How scoring works: markets, confidence and close calls

A single fixture isn't one prediction — it's a whole card of them. For each match you can call the final result, the exact scoreline, both teams to score, the total number of goals, who opens the scoring, whether there's a penalty or a red card, the half-time leader, and more. Each of these is a separate market with its own point value, so a match you read well can be worth far more than a single correct guess.

You don't have to play every market. Pick the ones you have a genuine read on and leave the rest. A confident, well-chosen handful of calls will usually out-score a scattergun of low-conviction punts, because — as you'll see below — wrong high-confidence calls actively cost you.

Markets open 24 hours before kickoff and lock five minutes before the first whistle. That lock is final: there's no editing once a match is live, so your call is your call. Treat the last hour before lock as your window to react to team news.

Every pick is backed with a confidence level, and that choice is the heart of the game. Low confidence is the safe option: a smaller reward if you're right, but little downside if you're wrong. Medium is the balanced middle. High confidence is the bold call — it pays roughly double a base correct pick, which is how big scores are built.

The catch is symmetry. A wrong High-confidence pick doesn't just earn nothing — it costs you a fraction of the base points. That deliberate penalty is what stops the leaderboard from rewarding people who simply slam High on everything; over a tournament, indiscriminate High-confidence play bleeds points. Save High for the calls you'd stake your reputation on, use Medium as your default, and drop to Low when you're guessing.

A simple rule of thumb: if you can explain in one sentence why a pick is right, it's a Medium or High. If your reason is "it feels likely," it's a Low.

Some markets aren't all-or-nothing. For "banded" calls — like total goals or a scoreline range — being close still pays. If the real outcome lands in the band next to the one you picked, you collect roughly half the points instead of zero. Predicting a tight 1–0 and seeing it finish 2–1 shouldn't wipe you out, and it doesn't.

This rewards reading a match correctly even when the exact number eludes you. "A low-scoring home win" is a real insight, and the banded scoring gives you credit for it. Pure binary markets — like whether a penalty was awarded — are still right-or-wrong, so weigh your confidence accordingly.

When a match finishes, every market settles automatically against the official result and your points are added to your total. Those points do two things. First, they climb the Game Oracle leaderboard, where you're ranked against your country and the whole world. Second, every point also mints coins into your wallet — the spendable currency you use to buy player cards and refill squad energy.

So sharp predicting isn't a side quest: it directly funds your squad. A good run as the Game Oracle pays for the players who win you Squad Clashes. Points are permanent and never convert to money — this is a skill game, not a betting product, and there are no stakes, deposits, or cash-outs anywhere in it.