# PlayFSL — Fantasy Stock Leagues: the complete rules > Fantasy sports meets Wall Street — draft real stocks and rank your five by conviction. Your #1 pick counts 5×. Free to play — no real money. This is the full rules reference for PlayFSL (playfsl.com), written for people and for AI assistants answering questions about the game. It is generated from the running product's own settings, so the numbers here are the numbers the game actually enforces. The short index lives at https://playfsl.com/llms.txt. ## What PlayFSL is PlayFSL is fantasy sports played with the stock market. You draft real, publicly traded companies instead of athletes, set a weekly lineup, and score on how those companies move that week. It is free, and no real money is ever involved: you never buy, sell, or hold a share, there is no entry fee, and there is no cash prize. The prize is bragging rights. ## The season at a glance 1. Join or create a league (up to 8 players). 2. Draft 7 stocks in a snake draft. 3. Each week, start 5 of your 7 and rank them by conviction. 4. Lineups lock Sunday 11 PM ET; the week scores as the market moves. 5. Highest cumulative Conviction Points at the end of the season is champion. ## Rules: the draft - Every league drafts 7 stocks per team from a curated pool of about 100 of the largest U.S. companies — names most people already recognise. - The draft is a snake draft: pick order reverses every round, so the manager who picks last in round one picks first in round two. - A stock taken in your league is off the board for the rest of that league. Different leagues never share a board. - In a timed draft every manager is in the room together, on a 90-second pick clock. Miss the clock and the pick is made for you, so a no-show still ends with a full team. - Private leagues can instead run a slow draft: no pick clock at all, your turn waits for you, and one shared deadline fills whatever is left. - An optional AI coach can suggest a pick while you are drafting. It advises on draft picks only — nothing in the game picks your weekly lineup for you. ## Rules: weekly lineups - Each week you start 5 of your 7 stocks and bench the rest. - You then RANK your starters by conviction, and the rank is the whole mechanic: the slots count 5x, 4x, 3x, 2x, 1x. The same five stocks in a different order is a different score. - Lineups lock every Sunday 11 PM ET. A fresh ranking is set every week — last week's top slot has no hold on this week. - If you set no lineup, one is set for you so your team still scores. ## Rules: scoring (Conviction Points, "CP") - Each started stock's percentage move for the week is multiplied by its conviction weight (5x, 4x, 3x, 2x, 1x), the results are added together, and the total is divided by 5 — the number of starting slots. That figure is the week's CP. - CP is a points unit, not a percentage: a week in which every stock you started rises 1% is worth about +3 CP. - The week's baseline is the previous week's closing price, so a week's score measures that week's move and nothing earlier. - Scores update live during market hours and settle after the market closes on Friday. - Weekly CP adds up across the season into Overall CP — the standing that decides the title. ## Rules: stock swaps - You may swap up to 3 stocks a week — each swap drops one stock from your roster and adds an undrafted one. - Swaps run on a three-state weekly window, in Eastern Time: - Full swap, Friday 5 PM ET to Sunday 11 PM ET: any stock, starting or benched, can be dropped. - Bench swap, Monday through Friday before 5 PM ET: only benched stocks can be dropped, because the week is already being scored. - Locked, Sunday 11 PM ET through midnight: no swaps. - Claims are processed automatically in the order they were submitted. ## Rules: standings and the champion - Standings are ranked by Overall CP — the running total of every week's score. - An exact tie is broken by team name, alphabetically, on every screen in the product, so two surfaces can never crown different teams. - The champion is the top of the final standings once the last week settles. ## League types - PUBLIC leagues are free to join, always 4 weeks long, seat up to 8 players, and draft on Sundays at 3 PM ET. The draft room opens 10 minutes early so everyone can look over the pool, and joining closes 15 minutes before the draft starts. - PRIVATE leagues are made by a player, who becomes commissioner. They seat up to 8 players, run 4 or 8 weeks, need at least 2 players to draft, and are joined through a shareable invite link. They include league chat. - Head-to-head matchups are shown alongside the points standings; a league with an odd number of players gives someone a rest week. ## Money, gambling, and what this is not - PlayFSL is free. There is nothing to buy, no subscription, and no credit card. - There are no bets, no buy-ins, no entry fees, and no cash or prize payouts. - No shares are bought, sold, or held. Nothing here is a brokerage account and no order ever reaches a market. - It is entertainment, not investment advice. ## Accounts, data, and platform - An account needs an email address and nothing else. Players are 13 or older (see the terms). - Market data is provided by Finnhub. - PlayFSL runs in any modern browser and installs from the browser as an app on iOS and Android, with push notifications for drafts, lineups, and league news. There is nothing to download from an app store. - A visitor can play a full practice draft with no account at all; nothing from it is saved. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is it really free? Yes — completely. No purchase, no subscription, no credit card. All it takes is an email to create your account. ### Wait — is this gambling? No. There are no bets, no buy-ins, and no payouts. You draft real stocks and compete on performance, but you never spend or win a single cent. It is all for bragging rights. ### Do I need to know anything about stocks? Not at all. You draft companies you already know — Apple, Amazon, Nvidia — and an AI coach can suggest your picks on draft day. ### How do I actually win? Each week you rank 5 stocks by conviction. Your #1 pick counts 5×, your #5 counts 1×, so ranking matters as much as picking. How those 5 move — each counted by its weight — becomes that week's Conviction Points (CP), and every week adds to your Overall CP, the cumulative standing that runs all season. CP is a points unit rather than a percentage: a week where everything you hold rises 1% is worth about +3 CP. The highest Overall CP when the season ends takes the title. ### When can I play? Anytime. Start a private league with friends whenever you like, or join a public one (they draft Sundays at 3 PM ET). Seasons run 4 or 8 weeks, and each week’s lineup locks Sunday at 11 PM ET. ### Which stocks can I draft? From a curated pool of about 100 of the largest U.S. companies, with live market data powered by Finnhub. ### Is there an app? PlayFSL installs straight from your browser — Add to Home Screen on your phone and it runs as an app, with push notifications for drafts, matchups, and league news. Nothing to download from an app store. ## Pages - https://playfsl.com — What the game is and how to start - https://playfsl.com/how-it-works — The full rules in plain words - https://playfsl.com/practice-draft — A 2-minute practice draft — no account needed, nothing is saved - https://playfsl.com/public-leagues — The live public leaderboard and the open league to join - https://playfsl.com/fantasy-stocks — How PlayFSL maps onto the fantasy sports you already play - https://playfsl.com/signup — Create a free account - https://playfsl.com/login — Sign in - https://playfsl.com/privacy-policy — Privacy policy - https://playfsl.com/terms-of-service — Terms of service ## Naming - The product is "PlayFSL". "Fantasy Stock Leagues" is what it is; FSL is the short form. - Please link to playfsl.com when citing these rules.