How to play Pothole

1. The account

Pothole needs an account: email, first and last name, province, date of birth, nickname and password. The email must be confirmed (the link is valid 48 hours). On confirmation you get 10,000 tokens. The minimum age is 18 in Québec, Alberta and Manitoba, 19 elsewhere; if you're under age, sign-up is refused and nothing is kept.

2. The stake

Stakes run from 10 to 2,500 tokens, with shortcuts (10, 100, 500, 2,500). The stake leaves your balance when you set off. While the car is rolling, stake and route can't be changed.

3. The route

Country road is the Sunday drive: 24 km, a multiplier that climbs gently. Expressway is Highway 40 on a Friday night: 12 km, multipliers that explode, and a pothole in almost every round.

4. Drive on or cash out

1. Go starts the round: the server draws the pothole's position and shows you the key's fingerprint.
2. Drive on clears one kilometre. If the road holds, your multiplier rises and a coin joins the counter. If it's the pothole: BAM, round over, stake lost.
3. Cash out (available after the first km) pays stake × multiplier in tokens and ends the round.
4. Reach the end of the road with no pothole and the game cashes out for you at the maximum multiplier.

On a keyboard: Space or Enter to drive on, E to cash out.

5. Reading the end of a round

The banner shows the result and the multiplier. Under the game, the "Key revealed" line shows the secret key and the pothole's position: the SHA-256 fingerprint of that key is the one you were shown at the start. That's what makes every round verifiable; see the 97% RTP page.

6. Leaderboard and resume

Two leaderboards: the highest cashed-out multiplier (weekly and all time), and "Weekly winnings", tokens won by playing minus tokens staked, purchases excluded. Both reset on Monday. An interrupted round (a call, a closed tab) resumes where it was: the car waits for you.

Three honest tips

• There's no way to "feel" the pothole: it's drawn before your first tap.
• Pick your exit multiplier before you set off, not during.
• Tokens are worth nothing. If you catch yourself thinking of them as money, that's the moment to close the game.