This page provides detailed instructions and rules to help keep play fair and transparent, including account eligibility, full-square and half-square entries, reservation and checkout handling, two-stage Skill Card timing, pre-kickoff shuffle handling, public live grid viewing, live score progress updates, room notifications, wallet behavior, automatic next-room handling, and payout processing.

1. Eligibility and account requirements

• Participants must maintain an active SquareKick account to enter paid rooms, manage entries, review winner awards, and request withdrawals.
• Participants must be at least 18 years of age to create or complete an account for contest participation access.
• Standard sign-up and social sign-in/sign-up flows may require completion of phone number, 18+ age confirmation, and Terms / Privacy consent before contest participation features are fully available.
• Public visitors can still view supported public matchup information, including the Live Grid and live score progress updates, without purchasing a room entry.
• For paid room entry, SquareKick may require physical-location verification before checkout begins. Eligibility is based on where the participant is physically located at the time of joining, not residency, tax address, billing address, profile state, or payout state.
• The Current Physical Location State selection is a user declaration and audit signal. SquareKick may also use secure location verification when configured.

2. How the board works

• Each room uses a 10×10 board with 100 square coordinates.
• Every paid entry stays active for all four scoring periods in that matchup unless the room is canceled or voided.
• Participants can follow room status from upcoming, live, and completed matchup views, plus the room detail page and results page.

3. Full-square and half-square ownership

• A full-square purchase owns the entire coordinate.
• A half-square purchase owns one of two allowed half positions in the same coordinate for one-half of the room entry fee.
• A coordinate can contain either one full-square owner or up to two half-square owners, but not both at the same time.
• SquareKick controls how many coordinates may be opened for half-square sales and may adjust that limit before the shuffle cutoff.
• If one half of a coordinate is already taken, the remaining half may still be sold while half-square capacity is open.

4. Entering a room

• Participants join from the matchup or room pages, then choose purchase type inside the Join Room flow.
• On the landing page live board, participants may also tap or click any square on the current room grid to open the Join Room page for that live board room.
• Participants may use auto-assign or manually select open coordinates when those options are available.
• Room availability, landing-page state, and matchup status displays may update automatically as the platform state changes.
• Multiple entries may be purchased in one checkout when availability allows.
• Before paid checkout begins, participants may be asked to select their Current Physical Location State. The dropdown lists the allowed states configured for SquareKick paid room entry.
• If physical-location verification fails, if the selected current state does not match the verified physical state, or if the user appears outside the allowed states, checkout is blocked before Stripe payment confirmation.
• Mixed full-square and half-square purchases are not processed together in one payment.
• Reservations are temporary and are not final until checkout/payment succeeds.
• If reserved inventory is no longer available when checkout finalization occurs, the attempted transaction may be canceled under the platform's reservation logic.

5. Shuffle, lock, and board finalization

• Square ownership is set before the home and away board digits are assigned.
• The room cutoff/shuffle lead time is configurable, with 30 minutes before kickoff/tipoff as the standard setting. At that cutoff, entry selection closes, reserve autofill/finalization may run, digits are shuffled/revealed, and Stage 2 Skill Card submission opens.
• Skill Card-1 opens after a player joins a Skill Card room and locks at the room cutoff/shuffle time, which is 30 minutes before kickoff/tipoff.
• Skill Card-2 opens after shuffle once row and column digits are revealed and locks before kickoff/tipoff using the SquareKick-configured Stage 2 lock lead time, 2 minutes before kickoff/tipoff.
• After the board locks, ownership changes and refunds are no longer available unless the room is canceled or voided by the platform.
• After shuffle, the digit headers and final board positions are binding for that room.
• When half-square coordinates need to be completed for board finalization, the platform may fill any remaining open half under the room’s configured process.
• When a room fills and locks, SquareKick may automatically create the next room in a closed registration state. That room remains closed unless SquareKick support opens registration. If it is not opened before the configured deadline, 60 minutes before kickoff/tipoff when the room uses the 30-minute shuffle lead plus 30-minute protection window, the unopened room is removed.

