Cash line

What the cash line is

The cash line is the last finishing position in a contest that receives a prize. Finish on it or above it and you are paid; finish one place below it and you are not. It is set by the contest's payout tiers, which are published on the contest page before the contest locks, so everyone knows where the line sits before the game starts.

The line is a position, not a score. How many points it takes to reach it depends on how the rest of the field answered that night, which is why the same contest format can need very different totals from one game to the next.

An example

In the NE Patriots at SEA Seahawks contest, 177 entered and 75 were paid. The cash line was 75th place, and it paid $25, the bottom of a ladder that started at $2,000 for first. Anyone who finished 75th took $25 home; anyone who finished 76th took nothing. In the DET Lions at BUF Bills contest, the top 40 of 118 entries were paid, so the line sat at 40th.

Near the end of a game, the players around the line are often the ones with the most at stake on each question. A single fast correct answer can be the difference between a prize and none.

In Speed Survivor

Two things decide whether you finish above the line. First you have to survive: in single-life contests a wrong answer ends your run, and cuts remove the bottom of the field at set points. Then you have to score, and faster correct answers score more. Eliminated entrants keep the points they banked for placement, but they stop adding to them.

Each recap says how many entrants cashed. How it works covers the scoring and the cuts, and the prize pool entry explains where the money on the ladder comes from.