How Laces Out works, for players and commissioners. Tap the ⓘ next to anything in the app for the short version.
Sign up with a username, email and password. The username is what shows on every board you play on, so pick one your crew will recognize.
Playing is always free. You can change your username, colors and password any time on the Account page.
Every pool has an invite link. Tap it, sign in (or make an account right there), and you are added to the pool automatically. There is no second step.
Some bars run public pools. Find them on the Venues tab.
The Dashboard lists every pool you play in or run. Tap one to open its board.
Inside a pool, the bar at the bottom switches between the Board, your Picks, the league Chat, and back to the Dashboard.
Open Picks, choose a winner for each game, and tap Save picks. Your picks save as a draft you can change as often as you like.
Only the games your pool counts are shown. If your commissioner runs a No Thursday or Sunday only pool, the other games simply are not on your sheet.
Every game locks the moment it kicks off, one game at a time. Sunday's early games lock while the night game stays open.
Nobody can see anyone else's pick on a game until that game kicks off, so there is no copying.
Each week has one tiebreak game, usually the last game that counts (Monday night, or Sunday night in a Sunday only pool). Your commissioner can choose a different one.
Guess the total points both teams will score. If you tie with someone on points, whoever guessed closer ranks higher. Over the season the misses add up, shown as TB off on the board.
The guess locks when the tiebreak game kicks off. No guess counts as a guess of 0, so always enter a number.
In a confidence pool you rank your picks. With 14 games, give your surest pick 14 points and your biggest coin flip 1. Each number is used once.
When your pick wins, you earn the points you put on it.
Pick one team a week. If it wins, you survive to the next week. You can never pick the same team twice, so save the strong teams for later.
A loss, a tie or no pick knocks you out. The last one standing wins.
Rank, player, points and record (wins and losses). Players tied on points share a rank until the tiebreaker splits them.
Tap Season or a week to switch views. Each week has its own winner.
Each card shows the matchup, the stadium, the weather at kickoff and, once a game starts, the live score. Your pick is marked on the card.
A quick read on your spot in the race: who you are chasing and who is chasing you.
Prizes are set by the commissioner or the venue. The app shows them and works out who earned them.
Ties share it: everyone tied at that rank gets it. Tiebreaker decides: the tiebreaker picks exactly one winner per spot.
One pass covers the season: as many pools as you want, as many players as you want. Your players always play free.
Open it from the Commissioner's desk button on your pool's page, or under the pool on your Dashboard. Only the person running the pool sees it.
From there you can change which games count, turn single games on or off for any week, choose the tiebreak game, email the league, nudge players who haven't picked, manage members and set prizes.
The name shows at the top of the board and in the invite link preview.
NFL season: the real schedule, with scores filled in automatically. Nothing to keep up with.
Your own league: you type in the teams and the schedule, then enter each final score yourself. Good for anything the NFL feed doesn't cover.
Pick'em: pick every winner, most correct wins. Easiest to learn and the best fit for big or casual groups.
Confidence: pick every winner and rank how sure you are. For groups that want more strategy.
Survivor: one team a week, never the same team twice, one loss and you're out. Quick and dramatic.
Without a spread, picking the heavy favorite is almost free. With one, the favorite has to win by more than the line.
You enter the lines each week on the Commissioner's desk. A game with no line entered is scored straight up.
Slide the start and end weeks. A full season, the last month, or a one-week pool all work.
Only for pools that end early. If first place is tied at your last week, the tied players play on into the next weeks, and the first one to outscore the others wins.
Season-long pools have no weeks left to play, so the tiebreaker guess settles a tie there.
Full week: every game. The most chances to win, if your crew watches Thursday and Monday too. Monday night is the tiebreaker.
No Thursday: skips the midweek game. Good for groups who forget to pick before Thursday night, so nobody is behind before the weekend starts. Monday night is the tiebreaker.
Sunday only: Sunday games, plus Saturday games once the NFL schedules them in December and the Black Friday game. For groups that only watch on Sundays. Sunday night is the tiebreaker.
You can change this any week of the season, for example after a league vote. Weeks already under way keep the games they started with.
Thanksgiving week has games on Wednesday night, Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Christmas puts games on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
If your pool skips Thursday or plays Sunday only, those holiday games could be left out, and that week would have far fewer games than usual. A week with only a few games comes down to luck.
Switch the holidays on and those games count that week, even in a No Thursday or Sunday only pool. They are on by default for No Thursday and off for Sunday only.
On the Commissioner's desk, pick a week and flip each game on or off. Use it for a league vote, a game you want to drop, or one extra game you want to add.
You can add a game only until it kicks off, because nobody could pick it after that. You can drop a game any time before the week is final, even one already played. Dropping it takes it off everyone's score for that week.
Finished weeks are locked. Every change posts a note in the league chat so nobody is surprised.
Copy the invite link and send it any way you like. Tapping it signs the player in (or up) and adds them to the pool in one step.
The list shows everyone with no picks for the current week. Send reminders emails them a link to their pick sheet once email is switched on for the site.
Removing a player takes them off the board. They can rejoin with the invite link.
This list is built from your pool's settings, so it is always accurate. Point your crew here when a question comes up.
A negative number means the home team is favored by that many points. Enter lines before kickoff. A game with no line is scored straight up.
Every pool has its own chat on the Chat tab, under the Announcements board. Everyone in the pool can read and post. You can delete your own messages; the commissioner can delete any.
The board sits at the top of the Chat tab. Open polls come first so nobody misses a vote, then announcements and finished polls, newest first. The latest announcement also shows on the pool page.
Only the commissioner can post, edit or delete here. An edited post is marked edited, so players know it changed.
Rule changes made on the Commissioner's desk post an announcement here automatically.
Tap the paperclip next to the message box to add photos, PDFs, Word, Excel or text files, up to 4 at a time and 10 MB each. You can send them with or without a message.
Big phone photos are shrunk before they upload, so they send fast and still look sharp.
Files are private to your pool. Only people in the pool can open them, and deleting the message deletes its files too.
Use Email the league on the Commissioner's desk, or tick the email box when posting an announcement or poll. Each player gets their own copy, so no addresses are shared, not even with you.
Email has to be switched on for the site first; until then posts go to the Announcements board only.
Commissioners start a poll from the Announcements board, with an optional closing time and email. Players tap an answer to vote and tap it again to take it back.
The commissioner can edit, close, reopen or delete a poll. Once people have voted, the answers can be reworded but not added or removed, so nobody's vote moves to a different answer.
Results show how many voted for each answer, never who voted for what.
Commissioners and venues can post a watch party on the pool page. Tap Going or Interested. Tap your choice again to take it back.
The commissioner sees how many are coming, not who.
The Venues tab lists bars with open pools and upcoming watch parties. Tap one to see its page and join its pool.
Your team color shows on your row of the board, the buttons and the menu.
For your security, changing your password asks for the current one first.
The Feedback button at the top right of every page sends a note along with the page you were on.
Still stuck? Signed in, tap Feedback at the top of any page. Or email hello@lacesoutpickem.com. Back home
Laces Out tracks picks and standings.