Playing Responsibly

Commish is meant to be fun. It is a few friends putting money in a pot and arguing about football for a few months. For most people that is all it ever is. This page is here for the times when it is not.

We are not qualified to tell you what is healthy for you, and we are not going to try. What follows is what we think is worth saying plainly, and what we do and do not do as an operator.

Right now this is test money

The program is currently deployed to Solana devnet using test tokens, which have no value. Nothing on this page is urgent yet. It is here because it should be written before real money is involved rather than after, and everything below applies from the moment it is.

Only put in what you can afford to lose entirely

Treat every buy-in as money that is gone the moment you pay it. Not money you expect back. Not money you are hoping to grow. Gone.

If losing your buy-in would change your month, it is too much. If you would need to explain it to someone, it is too much. If you are putting in money that is meant for rent, food, debts or anyone else in your household, do not join the pool.

The pot is held by the pool's own vault on Solana. We cannot move it, freeze it or give it back to you as a favour. That is by design, and it means there is nobody to appeal to if you change your mind.

This is not an investment and not a way to make money

A Commish pool is entertainment among people who already know each other. It is not a financial product, not a savings plan and not a strategy for making an income.

Over a season, most members of any pool will end up with less than they put in. That is simply how a pot works: the money that comes out is the money that went in, shared among fewer people. Nobody should join expecting a return.

If you are looking at a pool as a way to fix a money problem, it will not fix it.

Set your limits before the season, not during it

Decide in the quiet part of the year, before anything is on the line:

• The most you will put into pools in a season, across all of them, as a single number.
• How many pools you will join.
• What you will do if you are knocked out in week two. Usually the answer should be: nothing. The season is over for you.

Write it down somewhere you will see it. Limits set in October, halfway through a bad run, are not really limits.

If you are the commissioner, the buy-in you choose is the limit you are setting for everyone else in the pool. Pick a number that the least well off person in the group can lose without minding. $0 pools work perfectly well and are often the better call.

Signs it has stopped being fun

Worth noticing in yourself, and in the people in your pool:

• You are checking scores with dread rather than interest.
• You are joining more pools, or bigger ones, to make up for an earlier loss.
• You are borrowing to pay a buy-in, or paying one before something more important.
• You are not telling your partner, family or friends how much is in play.
• Relief when you win has replaced enjoyment, and losing feels much worse than winning feels good.
• You have thought about how much time you are spending on this and did not like the answer.

Any one of those on its own is a reason to sit the next season out. Several together is a reason to talk to someone.

What we do not do

• We do not extend credit. There is no borrowing, no deferred buy-in, no paying later. We do not lend, and there is no credit anywhere in this product. One member can choose to pay another member's dues, which the program supports directly, so if somebody offers to cover your buy-in, be as careful about what you owe them as you would be anywhere else.
• We do not offer bonuses, free entries, deposit matches, loyalty rewards or anything else designed to get you to put in more.
• We do not send promotional messages telling you to play again. We do not ask for your email address and we have no way of sending you one.
• We do not run public pools that strangers can join. Every pool is private and link only. There is no directory. The only way in is that somebody you know sent you the link.
• We do not take a cut of the pot for season one. The platform fee is set to zero.

Stepping away

The easiest way to step away is to not join. There is no account to keep, nothing to cancel, and no subscription running in the background. Closing the tab is enough.

Once you have joined a pool and paid in, it is different. Your buy-in is in the pool's vault and you cannot pull it back out at will. The pool runs to its end. Money leaves it only when a winner claims, when a prize slot is claimed in a league, or through the refund path after the refund deadline that was set when the pool was created, which any member who has paid can trigger without our permission or the commissioner's.

So the practical position is this: joining is the decision. After that, your only exits are the pool finishing or the refund deadline passing. Please decide before you pay, not after.

We should also be honest about a limit on our side. Because there are no accounts, we have no self exclusion tool. We cannot stop you joining a pool, and we cannot block your wallet from being invited to one. If you want a hard stop, it has to come from you and from the people around you, not from us.

If you want to leave a group but not the friendship, telling the commissioner you are out for the season is usually the whole of it. Most commissioners will not ask why.

Where to get help

If money you have put at risk in games of any kind is causing you difficulty, free and confidential help exists in most countries.

• United States: the National Problem Gambling Helpline on 1-800-GAMBLER, available 24 hours a day.
• United Kingdom: GamCare, at gamcare.org.uk, which runs the National Gambling Helpline.

These are examples, not a complete list, and they are not affiliated with us. If you are somewhere else, look up what exists where you live. Searching for your country alongside the name of a national helpline for difficulty with money and play will normally find one, and your doctor or a local health service can point you to support as well.

You do not have to be in crisis to contact any of them. They will talk to you about a worry as readily as about a disaster, and they will talk to family members too.

A note on what this page is not

This page is not legal, medical or financial advice, and it is not a promise about anything. It does not change the Terms of Service or the Privacy Policy, and it is not a statement about whether Commish or any pool on it is lawful where you are. That remains your responsibility to work out. We make no representation about legality anywhere.

If you want to raise something with us, including a concern about your own use of Commish or someone else's, you can reach us at [confirm: contact address for support and welfare enquiries]. We cannot move funds, and we cannot remove someone from a pool, so please be aware of what we can and cannot help with before you write.

Commish is operated by [confirm: legal entity name and registered address].

Commish is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the NFL, any NFL club, ESPN, Yahoo or Sleeper.