohibited and will result in entry voids, immediate prize forfeiture, and permanent account termination without refund. Free practice Contests may have broader geographic availability.
3. Age and Identity Verification
You must be at least 18 years of age to enter any real-money Contest. OpposingTrade may require age and identity verification — including submission of a W-9 or equivalent tax certification — before releasing any prize payout. If you fail or refuse to complete required verification, your prize may be forfeited and your account suspended. OpposingTrade may verify age and identity at any time, including retroactively upon payout request. Identity information is handled per our Privacy Policy.
4. Entry Fees and Enrollment
Contest entry fees are deducted from your platform wallet balance at the time you submit a valid Lineup. Entry fees are non-refundable except in circumstances described in the Cancellation, Merger, and Refund section of these rules. OpposingTrade may impose per-user entry limits that restrict the maximum number of Lineups any single user may enter in a specific Contest. Multiple-entry Contests allow more than one Lineup per user up to the posted limit. All entries must be submitted and confirmed before the posted Contest lock time. A submission in progress at the moment of lock that has not been confirmed is not a valid entry.
5. Lineup Construction and Salary Cap
Each Contest requires you to select a specified number of eligible public Traders to form your Lineup. You may not include the same Trader more than once in a single Lineup. Where a salary cap is in effect, the total salary cost of your selected Traders must not exceed the cap at the time of submission. Salaries are assigned by OpposingTrade's dynamic pricing engine and may change between Contest windows. A Lineup that becomes over-budget due to a salary update before lock must be revised and resubmitted before lock; an over-budget Lineup at lock will be rejected with the entry fee refunded. OpposingTrade is not responsible for ensuring your saved Lineup remains valid through salary changes — it is your responsibility to monitor and resubmit.
6. Salary Cap and Dynamic Pricing
OpposingTrade uses an automated dynamic pricing engine to set and adjust Trader salary values between Contest windows. Salaries may reflect recent performance scores, contest ownership concentration, scoring volatility, and other platform-defined inputs. Users should not assume salaries remain constant. OpposingTrade does not guarantee that any specific salary value will be available for any future Contest. Salary adjustments are a core feature of the platform, not a malfunction. Pricing changes intended to manage lineup concentration and contest balance are described in our Terms of Service.
7. Contest Lock
Every Contest has a published lock time, typically corresponding to the start of the Contest's performance window. No new entries may be submitted and no Lineup changes may be made after the lock time. You are solely responsible for ensuring entries are submitted before lock. OpposingTrade is not responsible for submission failures caused by user-side technical issues, internet outages, last-minute platform load, or user error. To protect your entries, submit well before the published lock time. System clock discrepancies between your device and OpposingTrade's servers are resolved in favor of OpposingTrade's server time.
8. Scoring System
Contest scores are computed from normalized Trader performance metrics recorded within the Contest's official time window, using OpposingTrade's scoring formula. The formula may include weighted components such as: normalized profit/loss (PnL), risk-adjusted return metrics (e.g., Sharpe ratio), win rate, consistency measures, and drawdown penalties. Each component may carry a different weight as specified in Contest-specific rules. All metric normalization is computed relative to other Traders scored in the same Contest window. A Lineup's total score is the sum of the individual scores of its selected Traders. Score weights and formula parameters may change between Contest types and are disclosed in Contest-specific rules where they differ from platform defaults.
9. Official Data Source, Live Scoring, and Stat Corrections
OpposingTrade's official scoring source is its internal normalized performance data pipeline, which ingests and processes trading activity from contracted data providers. This pipeline is the authoritative source for all final scores; no external display or third-party tool overrides it. Live scores shown during an active Contest are preliminary estimates subject to feed latency, normalization delays, and provider corrections. If a data provider issues a correction to underlying performance data after scores are displayed — including corrections to trade records, execution prices, or performance metrics — OpposingTrade may recalculate affected scores and adjust rankings prior to final settlement. If a correction materially changes paid-position outcomes after official settlement, OpposingTrade will apply a corrected settlement and notify affected users. OpposingTrade's determination of which corrections are material is final. Corrections will not be applied more than 72 hours after settlement unless caused by a verified data provider error acknowledged in writing by the provider.
10. Traders with No Scorable Activity
If a Trader you selected has no scorable performance data recorded during the Contest window — due to a market closure, platform data gap, Trader inactivity, data error, or Trader removal from the platform before lock — OpposingTrade will apply one of the following remedies as appropriate: (a) score the affected Trader position at zero or neutral for that window; (b) substitute an eligible replacement Trader of similar salary value; or (c) cancel and refund the Contest. The applicable remedy will be disclosed in Contest-specific rules where practicable. If a Trader is removed from the platform after lock but before settlement and no suitable substitute is available, the affected entry may be refunded.
11. Ranking and Tiebreakers
Contestants are ranked in descending order of total Lineup score. In the event of tied scores between two or more contestants, the following tiebreak procedure is applied in order: (1) time of earliest confirmed entry submission — the user who submitted first ranks higher; (2) OpposingTrade's stable system-generated entry identifier ordering. Tiebreaker results are final. Tied positions that fall within the same prize tier each receive the full payout for that tier — prizes are not split. If two consecutive prize tiers are implicated by a tie (e.g., positions 3 and 4 where position 3 pays more than position 4), the combined prize amount for those positions is divided equally among all tied contestants.
12. Payout Structures
Each Contest's prize structure — including the number of paid positions, prize amounts per position, and any top-heavy or flat distributions — is displayed on the Contest detail page before entry. Payout structures may be: (a) Fixed — exact prize amounts regardless of final entry count; (b) Scaled — prize amounts that adjust in proportion to final entry count, up to a stated maximum; or (c) Guaranteed — a minimum total prize pool funded by OpposingTrade even if entry fees collected fall short of that amount. All stated prize amounts are gross amounts before applicable tax withholding. Paying positions are determined after official settlement. Payout percentages and position counts may differ between Contest formats.
