Real decisions on this farm, put to the players, settled in August.
What goes in the west field. Whether to drill early or late. Whether to keep the rape at all. Genuine agronomic decisions, surfaced as a vote, with the outcome revealed months later when it is actually known. Free to enter, worth nothing, and deliberately built to sit outside the Gambling Act 2005.
Free to enter, cosmetic reward only, no cash-out and no convertible value
There is no stake, no entry fee, no prize of monetary value and nothing that can be exchanged for one. The reward for being right is a cosmetic item that cannot be sold, traded, transferred or converted. The question is framed on judgement rather than chance. Those four facts together are what keep this outside the Gambling Act 2005, and they are design constraints rather than a disclaimer.
Four decisions currently open.
Four decisions that a real farm has to take anyway. The percentages are what everybody else said, which is the interesting part and also the part that makes people change their minds.
What should go in the west field next autumn?
Pick one. It costs nothing and wins nothing but points.
Drill the wheat early or late this year?
Pick one. It costs nothing and wins nothing but points.
Keep growing oilseed rape at all?
Pick one. It costs nothing and wins nothing but points.
Which scheme option for the eight hectares by the wood?
Pick one. It costs nothing and wins nothing but points.
Free to enter. One vote per account per question, changeable until the question closes. The reward for a correct call is a cosmetic item of no monetary value that cannot be sold, traded, transferred or converted. There is no stake, no entry fee and no prize of monetary value at any point.
The four constraints that keep this legal.
The Gambling Act 2005 test
- Is there a stake?
- NoFree to enter, at every tier, with no entry fee, no currency cost and no requirement to have spent anything.
- Is there a prize of value?
- NoA cosmetic that cannot be sold, traded, transferred or converted. Its market value is structurally zero because there is no market.
- Is it a game of chance?
- Framed on judgementThe questions are agronomic decisions with reasoning attached, and the reasoning is published alongside the options.
- Can anything be cashed out?
- NoNothing in the game converts to money, to another game, to a voucher or to anything else.
What would change the answer
- Charging to enter
- Would create a stakeIncluding indirectly — a premium-only vote, or a vote that costs in-game currency bought with money.
- A prize with a market
- Would create valueA tradeable cosmetic has a price the moment two players can move it, whatever the terms say.
- Removing the reasoning
- Would make it chanceA question with no basis for judgement is a coin toss with a farm on it.
- A cash alternative
- Would end the argumentThere is none, anywhere, in any tier, at any point.
The settlement
- Settled on
- What the farm actually didPublished on the site, with the reasoning, at the time it happened.
- Revealed
- Months later, not immediatelyThe drill-date vote settles in October and the crop vote settles the following August.
- Auditable
- YesEvery past vote and its settlement is kept permanently in a ledger that nobody can edit after the fact.
This is a plain-English account of how a mechanic would be built, not legal advice. Nobody involved in writing it has any standing to give any.
Every vote since the first one.
Every vote, what the players said, what the farm did, and what happened. Kept permanently, and not edited after the fact — including the two where the players were plainly wrong.
RecordTHE-GAME-VOTES
-
October, season 1
Drill date, winter wheatPlayers said the second week of October, 51 per cent. The farm drilled on the ninth
Settled
a41c9e -
August, season 1
What goes in the west fieldPlayers said spring oats, 44 per cent. The farm drilled oats and the blackgrass count fell by about half
Settled
7b20f4 -
March, season 2
Keep the rapePlayers said keep it, 38 per cent, in a four-way split. The beetle took it in November
Settled
c9f118 -
September, season 2
The scheme option by the woodPlayers said flower-rich margin, 41 per cent. Taken, and the pollinator count is now the best on the holding
Settled
22ade7 -
May, season 3
Nitrogen rate on the barley blockPlayers said the standard rate. Charlie disagreed publicly and was right
Settled
f80b3c -
Open now
Four questionsTwo settle in October, one in August, one at the application deadline
Open
—
The third row is the important one. The players voted to keep the oilseed rape and the flea beetle took it in November. That entry stays on the ledger for ever, because a record that only keeps the good calls is not a record.
Why the outcome is revealed months later, rather than immediately.
Because the delay is the whole educational content. A vote that resolves in ninety seconds is a slot machine with an agronomy skin. A vote taken in March and resolved in August teaches the actual shape of farming, which is that you make an irreversible decision with incomplete information and then wait half a year to find out.
It also removes any possible resemblance to a betting product. Nobody has ever built a gambling mechanic with a five-month settlement period, because nobody would use it.
And it gives the farm something genuinely useful: a large, engaged, non-expert view on a real decision, taken before the decision, with the reasoning published. The players were right about the oats and wrong about the rape, and both of those are on the ledger.
What can and cannot be voted on.
| Votable | Why | |
|---|---|---|
| Crop choice on a named field | Yes | Genuinely open, genuinely consequential, and settles publicly |
| Drill date | Yes | The most interesting decision in arable farming and the easiest to explain |
| Scheme option selection | Yes | Real published payment rates, real trade-offs, and a real deadline |
| Whether to keep a marginal crop | Yes | The rape question, which nobody on the farm agrees about either |
| Anything involving an animal’s welfare | No | Not a vote. Not ever. Welfare decisions are taken by the people responsible for the animal |
| Anything involving a person’s employment | No | For the obvious reason |
| Anything with a regulatory consequence | No | A vote cannot be the reason a farm breaches a scheme condition |
| Anything that has already been decided | No | A vote with a predetermined outcome is a marketing exercise pretending to be participation |
The vote, questioned.
No. There is no stake, no entry fee, no prize of monetary value and nothing that can be cashed out. Free entry and no prize of value together put it outside the Gambling Act 2005, and the questions are framed on judgement rather than chance.
A cosmetic item that cannot be sold, traded, transferred or converted, and a line in the ledger. That is the entire reward and it is deliberately worth nothing.
It is a real input into a real decision, and the ledger records both what the players said and what the farm did, including where those differed. A vote that is always followed would be reckless and a vote that is never followed would be a fraud.
Any number of times until the question closes. The last vote before close is the one that counts.
And it all starts with a title sequence.
Onboarding staged as the opening of a television programme, skippable in eight seconds.
