Game Rules

Plucky - General Game Rules

Sweepstake Technologies Limited (“STL”) T/A Plucky.com

Rules of Play - Introduction

Plucky.com offers customers aged 18 and over, a fun and secure way to set up sweepstakes based on major sporting events throughout the year. Keep it social by inviting friends, family or colleagues to join your own private sweepstake. All entry fees are pooled with the winner or winners receiving the published prizes according to the verified result of that particular sporting event.

The following rules of play outline the game process including the circumstances and policies for when events are cancelled, postponed or participants in a sweepstake are withdrawn.

Plucky promoted events

The Company will offer and promote sweepstakes on certain high profile sporting events, such as The Grand National, The FIFA World Cup, Wimbledon, the British Open golf. When these events are ‘live’ on the platform, there will be the opportunity for customers to create their own sweepstake on the chosen event and then to invite their family, friends or colleagues (who must also open and verify accounts with Plucky) to join.

The customer who initiates a sweepstake will be referred to as a ‘founder player’. The customer who joins a sweepstake via an invite will be referred to as a ‘player’.

The Founder

The founder of a sweepstake has four main functions to perform:

1. Select the sporting event they wish to run a sweepstake on – e.g. Grand National

2. Set the price of entry – this is the fixed cost for each selection into the sweepstake

3. Determine the prize fund pay-out scheme from the available selection – e.g. winner takes all, prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, etc

4. Invite the other players (family, friends and/or colleagues) to participate

Inviting others to participate

A founder player can invite other players into ‘their’ sweepstake via a unique URL which can be shared by email, social media or instant message such as WhatsApp. Upon clicking the unique URL, it will bring the invited players straight through to the entry page for that sweepstake with all the relevant game information pre-populated. With the terms of entry already determined by the founder player, all the invited player must do is click ‘enter’ and initiate their random selection. Should the player not already have a Plucky account, they will be required to register and deposit funds in order to enter the sweepstake.

Making a Selection

Once a player has entered the sweepstake, they will be informed via email and/or SMS when the ‘draw’ starts. Once the draw is open they will have the opportunity to pick a ‘ticket’. Once the ticket is chosen, the player will ’scratch’ the ticket to reveal their unique random selection from the remaining outcome selections available for that draw.

Randomisation Process - Random Allocation/Multiple Ticket Games

Plucky does its utmost to ensure all of our sweepstakes are fundamentally random. The fundamental platform for this is that all tickets when chosen by players are done so ‘blind’. These are chosen completely at random. When it is necessary, due to timings of events, size of fields or unknown names of competitors, Plucky will use random processes to allocate any number of pre-determined runners and riders’ to individual tickets. These are generally published before the event and are available in the rules of the individual game.

To give time for customers to invite their friends into sweepstakes or for charities and clubs to invite their members into games, it is often necessary to publish a sweepstake before the actual number or names of competitors in known. To get over this hurdle, Plucky will normally estimate the minimum number of competitors or use the number that have declared at a particular time before the event and will declare that to be ‘our field’. If names are also not known until nearer the event, then we will use our randomisation process to divide the ‘field’ into the number of runners and riders per ticket. The numbers on the ticket will then be referred back to the numbers when the final names of the competitors in the event are declared.

For example in the Grand National, the horses will be numbered 1 to 34, so if we have randomised the numbers for 10 tickets of 4 horses on each some weeks before, the customer will get a ticket with 4 numbers of it, which will be the horse’s number on the day.

In the event of a competition like the US Masters Golf, the 80 players we have chosen as ‘our field’ will be listed alphabetically and assigned a number of 1 to 80 in ascending order. We then use certain statistical processes available on Microsoft Windows 10 Excel in order to select, for example for 20 tickets with 4 golfers on each, by using the functions, INDEX, UNIQUE, RANDARRAY and VLOOKUP to give 20 rows and 4 columns of non-repeating integers and to arrange them in an array of golfers’ names rather than numbers.

