Terms of Use

01Acceptance of These Terms

These Terms of Use (the "Terms") are a binding agreement between you and StoryBound Tech LLC ("StoryBound", "we", "us", "our"), the operator of PickBound — the PickBound website, mobile applications, and related services (together, the "Services"). By creating an account, accessing, or otherwise using the Services, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated here by reference. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

We may revise these Terms at any time. A revision takes effect when it is posted, and the "last updated" date at the top of this page tells you when that was. Your continued use of the Services after a revision is posted means you accept it. Where a change is material, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you in the app, on this site, or by email before it takes effect.

You are responsible for complying with the laws that apply where you are. The Services are operated from the United States, are not directed at every jurisdiction, and may be restricted or unavailable in places where we determine we cannot offer them.

02Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or use the Services. By using the Services you represent that you meet that requirement, that you have the legal capacity to enter into this agreement, and that you are not prohibited from using the Services under any law that applies to you.

We may refuse, suspend, or terminate an account at any time if we believe the account holder does not meet these requirements. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we will close it and delete the information associated with it. If you believe a minor holds an account, tell us at support@pickbound.app.

03What PickBound Is

PickBound is a free-to-play sports-prediction game. You go head-to-head with another player — or with a computer-controlled opponent — on a single real sporting event. Both sides receive the same budget of virtual chips, which resets for every duel, and each builds a slip of predictions across the markets offered for that event. Whoever finishes with the higher chip balance wins.

PickBound is a free game played with virtual chips and non-cash coins. There is no real-money wagering, no purchasable chance, and no cash value — you can never deposit, win, or withdraw real money.

PickBound is entertainment. It is not a sportsbook, a brokerage, a prediction market, or investment or wagering advice, and nothing in the Services is a recommendation to place a real-money wager anywhere else. We do not accept deposits, we do not pay out winnings, and there is no mechanism — inside the Services or outside them — to convert anything you earn into money or anything of monetary value.

04Your Account

You need an account to play. You agree to provide accurate registration information and keep it current, to keep your credentials confidential, to accept responsibility for everything that happens under your account, and to tell us promptly at support@pickbound.app if you suspect unauthorized use.

By creating an account you represent and warrant that:

• the information you provide is accurate, current, and complete, and you will keep it that way;
• you have the legal capacity to agree to these Terms and you agree to comply with them;
• you are not a bot, and you will not access the Services through automated or non-human means;
• you will not use the Services for any illegal or unauthorized purpose;
• your use of the Services will not violate any law or regulation that applies to you;
• the username and display name you choose do not impersonate another person, infringe anyone's rights, or violate the prohibited activities section.

One account per person. We may reclaim or change a username that impersonates someone, infringes a trademark, or otherwise violates these Terms, and we may refuse or delete accounts we believe are duplicates.

05Chips, Coins, and Cosmetic Items

Chips

Chips are the disposable scorekeeping units inside a single duel. Both players receive an identical chip budget, that budget resets for every duel, and chips never persist beyond the duel they belong to. Chips cannot be purchased, transferred, gifted, redeemed, or converted into anything.

Coins

Coins are a durable in-game score. A fixed number is minted to the winner of an eligible head-to-head duel between two human players. Nothing is taken from the losing player, nothing moves from one account to another, a tie mints nothing, and duels against computer-controlled opponents mint nothing. Coins can be spent only on cosmetic items inside the Services.

Cosmetic items

Cosmetic items — avatar frames, badges, themes, reaction stamps, victory animations, and anything similar — are licensed to you, not sold. You receive a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to display them inside the Services for as long as your account is in good standing and the Services remain available. Cosmetic items cannot be traded, gifted, sold, or moved to another account.

No cash value

CHIPS, COINS, AND COSMETIC ITEMS HAVE NO CASH VALUE. THEY ARE NOT YOUR PROPERTY, NOT A BALANCE, NOT CREDIT, AND NOT REDEEMABLE FOR MONEY OR FOR ANYTHING OF MONETARY VALUE. WE MAY CHANGE, DEVALUE, SUSPEND, OR REMOVE ANY VIRTUAL ITEM OR IN-GAME ECONOMY AT ANY TIME, AND WE OWE YOU NO COMPENSATION IF WE DO.