13. Guaranteed Contests and Overlay
A Contest labeled 'Guaranteed' commits OpposingTrade to fund the posted prize pool regardless of how many entries are received. If the total entry fees collected from users fall short of the guaranteed prize pool amount, OpposingTrade funds the difference, known as 'overlay.' Overlay increases the expected value for human participants. OpposingTrade's decision to offer Guaranteed Contests is made at its sole discretion and is not a commitment to offer any Guaranteed format in future Contests. OpposingTrade reserves the right to cancel a Guaranteed Contest before lock without obligation if the Contest cannot proceed for valid operational, legal, or technical reasons, in which case all entry fees are refunded.
14. House Entries and Seeded Lineups
Certain Contests may include House Entries — platform-controlled Lineups funded and submitted by OpposingTrade — to improve Contest liquidity and field size during periods of low demand. The presence of House Entries in a Contest is disclosed in the Contest interface where required by applicable law or regulation. House Entries are ineligible to receive cash prizes. Any prize allocation that would otherwise go to a House Entry finishing in a paid position will instead be redistributed to the next eligible human participant(s) in rank order, or retained as additional overlay funding, thereby increasing the prize pool available to real users. House Entry Lineups are constructed using the same publicly available performance data and scoring inputs available to all users at the time of entry. House Entries do not represent insider or non-public competitive information.
15. Ownership Caps and Anti-Stacking Rules
To preserve contest integrity and prevent a single dominant lineup configuration from capturing all prizes, OpposingTrade may impose ownership caps limiting the percentage of total entries in a Contest that may include any single Trader. Ownership caps, where applied, are disclosed in Contest-specific rules. A Lineup that would cause a Trader's ownership to exceed the cap at the time of submission may be rejected with the entry fee refunded, or the submission may be queued and accepted only if the cap is not exceeded. OpposingTrade may also impose maximum lineup overlap restrictions or diversification requirements in specific Contest formats to ensure competitive variety.
16. Contest Cancellation, Merger, and Refunds
OpposingTrade may cancel and fully refund a Contest before lock if: the Contest fails to reach its minimum fill threshold; a data feed failure prevents reliable scoring; technical issues prevent fair play; or cancellation is required for legal or operational reasons. If a Contest is cancelled before lock, all entry fees are refunded to participants' wallet balances within a reasonable time. OpposingTrade may merge two or more similar under-filled Contests into a single Contest; merged entries carry over to the surviving Contest, which retains the combined prize pool and the scoring and payout rules of the surviving Contest format unless otherwise stated at the time of merger. Contests may not be cancelled after lock except in extraordinary circumstances such as catastrophic and unrecoverable data failure or a government legal order, in which case OpposingTrade will issue refunds where practicable and will notify affected users promptly.
17. Contest Modification Before Lock
OpposingTrade may modify a Contest's entry fee, lineup size, prize pool amount, maximum entries, payout structure, or other parameters before the Contest lock time. If a material change is made to a Contest after you have submitted an entry, you will be notified via email and/or platform notification and given the opportunity to withdraw your entry for a full refund before lock. If you do not withdraw, continued participation constitutes acceptance of the modified parameters.
18. Settlement and Finality
Official settlement produces final ranks, triggers payout calculations, and credits prizes to wallet balances. Once a Contest is officially settled, results are final and binding except where OpposingTrade identifies a material operational or data error requiring correction. Settlement corrections may include score recalculations, rank adjustments, payout redistributions, or entry voids. OpposingTrade's determination on all settlement and scoring matters is final and binding. Corrections to settled Contests will be communicated to affected users and applied within a reasonable time.
19. Highly Experienced Player Disclosure
Consistent with applicable regulations, OpposingTrade may label certain users as 'Highly Experienced Players' — specifically, users who have won prizes above defined thresholds in prior Contests on OpposingTrade or other fantasy contest platforms. Where required by applicable law, including New York regulations, such labels will be displayed on a user's profile and visible to other participants before they join a Contest that the labeled user has entered. The purpose of this disclosure is to help participants make informed entry decisions. OpposingTrade defines 'Highly Experienced Player' thresholds in accordance with applicable law and reserves the right to update criteria as regulatory requirements evolve. Users who qualify for this designation are not prohibited from entering Contests; the designation is a disclosure only.
20. Dispute Resolution
Disputes regarding scoring, settlement results, payout amounts, or Contest administration must be submitted in writing to legal@opposingtrade.com within 72 hours of official Contest settlement. Your submission must include: your OpposingTrade username; the Contest name and ID; a specific description of the issue; and any supporting information. OpposingTrade will review the submission and respond within 14 business days. OpposingTrade's determination on scoring and settlement disputes is final and binding, subject to the binding arbitration process described in our Terms of Service. Disputes submitted after the 72-hour window may not be reviewed.
21. Responsible Gaming
OpposingTrade supports responsible and sustainable participation. Set personal spending and entry-frequency limits that are comfortable for you and never participate with funds you cannot afford to lose. OpposingTrade offers the following protections: (a) voluntary self-exclusion — contact support@opposingtrade.com to exclude yourself from all real-money Contests temporarily or permanently; self-exclusion requests are honored within one business day; (b) deposit and entry-fee limit settings available in account settings where applicable. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help: New York residents call or text 1-877-8-HOPENY (1-877-846-7369) or visit nyproblemgambling.org. All users may contact the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-522-4700 or visit ncpgambling.org. Both services are free, confidential, and available 24/7. OpposingTrade will not send promotional communications to users on the self-exclusion list.