6. How winners are determined

• Each scoring period identifies straight and reverse target digits from the official score: Straight uses home last digit + away last digit, and Reverse swaps those digits.
• In Skill Card rooms, those targets create the limited square/digit score portion rather than automatically deciding every prize by exact square ownership alone.
• Each prize slot is ranked by the room’s locked Combined Score configuration, using normalized Skill Card score plus straight/reverse square-digit score. SquareKick uses a skill-predominant scoring model where Skill Card performance is the primary determinant and square/digit position is a limited secondary scoring component. The commonly used locked weighting is Skill Card 80% and square/digit score 20%, while each room’s posted rules control the exact values for that room.
• Exact square-digit target matches receive the configured full square value, commonly 100. One-side/one-digit matches receive the configured partial value, commonly 30. These square/digit values remain secondary to the Skill Card layer under Skill Card scoring. A no-match square can still rank by Skill Card score under Skill Card scoring because square/digit score is one weighted component.
• If a room uses posted straight/reverse digit rules, the posted rules explain how straight and reverse winners are based on score-digit square matches for that room.
• For standard straight/reverse digit rooms, if the exact two-digit square is owned by an eligible participant, that participant receives the prize slot. No one-digit fallback winners are paid for that prize slot.
• Platform reserve squares are coverage-only positions and are never eligible to win. If an exact two-digit target is held only by platform reserve entries, eligible one-digit participant positions share that prize: home-digit matches are Straight fallback winners, and away-digit matches are Reverse fallback winners.
• If an exact platform reserve hit has no eligible one-digit participant fallback positions, the slot is marked No eligible winner and the prize-slot amount moves to the No-Winner Return Pool after the room is final.
• SquareKick is a skill-predominant NFL/NBA sports knowledge and matchup-analysis contest experience, not a sportsbook, casino, lottery, or house-banked product.
• Participants may use team statistics, scoring trends, pace, injury reports, roster knowledge, matchup history, score-prediction judgment, confidence decisions, tiebreaker analysis, and other sports analysis when deciding whether and how to participate.
• Quarter 1, Quarter 2, Quarter 3, and Final / Quarter 4 are treated as separate payout periods under the room setup.
• Published live scores, quarter winners, and final results shown in the app are the authoritative platform display for contest participation.
• The Live Grid and supported live game views are open to the public for score-following purposes.
• Any public user can open the live game experience and follow live score progress updates while the game is in progress.
• During live game streaming, those public and signed-in user updates may refresh about every 15 seconds when live publishing is active.
• Score displays may be produced through supported SquareKick score-update flows, including manual score publishing or connected live-score updates when available.

7. Award distribution and result records

• Room award distribution follows the room’s financial settings and displayed award breakdown.
• Rooms may use either a 100 Squares Guaranteed model, where SquareKick LLC covers unfilled squares under platform reserve rules, or a Collected Funds Only model, where winner awards are calculated only from paid participant entries collected for that room.
• Platform reserve entries may fund or complete the board, but they do not compete for winner awards and do not appear as winners.
• Quarter and final award allocations follow the active room financial settings.
• Current split inside each quarter is Straight 80% and Reverse 20% for Q1–Q3.
• Current split for Q4 / Final is Straight 47% and Reverse 10% of collected room funds.
• If a prize slot remains tied after all objective tiebreakers, that prize slot is split among the remaining tied eligible entries. If a winning entry is split between half-square owners, the award for that entry is divided proportionally between those owners.
• If a prize slot is marked No eligible winner, the No-Winner Return Pool is allocated after the room is final to funded room contributors based on paid contribution amount, minus any unrecoverable processing, transfer, or payout fees where applicable.
• Participants can review recorded outcomes on Results & Payouts.

8. Wallets, withdrawals, and payout setup

• When winner awards are credited through the platform wallet flow, they appear in Wallet / Transactions.
• Available withdrawal amounts are governed by the current wallet and withdrawal status logic shown in the app.
• Users are responsible for maintaining valid payout details in Payout Account Setup.
• Payout readiness and secure payout setup requirements may affect whether withdrawals or winner disbursements can be completed.
• Withdrawals requested through Withdraw Funds remain subject to SquareKick review, payout readiness, and secure payment processing.

9. Room financial settings

• Displayed room pricing, award breakdowns, and active room financial settings govern the exact calculation for that room.

10. Refunds and cancellations

• Refund eligibility is controlled by the room’s refund cutoff setting.
• After the refund cutoff passes, entries are treated as final unless the platform cancels or voids the room or matchup.
• If a room, matchup, or entry is canceled or voided by platform rules or SquareKick review, refunds are handled through the platform refund flow.
• Refunds, cancellations, or reversals may also depend on payment processing status, security review, and whether the relevant cutoff or lock time has passed.

11. Fair play and platform authority

• Attempts to manipulate payment flow, square ownership, scoring, results, payouts, notifications, or platform operation may result in reversal, cancellation, suspension, or account action.
• The platform may update operating procedures, financial settings, and published page content at its discretion.
• By entering a room, the participant accepts the current published rules, financial structure, and platform decisions for that room.