How it works

Five steps, and the parts you have to take on trust are the parts you can check.

1. 1

   We commit to a team

   Before a round opens we draw one of the 32 NFL teams at random along with a random nonce, and publish the SHA-256 hash of the two. The hash goes up before the first entry is accepted, so the answer is fixed before anyone plays.

2. 2

   You bid, then you guess

   The highest bid when the clock stops wins the right to one guess at which of the 32 teams the jersey belongs to. Guess right and the jersey is yours. Guess wrong and you receive one randomly selected football card — every bid returns one or the other.

3. 3

   The round closes and we reveal

   We publish the team and the nonce. Anyone can recompute the hash and confirm it matches what was posted before the round opened. The verifier is a single dependency-free file you can run yourself.

4. 4

   A winner is drawn

   Among everyone who guessed correctly, one entry is drawn at random. The draw receives entry identifiers and nothing else — not who bid, not what they paid — so it cannot favour anyone. If nobody guessed right, the prize rolls over.

5. 5

   The jersey ships authenticated

   Jerseys are sourced only from listings carrying a certificate from JSA, PSA or Beckett, and the certificate is checked by a person before the item enters the pool. It ships with a certificate of authenticity naming us.