Why this is skill, and not chance

A contest is generally treated as gambling when three things are present together: you pay to enter, there is a prize, and the outcome depends on chance. The first two are true here and we do not pretend otherwise. The third is what we have engineered out.

Four things that remove chance

• Everyone gets the identical board. One seed per group, held on the server, issued to every player. No player draws an easier layout.
• Scoring has no random element. The same sequence of moves on the same board produces the same score, every time, for everyone.
• Opponents are matched by rating. Elo, earned from settled results — so who you face is a function of how you have played, not of a draw.
• The window and the attempt count are fixed and equal. Nobody gets more time or more tries than anyone else in their group.

How we know the rating measures skill

Because it behaves the way a measurement should. Simulated over long runs, a player who consistently wins climbs from the 1200 start into the top band and stays there. A player whose results are random does not drift in either direction — after two hundred groups they are still where they started, within noise.

That is the difference between measuring skill and measuring luck: a game of chance cannot produce the first result.

Anti-cheat

Scores are validated server-side against the board that was issued and the attempt that was opened. A score that could not have been produced by the board it claims is rejected. This matters, but it answers a different question — “can someone cheat” rather than “is this rigged” — which is why it comes after the four properties above rather than instead of them.

Where paid play is available

Not everywhere. Paid entry and deposits are switched off for accounts in territories we do not serve, while free tournaments and practice stay open. If you already have a balance and your territory becomes restricted, you can still withdraw it — restricting a market stops money going in, it does not trap what is already yours.