Requires Basic, and it is off until a server owner turns it on.
Prize Matches ride on the three duel games in Games: Tic-Tac-Toe, Connect Four and Rock Paper Scissors.
How a match runs
1
Two players, and only two
A prize match is offered on the 1v1 path only. A knockout bracket has many pairings and one champion, so there is nowhere for an even two-sided stake to sit. Brackets are never staked.
2
Both players agree the stake
Each is asked separately, and each has to accept.
3
Both stakes are held before the first move
The Vito leaves both wallets and is held in escrow. Nothing is paid out and nothing is charged until the match ends.
4
The match is played
Exactly as it would be without a stake.
5
It settles, or it refunds
A decided winner takes the pot. Everything else returns both stakes whole.
What refunds
Only a decided winner settles. All of these return both stakes in full:- A draw that survives every replay
- A turn timeout with no move played
- A moderator ending the match with
/stop - A match that could not be posted, or that lost its channel
- Anything unexpected
A refund is exactly lossless. The fee below is charged when a match settles and at no other moment, so a match nobody could decide gives both players back precisely what they staked.
Limits
The entry range is set per duel game, so Tic-Tac-Toe and Rock Paper Scissors can carry different stakes. The daily cap is per member, per server, and counts what a member has staked rather than what they have won.
The fee
A settled match charges the standard Vito fee, keyed off the winner’s membership.
Two details worth knowing:
- The fee is charged on the loser’s stake, not on the pot. The winner’s own stake simply comes back to them, so only the loser’s stake changes hands. Charging on the whole pot would tax the winner’s own money and make the real rate on their winnings twice the advertised one.
- Stakes of 5 Vito or less are fee-free, the same threshold every Vito transfer uses.
The fee is destroyed, not collected. Vetox does not receive it and neither does the server owner. It leaves circulation, exactly as the fee on a
/vito transfer does.Turning it on
Prize Matches are enabled per game on that game’s own page, once the server-wide switch is on.Troubleshooting
The prize match was not offered
The prize match was not offered
It needs Basic, the server-wide switch on, that game’s own Prize Match switch on, and exactly two players. It is never offered in a bracket.
One player could not stake
One player could not stake
They are short of Vito, or they have reached the daily cap. Vetox tells that player privately and tells their opponent only that the match could not be set up. A refusal never reveals somebody’s balance.
The match ended in a draw, so where did the stakes go
The match ended in a draw, so where did the stakes go
Straight back to both players, in full. A draw settles nothing.
The winner received less than the pot
The winner received less than the pot
The Vito fee above was taken from the loser’s stake. The winner’s own stake always returns whole.
A stake has not come back yet
A stake has not come back yet
An unresolved escrow is released by a sweep rather than by hand. If a balance still looks wrong afterwards, check Vito transactions — every movement is listed there.
Games
The duels a prize match is played on.