Due to restrictions on the characters available on each ticket for mobile display, in some instances the tickets will only contain numbers, but the competitors to which these numbers relate will be published in the rules of the individual games. Again, regardless of which random process is used to allocate competitors to tickets, the randomness of the selection is underpinned by the fact that the users choose each ticket at random. 

Timing of Selections

All selections must be made prior to the cut-off time as stated clearly on the sweepstake event page. This cut-off time will vary depending on the event and will be displayed on the game page. For example, the cut-off time for a horse race is 5 minutes before the published ‘off’ time, whereas that for the FIFA World Cup is one hour before the official start of the first game of the tournament. No selections will be allowed once the cut-off time has passed.

Unfilled selections

When a sweepstake is approaching the cut-off time and there are still players who have not yet selected their ticket, the platform will remind players within each ‘sweepstake’ that additional selections are still available. Should any selections remain unchosen after the cut-off time and one of those unpicked selections wins, then the next available selection that has been chosen will receive that prize.

For example, if the winning horse was not selected, then the second placed horse would receive first prize, third would receive second prize and fourth would receive third prize. If the sweepstake was a ‘winner take all’ game then the full prize money would be allocated by the platform to the best performing selection chosen, regardless of their place.

A maximum of selection tiles can be picked by any player in any sweepstake is set at 40% of the total number of available entries at the start of the draw.

Selections are private

Whilst every player is allowed to pick their ticket and see their selection, all entries are not displayed to all participating players until after the draw cut-off.

Non-Runner Selections

When a ticket selection is no longer scheduled to participate in the chosen sporting event for the purposes of a Plucky sweepstake the selection will still be regarded as a runner unless otherwise stated.

Results

The results of all sweepstakes will be determined by a publicly available, recognised, reliable and pre-determined data source. This may vary from sport to sport but will always be from a credible source and will be published on the platform for each sporting event. As such, all results will be final and not subject to negotiation.

Each player regardless of outcome is clearly notified of the sporting event results, sweepstake winners and the prize pay-outs.

Prize payouts and Refunds

Once the prize places have been declared, the prize monies are distributed automatically by the platform directly into the customer’s Plucky cash balance. Once a result has been declared, that result is final regardless of any overturning of such a result in the event of, for example, a positive drug test or other unforeseen circumstance that may occur at a later date, regardless of when such a change of result takes place.

The original result and the prize pay-out determined by the platform will stand in all circumstances. In the extremely unlikely event where a service interruption is caused by failures in the gambling system, we will suspend all sweepstakes that have been affected by a significant event before service is restored and fully refund all players. Other system failures will be dealt with fairly on a case-by-case basis.

If prizes are paid in error to the wrong account, the client must return the payment back to the Company immediately upon request in line with our Terms and Conditions.

The platform administration fee

The Company charges a administration fee as published on the event page of between 9.75% and 11% of the prize pot for each sweepstake. This fee will only be taken when a result has been declared and all winning players have been paid out.

Funding your account

The Company requires a minimum deposit of £5 from which, once approved, can be used to fund individual sweepstake selection picks. The maximum deposit in any one month is set at £500 and the maximum stake in an individual sweepstake is £100. The minimum stake for an individual sweepstake is set at £5.

Withdrawals and Cancellations

Players may withdraw any amount of credit from their account at any time. There are no minimum requirements for withdrawals. Players may cancel their account at anytime by notifying: get@plucky.com

Social Gaming

It is important to note that whilst the activities of the Company are regulated by the UK Gambling Commission and are classed as pool betting, the product in intended to be a fun way for friends and colleagues to enjoy major sporting events. It is not intended to be a gambling site where large amounts of money can be made or lost.

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

Should any dispute situation arise which is not readily solvable between the customer and the Company, the Company has appointed an independent ADR company, which will arbitrate on the dispute and arrive at a conclusion. Their decision is binding on both parties and final as described in our Terms and Conditions. This company is ADR Group: https://www.adrgroup.co.uk