SPX Arena
How to Play
SPX Arena is one hub with eight free games, all built around the same idea: can you out-predict — or out-pick — the SPX AI Quant Engine? One account, one login, shared leaderboards and mini-leagues.
Getting in — free, just an email
- ›Enter your email on any Arena page and hit Play free.
- ›We send one confirmation email — click the link to activate. No password, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
- ›That confirmation is required (double opt-in) so the leaderboards stay real and your inbox stays clean.
- ›Logged-in subscribers are recognised automatically and keep their Premium perks.
The eight games — Engine challenge games
Five games where you call football outcomes and get scored against — or alongside — the Engine.
🎯 Beat the Engine
- ›Predict Home / Draw / Away on upcoming matches.
- ›Lock your pick before kickoff — it's final.
- ›The Engine's SHA256-locked pick is hidden until kickoff, then you're scored against it.
🏆 World Cup 2026
- ›Beat the Engine on every WC-2026 match.
- ›Plus call the Champion & other finalist before a ball is kicked.
- ›Outright picks lock at the first kickoff (Jun 11).
📊 SPX Poll
- ›Crowd vs Engine: cast your vote on a quick football poll.
- ›Change your answer freely until the poll locks — then it's final.
- ›After the reveal you see the crowd's vote split — and, on Premium, the Engine's probability beside it.
🗓️ SPX Daily
- ›One featured match per day — pick Home / Draw / Away.
- ›One pick per day, locked until kickoff; same fixture for everyone.
- ›Build a streak — every correct call extends it, a miss resets it to zero. Your streak runs head-to-head with the Engine's.
🪜 SPX Table
- ›Predict a league's final table — order every team 1 to N.
- ›Choose from the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga or Ligue 1.
- ›Your order is scored against the real final table when the season ends, with the live standings shown as a baseline.
The eight games — skill & squad games
Three games about football knowledge and squad-building rather than match outcomes.
⚽ SPX Fantasy
- ›Pick a 15-player squad (2 GK · 5 DEF · 5 MID · 3 FWD) within a £100.0 budget, max 3 per club.
- ›Name your starting XI + bench order, set a captain (×2) and vice-captain.
- ›Pick a league to play, invite friends to a mini-league, squad locks at the gameweek deadline.
🧠 SPX Quiz
- ›A multiple-choice football trivia quiz — pure knowledge, no model picks.
- ›Answer every question; your run is scored server-side with per-question feedback.
- ›Your score is shown against the Engine's score — a fun benchmark to beat.
⭐ SPX XI
- ›Build your all-time starting XI from a curated pool of 42 legends.
- ›Pick a formation (4-3-3, 4-4-2, 3-5-2, 4-2-3-1 or 3-4-3) and fill every slot.
- ›On submit the Engine's XI is revealed side-by-side so you can share how yours stacks up.
How scoring works
Beat the Engine / World Cup
- ›+1 for every correct match result (H/D/A).
- ›Leaderboard ranks you by correct picks — and shows the Engine's score beside yours.
- ›Finish above the Engine and you're officially beating a model trained on 1,587,819 matches.
SPX Daily
- ›Each daily pick is graded once the featured match finishes.
- ›A correct call extends your streak; a wrong one resets it to 0.
- ›Your best streak is kept, and the Engine's streak is computed over the exact same fixtures — apples-to-apples.
SPX Quiz
- ›+1 per correct answer; missing or skipped answers simply count as wrong.
- ›Re-playing a quiz overwrites your previous run.
- ›Your total sits next to the Engine's curated benchmark score.
SPX Table
- ›When the season ends your predicted order is compared to the real final table.
- ›The closer each team sits to where it actually finished, the better you score.
- ›The live standings are shown as a running baseline while the season plays out.
SPX Poll & SPX XI
- ›These two aren't scored — they're crowd-comparison & squad-building for fun.
- ›SPX Poll: see how your vote sits within the crowd, and against the Engine.
- ›SPX XI: compare your eleven directly with the Engine's reference XI.
SPX Fantasy (per player, per match)
- ›Played 1–59 min +1 · 60+ min +2.
- ›Goal: GK/DEF +6 · MID +5 · FWD +4. Assist +3.
- ›Clean sheet (60+ min): GK/DEF +4 · MID +1. GK +1 per 3 saves.
- ›Yellow −1 · Red −3 · Penalty missed −2.
- ›Defensive contribution: defenders +2 for 10+ tackles/blocks/interceptions; mids/forwards +2 at 12+.
- ›Only your XI scores. A starter who doesn't play is auto-subbed by your bench (in order, keeping a legal formation). Captain ×2 — or the vice-captain if your captain doesn't play.
- ›Engine Fixture Difficulty (FDR 1–5) + injury/availability flags on every player. Premium also sees the opponent & the engine's win-probability. A "Gameweek Dream Team" + the Engine's own XI are shown each week.
Leagues, gameweeks & transfers (SPX Fantasy)
- ›Pick your league: when you create a friends-league you choose which real football competition it plays — any of our covered leagues with enough player data, or the World Cup. Everyone in that mini-league plays the same competition.
- ›Invite friends: creating a league gives you a share code. Friends join with that code — using their email (one confirmation click) or an existing Google/account login. Same system for everyone, up to ~50 per league.
- ›No friends? No problem: every league is also listed publicly with the competition it's built on — browse and join any one to compete against everyone playing that league.
- ›Gameweeks: each competition is split into numbered gameweeks. Your squad locks at the gameweek deadline (first kickoff of that round).
- ›Transfers: edit freely before your first deadline. After that, each new gameweek gives you 1 free transfer; every extra change costs −4 points.
Free vs 👑 Premium — the Engine's edge
Everyone plays every game in full, free. Free even gets a taste of the SPX Quant Engine — player projected points and the Fixture-Difficulty rating. Wherever you see the golden SPXbadge, that's the Engine talking. A golden 👑 means that bit of Intelligence is Premium.
Free — play every game
- ›Vote in every SPX Poll, submit picks in Beat the Engine, build your Fantasy squad, predict the SPX Table.
- ›Daily SPX Quiz · leaderboards · crowd vote split · Gameweek Dream Team (post-hoc).
- ›No Engine reveal — you never see the model's pick or probabilities.
👑 Premium — $39.99 USD/mo
- ›Everything Free can play, with the Engine reveal on every game — the full refresh ladder: 48h, T-24h, pre-lineup, lineup-confirmed, HT, 75'.
- ›SPX Poll: Engine probability post-reveal · Fantasy: projected points + FDR on every player.
- ›Private friends leagues + the Fantasy AI optimizer (captain picker, transfer optimizer, value & captaincy advisor).
👑 Unlock the full Engine
Premium ($39.99 USD/mo) opens up the Engine reveal on every Arena game, the full refresh ladder, private friends leagues and the AI optimizer. All prices in US dollars. Cancel anytime.
See pricing →Fair play
- ›Every Engine analytics report is SHA256-locked before kickoff and publicly auditable — it can't be changed after the fact.
- ›Picks, votes and Engine reports are immutable once locked; nothing reveals early.
- ›Quiz answers are graded server-side — the answer key never reaches the page before you submit.
- ›SPX Arena is free entertainment — no stakes, no wagering. It is not a betting product.