We may adjust chip budgets, coin rewards, cosmetic prices, the daily play allowance, and the rules of any game mode at any time, including to correct a bug or close an exploit. We may reverse, void, or remove virtual items obtained through error, bug, or a violation of these Terms.

Selling, buying, or transferring accounts, and offering access to virtual items outside the Services, are prohibited and are grounds for immediate termination.

06Fair Play and Competitive Integrity

The Services are a competition, and a competition only works if everyone plays it honestly. You agree not to:

• create or use more than one account, or use an account that is not yours;
• collude with another player — including through a second account you control — to influence the outcome of a duel or to farm coins, ratings, achievements, or season progress;
• use bots, scripts, macros, automation, or any tool that plays for you, submits slips for you, or reads game data other than through the interfaces we provide;
• exploit a bug, a pricing error, or unintended behaviour instead of reporting it to us;
• manipulate matchmaking, the ranked ladder, rematches, or the daily play allowance;
• obtain, infer, solicit, or trade another player's un-revealed slip before the Services reveal it.

Where we believe competitive integrity has been compromised we may take any action we consider proportionate — voiding duels, reversing coins or cosmetic items, resetting ratings and statistics, restricting features, or terminating the account — and we may do so without prior notice.

Computer-controlled opponents ("bots") are part of the product and are identified as such where you can face them. Duels against bots are unrated and mint no coins.

07Sports Data, Markets, and Settlement

Schedules, prices, scores, and player statistics are supplied by third-party data providers. We do not guarantee that this data is accurate, complete, current, or uninterrupted, and results inside the Services depend on it.

A market may be voided, in whole or in part, where the underlying event is postponed, abandoned, or rescheduled; where the data needed to settle it is unavailable, incomplete, or disputed; where a price or line was published in error; or where settlement would otherwise produce a result the market was not offered on. Chips staked on a voided market are returned as chips. Nothing is paid out, because nothing was ever paid in.

A duel in which one or both players never lock in a slip before the event begins is cancelled as a no-contest: no result is recorded, ratings are unaffected, and no coins are minted.

Prices shown in the Services are our own derived figures, produced from third-party data and adjusted by us. They are not a bookmaker's odds, they are not an offer to transact, and they should not be relied on for any purpose outside the game.

League, competition, team, and player names are used for identification only. PickBound is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any sports league, team, governing body, or athlete.

08Your Content

"Your Content" means anything you submit through the Services — your username and display name, profile information, reports you file, and any other material you provide. You keep whatever rights you already hold in Your Content.

You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, display, and transmit Your Content for the purpose of operating, securing, and improving the Services, including displaying your public profile information to other players as described in the Privacy Policy. That licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies held in routine backups for a limited period and any record we must keep to comply with law or resolve a dispute.

You represent that Your Content does not infringe anyone's rights and does not violate the prohibited activities section. We are not obliged to monitor Your Content, but we may remove or refuse any of it at our discretion.

We do not share Your Content with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

09Intellectual Property

The Services — including the software, source code, design, artwork, cosmetic items, text, layouts, and the "PickBound" name and logos — are owned by us or licensed to us and are protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws.

Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to access and use the Services for your own personal, non-commercial entertainment. No other right is granted. Except to the extent such a restriction is unenforceable where you live, you may not copy, reproduce, republish, sell, licence, frame, reverse engineer, decompile, or create derivative works from any part of the Services.

Third-party names, marks, and logos that appear in the Services remain the property of their respective owners.

10Prohibited Activities

You may not use the Services for any purpose other than the one we make them available for. In addition to the fair play rules, you agree not to:

• use the Services in any way that violates a law or regulation that applies to you, including gambling law where you are;
• systematically retrieve data from the Services to build a collection, compilation, database, or directory — by scraping, crawling, or otherwise — without our written permission;
• circumvent, disable, or interfere with security features, rate limits, or any measure that restricts use of the Services;
• attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Services, to another player's account, or to any system or network connected to them;
• upload or transmit viruses, malware, or any code designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to the Services;
• interfere with, overburden, or disrupt the Services or the networks they run on;
• impersonate another person, misrepresent your affiliation with anyone, or use another player's username;
• harass, threaten, defame, stalk, or abuse another player, or submit material that is hateful, discriminatory, sexually explicit, or otherwise objectionable;
• use the Services to advertise, solicit, or sell anything, including real-money gambling of any kind;
• decipher, decompile, disassemble, or reverse engineer any software that makes up the Services;
• copy or adapt the Services' software, including translating it into another language;
• use the Services to build, market, or support a competing product, or to compete with us;
• make automated use of the system, including scripting picks, requests, or messages;
• remove any copyright, trademark, or other proprietary notice from the Services.

