why?

There's no prize. Nobody wires you money back. You're paying to move a number next to a flag, and if it works, that flag sits at the top of the board until midnight UTC. That's the whole product. People do it anyway, for reasons that turn out to be pretty good ones.

• $5 buys your country a spot on today's board. That's it.
• No ticket, no jersey, no flight to a stadium. Cheaper than the beer you'd buy while watching the game.
• You don't need your country to actually be good at anything today. You just need to want it to win more than everyone else does.

Once a round closes, it closes. Whoever's on top at 00:00 UTC won that date, forever. It joins the archive and nothing changes it after. If your country has never won anything on a given day of the calendar, today might be the day that stops being true.

Every contribution can carry a public message next to the flag, up to 80 characters. It's the closest thing this site has to a podium speech. Use it to talk trash, rally your team, or just leave your name where the leader used to be.

Rules allow links in your message, and links in messages render as real, clickable links, marked as a paid placement the way search engines expect. Drop your site, shop, portfolio, or GitHub next to a winning flag and it stays there in the archive for that date forever. Every future visitor to that day's page sees it.

You don't need a cause. 80 characters next to a flag, in front of whoever's watching that day's board, is a spot most ad networks would charge you a lot more than $5 for. Cheapest, weirdest billboard on the internet.

The board is live. Whoever's in first can be pushed down by anyone willing to pay one dollar more, and the price to do it is shown right on the board. Rivalries settle themselves in real time, not in a comments section.

This isn't a raffle, a lottery, or an investment. There's no chance of winning money, ever, at any stage. If that's what you're looking for, this isn't it. See the rules for exactly how contributions, rounds, and rankings work.