Before you start

• Review the Contest Rules, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy.
• Participants must be 18 years of age or older to join a contest room.
• Matchup, room, scoreboard, and payout times are shown in America/Chicago inside the app.
• Paid room entry requires the participant to be physically located in an allowed state at the time checkout starts. Residency, billing address, tax address, profile state, and payout state do not determine paid-entry eligibility.
• A room contains 100 squares. Under the standard room timing, the room cutoff/shuffle happens 30 minutes before kickoff/tipoff, and Skill Card-2 locks 2 minutes before kickoff/tipoff.
• The branded home page is the public entry page to SquareKick. From there, users can move into matchups, live activity, help pages, and account actions.
• On mobile, the landing page helpful links focus on Upcoming Games, Live Games, and Previous Games so you can quickly move between matchup states.

Step 1 — Create an account

1. Open the Sign up page.
2. Enter your Display Name, Username, Email, Phone Number, Birthdate, and Password.
3. Agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, then tap Sign up.
4. You must be at least 18 years old to complete registration.
5. You are logged in automatically after registration.

Step 2 — Log in or reset your password

1. Open the Login page if you already have an account.
2. Enter your username and password, then tap Log In, or choose a supported social sign-in option.
3. Social sign-in/sign-up can log you into an existing same-email account or create a new account automatically.
4. If required profile details are missing after social sign-in, SquareKick redirects you to complete your phone number, 18+ age confirmation, and Terms / Privacy consent.
5. If you forgot your password, open Password Reset and follow the reset steps.

Step 3 — Use the main navigation

1. The bottom navigation keeps six participant shortcuts on one line: Matchups, My Rooms, Wallet, Results, Notifications, and Profile.
2. Use the landing page helpful links for fast access to key pages and matchup states.
3. Tap Matchups any time to return to the current game list.

Step 4 — Understand the Live Grid

1. The Live Grid is the public live board view for an active matchup or room when a game is underway.
2. It offers users a live look at the current board, square ownership, shuffled number headers, room status, and score movement while the game is in progress.
3. You can access the Live Grid from Matchups by opening a live matchup and then entering the current live room or board view. The branded home page can also route users into live activity.
4. Any public visitor can watch live score progress updates on the live game experience without entering a paid room.
5. During live game streaming, those public score progress updates may refresh about every 15 seconds when live publishing is active.

Step 5 — Browse matchups

1. Go to Matchups.
2. Matchups are organized into Upcoming, Live, and Completed / Final states.
3. Open a live matchup to access the Live Grid and current room activity.
4. Tap View Room to open the matchup’s room list and available rooms.
5. On the landing page live board, you can also tap any square on the current room grid to open the Join Room page for that room directly.

Step 6 — Review a room before joining

1. From the matchup page, choose the room you want to enter.
2. On the Room Detail page, review the room status, fill progress, award tabs, participants, winners, and live board status.
3. The Room Detail page is for review. Square purchase type selection now happens inside the Join Room flow.

Step 7 — Join a room

1. Tap Join from the matchup list or Join Room from the room detail page.
2. On the landing page live board, tapping any square on the current room grid also opens Join Room for that room.
3. Inside Join Room, review the Full Square Entry price, Half Square price, award breakdown, and payout model notice.
4. Select your Current Physical Location State when shown. The dropdown lists the allowed states configured for paid room entry.
5. Choose your purchase method: Auto Assign or Manual Select.

Step 8 — Submit Stage 1 Skill Card

1. After you join a Skill Card room, submit Stage 1 matchup predictions before the room cutoff/shuffle time.
2. Stage 1 includes predictions that do not require square digits, such as winning team, end-of-Q1 team score totals, halftime team score totals, end-of-Q3 team score totals, final team score totals, total points range, winning margin range, confidence pick, and tiebreaker combined totals.
3. For the team score total boxes, enter each team’s scoreboard total at that checkpoint. Example: if halftime is 69–58, enter 69 for one team and 58 for the other team, not 127.
4. For the tiebreaker combined total boxes, enter one combined number for both teams. Example: if halftime is 69–58, enter 127 for the Halftime combined total.
5. If you own multiple squares, you may apply one Stage 1 Skill Card to selected owned squares, or customize entries separately.
6. Stage 1 locks at the room cutoff/shuffle time, 30 minutes before kickoff/tipoff, and cannot be changed after square digits are revealed.

