The Rules for NBA Pick 'Em (Game 30 People Signed Up For)

[Scholar]

[color=red]How to Play[/color]
The game is simple. Just pick one team per match-up out of 5 match-ups per week that you predict will win. If a team you selected wins the chosen match-up, you'll get 1 point.
You will also have to include how many points you think the team will win by. (Example: Denver Nuggets vs. Golden State Warriors. You say, "DEN by 15.") Should your points prediction be correct, you'll score an additional 2 points.
You will not be negated any points for guessing incorrectly, but other participants guessing correctly can/will adversely affect your season standings.
The players with the top 10 total points by the end of the NBA regular season will move on to the Playoffs.
Note: Obviously, the NBA Playoffs are a long ways away, so we will discuss any new stipulations to Playoff rules as we near closer.

[color=red]Betting[/color]
Once per week you will be allowed to post up a bet for one other poster to accept. It can range from anywhere between 1 point to 5 points only. Any larger amounts will only be acceptable if I pre-approve them-- and odds are I will reject them every time until we are closer to the end of the regular season when every point will matter in vying for a spot into the Playoffs. The person wanting to set the bet must PM me before setting it. If I am not PM'd, I will not allow the bet to stand.
You are allowed to bet on anything NBA action related from which team will win any non-competition related match-up (meaning a game that I didn't pick as one of the week's choice games) to a specific stat (Example: "I bet 5 points that James Harden will score at least 35 points in the away game vs the OKC Thunder") to whether or not a certain player will be able to pull off a specific move (Example: "I'll bet anyone 3 points that LeBron James will dunk an alley-oop thrown by Dwyane Wade in the Heat vs Bulls game on opening night").
The more creative the bet, the better the bet.
Ridiculous bets, such as "I bet 1 point that Kobe will drink Gatorade at the bench," will not be allowed. Acceptable bets will have NBA on-court related stipulations.
If you accept a bet, you may still set a bet.
All bets must be set at least 1 hour prior to a game's tip-off. No in-game betting allowed because these can be difficult to keep track of.

[color=red]Betting Against the Game (aka Wagers)[/color]
This is different from the aforementioned betting (paragraph above this one) in that it will not be a participant vs participant bet.
This type of bet will be against the system, not against another player. You will only be awarded 1 point for guessing correctly, and you will lose 1 point for guessing incorrectly.
I will put up a minimum of 3 choices. You can choose to wager for or against any one of those 3 choices. Got it? You can only choose one of the three to wager on, not all three!
When the contest begins, bets against the system will be called "Wagers" and bets against other participants will be called "Bets."

[color=red]PM me with Bets/Wagers[/color]
Because I have a life and cannot dedicate 100% of my time to reading every post anyone makes, there's a chance I might miss that you were involved in a Bet/Wager. I expect you to be responsible for informing me with your own Bets/Wagers via PM. For all Bets, please also include a link to where both you and your opponent agreed to the terms of the bet.

[color=red]Double Points Games[/color]
I will randomly decide when a specific set of games will be involved in Double Points Games. All correct win guesses during these specific match-ups will earn 2 points and all correct "won-by-X-points" guesses will earn you 4 points.
Think of these as those NBA 2K "Key Games" in MyCareer mode. Most games will be things like a Playoff head-to-head from last season (like Spurs vs Warriors) or a longstanding rivalry between two teams (like Lakers vs Celtics).

[color=red]Editing a post may be a ban-able offense[/color]
If you edit a post in which you made a week's prediction, even if it is for something as simple as correcting a spelling error, after the allocated time for entering predictions has ended, you will risk being banned from the competition.
At minimum, your predictions will not count for the week and any bets/wagers you participated in will immediately be negated from your total points, even if you were to win the bet/wager.
First offense: predictions ignored + points bet/wagered negated.
Second offense: banned from contest.

