Wajerleague evolved from the Protect Your Unit contest, an annual college football "play money" gambling contest I ran for the former SBNation network site thedailystampede.com (previously voodoofive.com).
The other site owners ran the contest for a couple years, and I offered to take it over. Using my rudimentary web development skills, I built a website that would handle most of the play, keep score, and updating lines. I kept the original rule set the game had, back when it was handled by someone else on a Google spreadsheet. But after 9 years of experience running it - and since I'm rebuilding and expanding the whole thing anyway - I came up with some new ideas I thought would make the whole thing a better experience.
Here's a detailed list of each thing that changed, and why:
BANKROLL AND WINNINGS SYSTEM
OLD: Start with 1000 units. Your score went up and down from there.
NEW: Still start with 1000 units, but it's divided into "bankroll" and "winnings." Only winnings count towards your score. Bets come out of your bankroll, until it is consumed. You may then continue to bet from your winnings, risking some of your score for a chance to build it higher. You start with a score of 0 and must build up from there. Score only increases when you win bets.
WHY: The old system had a perverse incentive. You could have a decent score by not betting at all, while everybody else lost. By assigning points only to actual wins, we remove that.
"IN PLAY" SYSTEM
OLD: You can bet 250 units or 25% of your total score each week.
NEW: You can have 250 units or 25% of your total winnings "in play" (made on wagers that haven't been resolved yet) at any given time.
WHY: This actually addresses two different problems, but I'll focus on the limits for now. The "25% of your score" limit gave an advantage to players who did well early. If they won 100 units in the first week, they could bet 275 in Week 2 while everyone else could only bet 250. This could snowball into a larger and larger advantage, which seemed to favor early winners too much. Players got behind and couldn't bet enough to catch up. Now you have to get your winnings over 1000. And if you do well enough to win more units than you started with, you'll have earned that advantage.
WEEKS
OLD: You can only bet games for the upcoming week, which is Tuesday to Monday in most cases.
NEW: You can bet any game at any time, as long as there is a line for it.
WHY: Managing "weeks" was a tedious, unnecessary chore. And it artificially limited the players' options.
MINIMUMS/ MAXIMUMS
OLD: Required 3 bets per week including 1 AAC bet, for 5-25% of your bankroll (using the old definition of bankroll). You had to bet every week or spend a bye.
NEW: The In Play system manages this.
WHY: Another tedious, unnecessary chore. I liked the concept of an AAC-specific blog requiring AAC-specific bets in their game. But since the game is now out of that environment, it no longer makes sense to require.
LINES
OLD: The best real-life -110 line for each wager is offered.
NEW: Lines are consensus of multiple real-life lines, and do not have to be -110.
WHY: The "line shopping" system had its charms. We could stack the deck in the players' favor by offering them only the best real-world line for each game. But when I decided to automate the whole thing, it became much easier to calculate a consensus line. Also, the old system prevented interesting decisions, like choosing between more points and a more favorable payout. That won't be immediately available, but it's a future task. (And boy howdy, do I have some ideas for alternative lines.)
BET MINIMUMS
OLD: Must bet 1 unit.
NEW: Must bet 1 unit and win at least ½ unit.
WHY: There were some wags who did hilarious things like bet 1 unit on a -100000 favorite. Which won nothing, since we rounded to the nearest .01. It struck me as a lazy way to meet minimum bet requirements. Which are gone anyway, but in a play money gambling game it makes sense to disallow zero-risk plays.
SCORINGOLD: The 1000 you started with, plus or minus whatever you won or lost.
NEW: Only winnings (not bankroll) count towards your score.
WHY: As above, this removes your incentive to hoard. The bankroll is intended for you to consume all of, and have no effect on your score. When it runs out, you may risk your winnings if you want to make more bets, but this carries a real penalty when you lose.
ROUNDING
OLD: Your score went to two decimal places.
NEW: Your score is your winnings, rounded down to the nearest ⅛.
WHY: I don't want people calculating their bet amounts to three decimal places. Your winnings will still be calculated to three decimal places, but tiny differences between 1000.125 and 1000.243 are irrelevant to the score. Both players would have 1000⅛ and be tied in the standings.
FUTURES BETS
OLD: Offered in pre-season.
NEW: Not offered.
WHY: This is mostly a function of ease. My data provider doesn't provide college football futures, so I won't offer them. In other games where they are offered, like the forthcoming NFL-based game, you'll be able to make futures bets any time in the season. This opens a range of new, complex strategies players can employ.
GAMBLETRON 3000
OLD: Offered a random game at -102 instead of the usual -110.
NEW: Removed.
WHY: There will be more varied line offerings as a whole, making this less useful. The idea was to drive action on non-AAC games, but since there is no more requirement to bet AAC games in the first place, it is also less useful for that reason.
STANDINGSOLD: Finishing first in the money race (or, in 2021 and 2022, the points race) was the only thing that mattered.
NEW: You need to be aware of your position and strive to improve it, no matter where you are in the standings.
WHY: The new "spoons" and "hall of fame" systems - which will get their own blog post soon - will greatly improve this. In a play money game, there is no incentive to care how much play money you have. I think players lost interest in the race once they were too far behind to challenge for first place. The "points race" system, which assigned points for your place each week, helped keep more people involved, but still be improved further. My hope is that players will buy into to wanting to have the best overall score in Wajerleague, and will see the benefit in cutting bait on a season that isn't going their way. And since there will always be new contests starting, there's no reason to stay in a contest just to play. If college football isn't going your way, focus on pro football, or baseball.
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