Step 9 — Submit Stage 2 after shuffle

1. After shuffle, each assigned square shows its final home/away digit pair.
2. Stage 2 opens only after row and column digits are revealed, then locks before kickoff/tipoff, 2 minutes before kickoff/tipoff.
3. Submit Stage 2 by predicting whether each owned square’s digits will hit at Q1, Halftime/Q2, Q3, Final, or No Hit.
4. You may bulk-apply one Stage 2 answer to multiple selected squares, but the page will still show each square so you can customize per-square predictions.
5. If you do not submit a Skill Card, your Skill Score is 0. Square/digit points may still count, but confidence bonuses and tiebreaker advantages are unavailable.

Step 10 — Choose full square or half square

1. Full square: you own the entire square entry.
2. Half square: you buy half of one square for half of the room entry fee.
3. Half-square availability is limited by the room’s current setup and closes before the shuffle cutoff.
4. If one half of a square is already taken, the remaining half may still be available while half-square capacity remains open.

Step 11 — Auto Assign or Manual Select

1. Auto Assign: the system reserves available square(s) for you. You can choose full or half purchase type and set the number of squares in one checkout.
2. Manual Select: you choose open square(s) on the 10×10 board yourself.
3. On manual selection, you can optionally enter a square name. That name appears on the board after payment.
4. You can complete one payment for multiple selected squares when availability allows.

Step 12 — Pay and confirm your entry

1. Before the secure Stripe payment box opens, SquareKick performs required paid-entry eligibility checks, including physical-location verification when configured.
2. When those checks pass and your square is reserved, the secure Stripe payment box opens.
3. Enter your payment details and tap Confirm Payment.
4. When payment succeeds, your entry becomes active and appears in your room records.
5. If the app says payment finalization is already in progress, do not start a second payment. The current flow is designed to finish the first finalization attempt and return the confirmed entry when it completes.
6. Winning eligibility follows the room’s scoring and payout rules shown in the award breakdown.

Step 13 — Track your entries in My Rooms

1. Go to My Rooms.
2. Review each room’s matchup, kickoff time, room status, entry timestamp, entry ID, and paid fee.
3. Use the View button to reopen that room and follow live updates.

Step 14 — Refunds and cancellation

1. If your paid entry is still eligible, My Rooms shows Cancel & Refund.
2. The system applies the room refund cutoff automatically based on kickoff time.
3. After the cutoff passes, entries become final unless the room or matchup is canceled or voided by the platform.

Step 15 — Follow shuffle, live board status, and results

1. Before kickoff, the room locks and the row / column digits are shuffled.
2. You can review the Pre-Shuffle Board when that state is available.
3. After shuffle, the room detail page shows the final board, live game status, winners, and shuffle proof information.
4. If a filled/locked room causes the next room to be automatically created, that new room stays closed until SquareKick support opens registration. Closed follow-on rooms are not featured on the Live Grid until registration is opened.
5. When live publishing is active, users can watch score progress updates on live views about every 15 seconds.
6. Open Results & Payouts to review winner records and payout status.
7. For standard rooms, platform reserve squares are coverage-only and never win. Exact participant hits win normally; exact platform reserve hits can trigger one-digit fallback winners, or a No eligible winner return-pool result if no eligible fallback exists.

Step 16 — Wallet, withdrawals, and payout setup

1. Open Wallet / Transactions to review credits, debits, and withdrawal-related activity.
2. Open Withdraw Funds to request a withdrawal when your available balance permits it.
3. Open Profile Settings to update your display name, email, password, and payout status details.
4. Open Payout Account Setup to connect or update your Stripe payout destination.

Step 17 — Notifications

1. Open Notifications to view in-app updates about matchups, room activity, scores, and payouts.
2. The platform can send in-app, email, or phone / SMS notices according to the notification options available for your account.
3. Notifications are marked as read automatically when you open the page.

Helpful links