[color=red]Weekly Threads[/color]
You are expected to post a minimum of once per week in the weekly threads. Every week of predictions will come with their own thread.
Each thread's original post will include last week's standings.
I will update the original post with any approved bets/wagers.
I am planning on making Week threads at least some time by Saturday night or Sunday morning. Predictions will be open until a specific date and time. For example, a thread could be made on a Sunday morning with the predictions expected to be made by 9 pm PST on Monday night.
Once the set date/time are reached, all predictions will be finalized. Any prediction made after will be ignored.
Now do you know why I wanted active members? If you don't post enough to even know when the predicting period ends, that's on you. You'll have no one to blame but yourself.

[color=red]Being voted out of the Competition[/color]
If a participant begins annoying others, I will allow for that person to be voted out of the contest. Nobody wants to play with an annoyance, so I do not want anyone to feel forced to play a season-long game with someone irritating.
NOTE: Your personal opinion about a poster is not vote worthy. If you simply dislike a participant, no vote will be allowed.
The only real problems worth voting someone out for are:
• backing out of Bets at the last minute; thus, ruining the opportunity for someone else to accept your Bet
• spamming Week threads with non-competition related matters (keep the "Who's better: Kobe vs LeBron?" arguments away from this competition)
• inactivity (if you simply stop playing for a while and I somehow don't notice, others may vote you off)
• obvious favoritism (explained below)

[color=red]Favoritism[/color]
You may like a certain poster. That's great; however, that does not allow you to ruin the game for others.
What I'm referring to here is something like:
You realize you're not going to win this competition. A poster you like is pretty close to being one of the 10 finalists. You then decide to accept Bets from this person that you clearly will lose just so this participant can end up getting to the top 10.
This is just one example of many I can think of. If you are accused of favoritism, I will allow for the community to decide to whether or not to vote you off.
Also, if it is clear that the person you were showing favoritism to was in on it, he may be voted off, too.

[color=red]Adding new players[/color]
Assuming anyone gets kicked from the game, it will obviously leave a vacant spot. This spot may be filled by other posters showing interest in participating.
The new participant will take over the total points leftover by the kicked player.
If you are already penciled in as a participant, you may not take over someone's spot. So if someone kicked has more points than you, tough luck. You're not allowed to switch point totals.

[color=red]Prize for winning [/color]
There is no prize beyond gloating. This contest was made just for fun. If you do not want to play it just for fun, please feel free to remove yourself from the contest.

[Scholar]

Bump.

[CanYouDigIt]

The 30 People in the game should Subscribe to this thread for quick access.

[Sakkreth]

Bookmarked and subscribed. Decent rules.

[branslowski]

Should Of been only 15posters. Noway all 30 plays. Would be shocked.

[Legends66NBA7]

No preseason games, right ?

[TylerOO]

Cool. Subscribed this

[Jameerthefear]

subbed

[Scholar]

No preseason games, right ?

Right. No preseason games.

Should Of been only 15posters. Noway all 30 plays. Would be shocked.

That's fine. As long as we have at least 10 people actively playing, we'll be good. I added the other 20 just to add variety.

Hopefully everyone stays active, though.

[All Net]

Will sticky it as long as Jeff and other mods don't mind.

Will you update this thread with the standings?

[JimmyMcAdocious]

bookmarked. I'll read through this later.

Read.

[chips93]

sounds good

[Scholar]

Will sticky it as long as Jeff and other mods don't mind.

Will you update this thread with the standings?

If you sticky it, then yes, I will.

If not, then no. I'll just update every weekly thread. It'd be better to do it with this thread, though.

[Scholar]

Bump.

[iamgine]

The "Any larger amounts will only be acceptable if I pre-approve them and odds are I will reject them every time until we are closer to the end of the regular season" is faulty. At the end of season, every lower than top 10 teams will wanna bet all their points with each other. Then the top 10 teams will wanna bet their points too or else they get overtaken. Then the result will just be largely based on that one big betting event instead of a season long of correct prediction.