Play money · no prizes · not financial advice

How to play

How it works · 20 sec

Pick 5
Pick 5 players under a 100 cap. One is your captain and scores 1.5×.
Score
Every 1% their stock moves = 100 points, every trading day.
Beat your friends
Start a league and send the link. Lineups lock Monday 9:30 AM New York time.

Preseason now · everyone resets for Season 1 on Mon, Nov 9

Quick answers

What's an insider buy?

When a player files a Form 4 showing an open-market purchase (code P), they get +25 that day. It's the only bonus. Filings 101

Can I join late?

Yes, until Friday. Your first save also enters you in the current week, and it scores from the next trading day.

What happens on market holidays and half days?

Weekends and market holidays don't score. Half days, when the market closes at 1:00 PM, still score.

How do leagues work?

A league holds up to 50 players, and you can be in up to 10 leagues. Go to Leagues

How are salaries set?

From each player's Public Stake Value rank and recent form. They're fixed for the week once it opens.

What's the preseason?

Practice weeks before Season 1. They don't count: on Mon, Nov 9 everyone's scores, records and streaks reset to zero.

Is it free?

Yes. There's nothing to buy and no prizes, coins have no cash value, and nothing here is investment advice. Terms · Privacy

Where can I learn more?

The Academy's Play smarter lessons walk through scoring, captains and strategy.

Full rules

Lineups and weeks

Pick five different players (billionaires or big-company CEOs) whose salaries add up to 100 or less, and choose one as captain. The captain scores 1.5 times.
Salaries are set from each player's Public Stake Value rank and recent form. They are fixed for the week once it opens.
Weeks run Monday to Friday, on US market days. Picks lock Monday at 9:30 AM New York time, when US markets open. After that nobody can change them, and everyone's picks become visible. Saving after the lock sets your team for the next week.
Joined late? You can still enter a team until Friday. Your first save also enters you in the current week, scoring from the next trading day after you save it.
Points come from each person's daily market moves in our data. Scores update once a day.

Scoring, per person, per trading day

Portfolio return that day: return % × 100, rounded (+1.23% = +123; a down day is negative).
Form 4 open-market purchase (code P) filed that day: +25. The insider buy is the only bonus.
Captain: the captain's total is multiplied by 1.5 and rounded.

Worked example: one day, made-up players
Pick	Move that day	Points
Player A Captain	+1.20%	120 × 1.5 = +180
Player B	−0.50%	−50
Player C	+0.30%, plus an insider buy	30 + 25 = +55
Player D	0.00%	0
Player E	+2.05%	+205
Team total for the day		+390

Learn more in the Academy

Benchmarks

S&P 500 (SPY): SPY's daily return × 100, times 5 so it compares with a five-pick team (no captain).
Top 5 richest: the five highest-ranked draftable people, with the richest as captain. It ignores the cap.
Perfect team: the best possible five under the cap with the best captain, worked out after the week ends.

How a portfolio is measured

A portfolio is the person's current controlling stakes and holdings on their profile that trade on a US exchange, including US lines of foreign companies (ADRs) used for daily moves only.
When every holding has an exact disclosed share count, holdings are weighted by value (value-weighted). Otherwise the companies a person controls together count for 75% and their other stakes for 25%, with each group split by value when every holding in it has a share count and equally when not (controls-weighted, 75/25). Someone with only one group puts 100% in it. Each player card shows the method and the weights.
A quote that did not trade that day counts as 0%. Days with no market (weekends and holidays) do not score.
Private companies, funds and family holdings have no daily price, so people whose wealth is mostly private cannot be drafted.
Scores use public prices and disclosed holdings and are approximate.
Lineup projections and the matchup win chance are simple estimates from recent points. They are not forecasts.

Leagues

Leagues hold up to 50 players. You can be in up to 10 leagues.

Your account

Pressing Play online creates a guest account stored in this browser. We don't ask for your name or a password.
If you want, you can add your email on the home page ("Save your team"): we attach it to your guest account so you can sign back in to it. Without an email, clearing your browser's site data or switching devices loses that account.
We keep only what the game needs: your nickname, coins, picks, league memberships and trades, plus your email if you add one. See the Privacy Policy and the site Terms.

Nicknames and league names

3 to 20 characters: letters, numbers, _ and - only.
Nicknames are unique, ignoring upper and lower case.
No slurs, insults, sexual words, or names that pretend to be us or our staff. Some words are blocked automatically, and we may rename or remove anything else that breaks this rule.
There is no chat. Nicknames and league names are the only text players can write.

Fair play

One account per person, please. We may remove accounts, nicknames or leagues that abuse the game, try to break it, or use more than one account to move markets or leaderboards.

Play money, resets and advice

The game is free. There is nothing to buy, no entry fee and no prize. Coins and points have no cash value: they can't be bought, sold, cashed out, traded or sent to another player. Leaderboards are for bragging rights.
We may reset balances, scores, leagues or markets at any time, for example to fix a bug or start a new season. Everyone's scores reset when Season 1 starts on Monday, Nov 9.
The fantasy league and markets are games built on public information about the world's richest people. Scores, prices and results are not predictions or recommendations to buy or sell anything.

The Book's rules, including how old markets settle, are now on The Book page