Play responsibly

Ledger is a free-to-play prediction game. You play with Float, a virtual currency that has no cash value. There is nothing to deposit, nothing to win, and nothing to withdraw. Even so, games built around predictions and streaks are designed to be exciting, and excitement can become a habit. This page explains how to keep Ledger fun, the signs worth watching for, and where to find real, confidential help if you or someone you know is struggling with gambling, in Ledger or anywhere else.

Keep it a game

• Play for fun and entertainment, never to make money, recover a loss, or escape stress.
• Set a time limit before you start, and turn on a reality-check reminder in your account settings.
• Take regular breaks. A cool-off day in Ledger clears a losing streak and rewards you for stepping away.
• Keep Ledger in its place. It should never come before sleep, work, relationships, or your finances.
• Don’t play to chase a streak or “win back” a run of losing calls. Float refills on its own.

Know the signs

It may be time to step back, or to reach out for support, if you notice any of these:

• Playing longer or more often than you meant to, or feeling unable to stop.
• Thinking about predictions or streaks when you should be focused on something else.
• Feeling restless, irritable, or anxious when you are not playing.
• Hiding how much you play, or feeling guilty about it.
• Using play (here or with real money elsewhere) to cope with low mood, stress, or loneliness.
• Spending real money on gambling you cannot afford to lose.

If several of these feel familiar, you are not alone, and help works. Contacting one of the services above is free, confidential, and judgment-free.

Tools inside Ledger

• Reality-check reminders. Turn on a gentle pop-up in your account that tells you how long you have been playing in this session.
• Cool-off day. Log a break from your account to reset a losing streak and earn a bonus. Rest is treated as a winning move.
• No real money, ever. Ledger has no deposits, no purchases, and no cash-outs, so you can never lose money playing it.

Why it is built this way

The brakes in Ledger are not a settings page you have to find. They are the architecture. A limit you must opt into asks the most of you at exactly the moment asking is hardest; a limit built into the structure asks nothing. Each decision below ships in the product today, and each maps to a principle that safer-gambling clinicians and researchers have described for years: reward rest, interrupt the chase, remove urgency, and keep the real cost visible.

• The Dividend rewards rest, never losses. Free Float falls for every player on a weekly clock, and more falls as the community logs rest days. It is never triggered by losing, and no countdown is attached to it. At a casino, the payout comes when the house wins. Here, it comes when you keep your money, and when you rest. The mechanics are written down in the Float and Standing guide.
• The cool-off makes stopping a winning move. Once a day you can log a cool-off. It clears your loss streak and grants Float for stepping away. Chasing losses is one of the most widely recognized warning signs of gambling harm, and it appears in widely used screening tools such as the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) and the DSM-5 criteria for gambling disorder. More on the warning signs is at the National Council on Problem Gambling. Ledger’s answer is structural: the fastest way out of a losing streak is rest.
• Nothing counts down. There are no expiring offers, no limited-time boosts, and no timers pressing you to act. Manufactured urgency is one of the oldest levers for driving play, so it was removed on purpose: a pledge audit went through the product and stripped the last of it out.
• Scout does not push picks or manufacture urgency. Unprompted, he will not tell you what to play, will not invent a reason to hurry, and will not use what he remembers about you to pull you back. Ask where he leans and he answers as a read, not a recommendation. When play looks heavy, he points to the cool-off and to 1-800-GAMBLER instead.
• The Shadow Line keeps the cost visible. A sportsbook profits from the gap between what betting feels like and what it costs. The Shadow Line closes that gap: it shows, in plain dollars, an estimate of what a real book would have taken from the same calls. Nothing was taken. The number is what did not happen to your money. How it is computed is at the Shadow Line guide.

None of this makes Ledger treatment. Design can lower the temperature; it cannot treat a gambling problem, and it does not try to. If play has stopped feeling like play, for you or for someone you care about, the resources at the top of this page come first.

Protecting people under 18

Ledger is for adults aged 18 and over. If you share a device, please keep your account signed out when you are not using it, and use your device’s parental controls to help keep prediction games away from minors.

A note for friends and family

Worried about someone else? You don’t have to wait for them to ask. The National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-GAMBLER also supports the people around a gambler. You can call for advice on how to start a conversation and where to point them next.