How Contention.markets works

Skill Contests are pari-mutuel pools on the outcome of fully on-chain games. The underlying matches are played on a sibling player surface; backers here back a contestant, and if their contestant wins they split the prize pool with other backers of that contestant, pro-rata to their stake.

No order book. No bookmaker. No counterparty. The protocol takes a 5% fee from the total pool; everything else flows to backers of the winning contestant.

Total pool        = sum(stake[i] for all backers i)
Winning pool      = sum(stake[i] for backers of winner)
Distributable     = total pool × (1 − fee_bps / 10000)
Your payout       = your_stake / winning_pool × distributable

Each entry requires a skill component — a bracket pick (for tournaments) or a move-prediction memo (for 1v1). This anchors the legal frame as a "predominantly skill" contest under DFS precedent. Free entries via Skill Points (earned playing arcade games) cover the alternative-method-of-entry sweepstakes safe harbor.

Contention.markets is the backer surface — you back contestants in matches you don’t play. If you want to compete as a contestant, head to the player surface ↗.

The player surface is a separately-operated product where you challenge another player directly, accept their challenge, and compete in chess / snake / blockwords matches. The two surfaces share only the oracle layer — the same on-chain game programs that decide outcomes — and operate as separate products under separate legal entities. A regulator action against one does not put the other at risk.

Match outcomes are read from the game program's on-chain state. Three layers:

Tier A — live ER state          → display "skill assessment" (no settlement)
Tier B — game program PDA       → authoritative settlement
Tier C — GPX1 SPL-memo on L1    → fallback if Tier B unavailable

Tier B is the binary differentiator. DraftKings reads stats from third-party feeds (Stats Inc., SportRadar) — they trust an oracle. We read directly from the game program that produced the result. No oracle committee. No dispute window.

Tier C ensures contests can still settle from on-chain transaction history even if every off-chain server disappears — on either surface.

Protocol fee       5%   (default; configurable in ContestConfig)
Organizer fee      0–2%  (opt-in per contest; streamer kickback)
$GAMER buy-burn    0–1%  (post-launch; folds to treasury until token ships)
Total max          10%   (hard-capped in code)

Fees collect into a per-contest FeeVault PDA on each backing, then flush at settlement. No fee on cancelled contests — backers refund 100%.

Settlement is permissionless — anyone can call settle_contest once the underlying match resolves. We run the first keeper but don't gate it.

Skill Contests are framed as skill contests under DFS precedent, not as prediction markets. Three pillars:

1. Underlying games (Magic Chess, Cyber Snake, Blockwords) are skill-predominantly — chess is the textbook skill game in US case law.
2. Skill component required to enter (bracket / move prediction) — anchors backer engagement in the same skill domain.
3. Free-entry path via Skill Points — covers no-purchase-necessary sweepstakes safe harbor.

Vocabulary discipline: we never call it betting, gambling, odds, wagering, or prediction in user-facing copy. The Robinhood-style chess market is a CFTC-regulated event contract through KalshiEX — we don't and won't compete in that lane.

Devnet only with play-money. Mainnet ships when the regulatory frame is confirmed.

contention-markets    69Yfc...1Xo8   live on devnet  · CM v2.1 (backer pools)
contest-pools         TBD            in design       · Skill Contests program

oracles consumed (player-surface programs, separate operator):
  magic-chess         match result PDAs
  cyber-snake         bot duel PDAs
  blockwords          showdown PDAs

Source of truth for invariants is the program code in programs/<name>/src/lib.rs. IDLs are mirrored to the player-surface frontend for type-safe instruction builders; that's a read-only operational dependency, not a shared codebase.