11Season Pass and Other Purchases

The Services may offer optional one-time purchases of digital content — currently a season pass, which unlocks a lane of cosmetic rewards for a named season. No purchase buys chips, coins, a higher chance of winning, or any competitive advantage in a duel. Purchases unlock cosmetic and progression content only.

Payments are processed by Stripe. We do not receive or store your full payment card details. You are responsible for any taxes that apply to a purchase and for keeping your payment details current.

Digital content is delivered immediately on purchase. Except where a refund is required by law, purchases are final and non-refundable. If a payment is refunded, reversed, or charged back — by you, by your payment provider, or by us — the entitlement it granted, and any cosmetic item granted under that entitlement, is revoked.

If you are a consumer in a jurisdiction that grants a statutory right of withdrawal for digital content, that right — and any consent you give to immediate delivery — is presented to you at checkout before payment.

We may change what is offered, its price, and its availability at any time. A season pass entitles you to the content described at the time of purchase, for the season it names. It does not renew and it does not entitle you to any future season.

12Feedback and Submissions

If you send us ideas, suggestions, feature requests, bug reports, or other feedback about the Services, you agree that we may use it without restriction or compensation, and you assign to us all rights in it. Feedback is not confidential, and we are under no obligation to act on it, keep it secret, or credit you for it.

13Community Conduct, Reporting, and Blocking

The Services include social features — friends, head-to-head records, a public player profile, shareable result cards, and reaction stamps. You are responsible for how you behave in them.

You can block another player, which prevents duels and requests between you, and you can report a player to us. Blocking never prevents a report from being filed in either direction. We review reports as we consider appropriate; we do not promise any particular response, timeframe, or outcome, and we will not always tell you what action we took.

Reports must be made in good faith. Filing reports you know to be false is itself a violation of these Terms.

14Third-Party Services and Links

The Services may link to, or rely on, third-party websites, applications, and data sources. We do not control them, we do not endorse their content, and we are not responsible for their accuracy, availability, practices, or terms. Your dealings with them are between you and them, at your own risk. Review their terms and privacy policies before using them.

15Managing the Services

We may, but are not obliged to:

• monitor the Services for violations of these Terms;
• take appropriate action against anyone who violates these Terms or the law, including reporting them to law enforcement;
• refuse, restrict, limit, or disable access to any content or to any account;
• remove or disable files and content that are excessive in size or otherwise burdensome to our systems;
• otherwise manage the Services to protect our rights and property and to keep them working properly.

16Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the rights you have over it. By using the Services you agree to that policy.

The Services are hosted in the United States. If you access them from elsewhere, you consent to the transfer of your information to, and its processing in, the United States, where data-protection law may differ from the law where you live. Maryland law governs the handling of that information as described in the Privacy Policy.

17Disclaimers

THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, WITH ALL FAULTS. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

In particular, we make no warranty that:

• sports data, prices, scores, player statistics, or settlement outcomes are accurate, complete, or timely;
• the Services will be uninterrupted, secure, or free of errors;
• any defect will be corrected;
• the Services are free of viruses or other harmful components.

You use the Services at your own risk. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of the above may not apply to you.

18Limitation of Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, NEITHER WE NOR OUR DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, OR AGENTS WILL BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES — INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, OR LOSS OF GOODWILL — ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICES IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, OR (B) USD $100.

For the avoidance of doubt, we are not liable for the loss of chips, coins, cosmetic items, ratings, streaks, statistics, or duel history, none of which has monetary value. Some jurisdictions do not allow these limitations, so they may not apply to you in full.

19Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless StoryBound Tech LLC and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from any claim, demand, loss, damage, liability, or expense — including reasonable legal fees — arising out of your use of the Services, your breach of these Terms, Your Content, your violation of another person's rights, or any harmful act toward another user.

We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defence and control of any matter for which you owe indemnification, at your expense, and you agree to cooperate with that defence. We will use reasonable efforts to notify you of any such claim.

20Governing Law

These Terms, and any dispute arising out of them or out of the Services, are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland and applicable United States federal law, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

21Dispute Resolution

Please read this section carefully. It changes how disputes between you and us are resolved, and it limits the forums available to you.

Talk to us first

Before starting arbitration, you agree to contact us at support@pickbound.app with a description of the dispute and to give us 60 days to resolve it informally. Most issues are settled this way.

Binding arbitration

If we cannot resolve a dispute informally, any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services will be settled by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. Arbitration will take place in Maryland or, at your election, by telephone, by video, or on written submissions. The arbitrator's decision is final and binding, and judgment on it may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Class-action and jury waiver

YOU AND WE EACH AGREE THAT DISPUTES WILL BE BROUGHT ONLY IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. YOU AND WE EACH WAIVE THE RIGHT TO A TRIAL BY JURY.

Exceptions

Either of us may bring an individual claim in small-claims court, and either of us may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in a court of competent jurisdiction to protect intellectual property, prevent unauthorized access to the Services, or address a violation of the fair play or prohibited activities sections.

Your right to opt out

You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing support@pickbound.app within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, giving your username and a clear statement that you are opting out of arbitration. Opting out affects only this section; the rest of these Terms continues to apply.

22Term and Termination

These Terms remain in effect for as long as you use the Services.

You may stop using the Services at any time, and you may permanently delete your account — from within the Services where that control is available, or by emailing support@pickbound.app from the address on your account. Deletion is irreversible: your profile, cosmetic items, coins, rating, and progression are removed and cannot be restored. Completed duels remain in your opponents' history, attributed to an anonymized placeholder player, so their records stay intact — see Retention and Deletion.

We may suspend or terminate your access at any time, with or without notice and with or without cause, including for any violation of these Terms. On termination you lose access to your account and everything in it, including virtual items, and you may not create a new account without our permission.

Provisions that by their nature should survive termination do survive it — including the sections on chips, coins, and cosmetic items, your content, intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, governing law, and dispute resolution.

23Modifications and Interruptions

We may change, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Services — including any game mode, market type, season, event, or virtual item — at any time and without notice. We are not liable to you or to anyone else for doing so.

We do not promise the Services will be available at all times. Hardware and software issues, maintenance, and third-party providers can all cause interruptions, delays, or errors. Nothing in these Terms obliges us to maintain, support, update, or correct the Services.

24Your Data

We keep routine backups of the data held in the Services, but you remain responsible for the data you transmit and for activity you undertake using the Services. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any loss or corruption of that data, and you waive any claim against us arising from it.

25Electronic Communications, Transactions, and Signatures

Visiting the Services, sending us email, and completing forms are electronic communications. You consent to receive communications from us electronically, and you agree that all agreements, notices, disclosures, and other communications we provide electronically satisfy any legal requirement that they be in writing.

You consent to the use of electronic signatures, contracts, orders, and records, and to the electronic delivery of notices and policies. You waive any right under any law that requires an original non-electronic signature, or the delivery or retention of non-electronic records.

26Force Majeure

We are not liable for any delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including acts of God, fire, flood, severe weather, epidemic or pandemic, war, terrorism, civil unrest, labour disputes, government action, power or internet failure, or the failure of a third-party provider.

27Miscellaneous

These Terms, together with any policies we post in the Services, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Services. Our failure to enforce a right or provision is not a waiver of it. If a provision is found unlawful or unenforceable, it is severed and the remainder stays in effect.

Nothing in these Terms creates a joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship between us. These Terms will not be construed against us because we drafted them. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. You waive any defence based on the electronic form of these Terms or the absence of signatures.

28Contact Us

Questions about these Terms, or about anything else in the Services, go to StoryBound Tech LLC at support@pickbound.app.