Frequently asked questions

The basics

What is Last Man Standing?

An elimination competition. Each round you pick one team you think will win. If they win, you go through to the next round. If they lose or draw, you are out — or you lose a life, if your competition gives you one. Players drop away week by week until somebody is the last one standing.

Does a draw count as a win?

No. Your team has to win. A draw is treated exactly the same as a defeat: it costs you a life, or puts you out if you have none left. This catches more people out than anything else in the game, so it is worth saying plainly before you pick a team you fancy for a point.

Is extra time or penalties included in the result?

No. Results are judged on regulation time only — the ninety minutes plus stoppage time. If a cup tie is level at full time and your team goes on to win in extra time or on penalties, the pick still counts as a draw and you still lose a life.

It is the standard Last Man Standing convention and it removes any argument about which scoreline counted.

How much does it cost?

Players: nothing. Joining is free. Your organiser may run their own entry fee or kitty, which is between you and them and has nothing to do with us.

Organisers: 20 free places, no card needed. They are shared across everything you run, not 20 per competition, and each player holds one for as long as their competition exists — including competitions that have finished. Every player past the 20 uses a credit, and credits come in packs starting at £10 for 20 more places.

Can I play on mobile?

Yes. It works in any browser on a phone, tablet or computer — there is nothing to install, and most players do the whole thing on their phone.

Playing

How do you win at Last Man Standing?

By being the last player left — and in a competition of any size that is a genuine achievement rather than a lucky streak. Surviving ten rounds means reading form and injuries, knowing which sides travel badly, and spotting the week where the obvious pick is a trap.

What makes it a game of judgement rather than chance is the squeeze. Everyone starts with the same teams, and every round you spend one of them for good, so the question is never simply who will win — it is which win you can afford to use now. Burn the strong sides early and the later rounds have nothing safe left in them. Hoard them and you may not reach the rounds you were saving them for. The player still standing at the end got that order right more often than anybody else did.

How do I join a competition?

Your organiser gives you an invite code. Enter it in the join box on the LMSLocal home page, then sign in or create an account. If they sent you a link instead, the code is already in it — just follow the link.

You can only join before round 1 locks. After that the competition is closed and you will have to wait for the next one.

Can I change my pick?

Yes — right up until the round locks. You can switch to a different team as often as you like, or clear your pick and come back to it later. Once the deadline passes, whatever is showing is your pick and it can no longer be changed.

When do picks lock?

At the deadline your organiser sets for that round. There is no automatic buffer before kick-off, so do not assume it is an hour before the first match — it might be, or it might not.

The deadline is shown on your dashboard and again on the pick screen. Check it there rather than guessing.

What if I forget to pick?

Missing the deadline counts the same as a losing pick. You lose a life, or you are eliminated if you had none left.

Can I use the same team twice?

Usually not — most competitions run the "no team twice" rule, so once you have used a team they are gone from your list. Your organiser chooses this when they set the competition up, and it cannot be changed once round 1 has started.

What happens when I run out of teams?

Every team comes back. Once you have used all of them, your list resets and the whole roster is available to you again from the next round.

It happens per player rather than per competition, so somebody who joined later still has their own teams to work through. Worth planning for: the last few rounds before a reset are the ones where people get stuck with nobody good left.

Can I join multiple competitions?

Yes, as many as you like on one account. Your picks and your used teams are tracked separately in each one.

How do I know if I am eliminated?

Your dashboard shows your status and how many lives you have left. If you are out, it says so and tells you which round you went out in.

Can other players see my picks?

Not before the deadline. Until the round locks, your pick is yours alone — nobody else can see it, including players who have already picked.

Once the round locks, everybody’s picks become visible on the standings. That is the point at which the second-guessing starts.

What happens if my team’s match is postponed?

That is your organiser’s call — there is no automatic "void" outcome. A fixture with no result entered simply stays unresulted, and the round does not finish until it has one.

Some organisers wait for the rearranged match, others decide the pick counts as a win. Ask yours what they do before it comes up.

Can eliminated players rejoin?

Not under your own steam — there is no button on your side, and elimination is final unless your organiser decides otherwise. They can bring you back in, so it is worth asking rather than assuming.

Some organisers run this as a buy-back, the way poker does: pay into the pot again and you are back in for another go. Whether that is offered at all, what it costs and how late you can do it are entirely your organiser’s decisions — LMSLocal is not involved in the money and cannot tell you their rules. Ask them.

If you are brought back, you return with no lives left, so the next team that fails to win puts you out again. You do not get a fresh start ahead of the players who never went out.

A competition reset is the other route: it starts the whole thing again with everybody back in.

What happens if everyone goes out in the same round?

The competition ends with no winner, and LMSLocal records it that way — it is a real ending rather than an error, and everyone is told. What happens to the prize is your organiser’s call: commonly the pot is shared between everyone knocked out in that last round, or the competition is reset and run again.

How long does a competition last?

Until somebody wins, which is a matter of luck rather than a fixed length. Small competitions can be over in five or six rounds. A big one can run most of a season, especially with lives in play.

Running a competition

How do I run a Last Man Standing competition?

Set the competition up, send people a join link, and let each round play out. You choose whether there is an entry fee and what the prize is; we never touch that money. The first twenty player places are free and there is no card to enter.

Week to week there is very little to do. The matches arrive in the round already, players pick on their own phones, results land after full time and the eliminations follow without anybody working them out by hand. A round update is written for you to paste into WhatsApp.

The decisions worth making before round one are what a missed pick costs, when picks lock, and what happens if everyone goes out at once. All three are answered further down this page.

How many players can join?

As many as you like — there is no cap on the size of a competition. Your first 20 places are free across everything you run, and each player after that uses a credit, so a big competition is a question of credits rather than a limit.

How many competitions can I run?

As many as you want, all from one account. Remember the 20 free places are shared across them rather than granted to each — including competitions that have finished, which carry on holding the places their players took.

Can I charge an entry fee, and is that gambling?

Plenty of organisers charge one, and most fundraisers sit well inside the rules — but it is a real question rather than a formality, and the answer depends on who is playing and where the money ends up. A competition with no entry fee is not gambling at all, whatever the prize.

The Is it gambling? page in this help centre maps it out in plain English and links to the Gambling Commission pages it comes from. We are not lawyers, so treat it as a starting point rather than a ruling.

Does LMSLocal take the entry money or pay the prizes?

No. We never take entry fees, hold stakes or pay prizes, and that is deliberate — the money is between you and your players, collected and handed out however you like. The only thing you ever pay us for is player places.

How do I get people to join?

Getting players in is the hardest part of running a competition, and it is the part we can actually help with. Every competition has a Promote page with the work already done:

• —Ready-made WhatsApp messages you can edit and copy
• —An image to post on Facebook or Instagram
• —A QR code to print and put up behind the bar
• —Your join link, ready to paste anywhere

Most organisers find one good WhatsApp message to the right group does more than everything else put together.

Who supplies the fixtures and results?

Us, normally. Where we cover the league your competition is using you are offered the service as you create it, and almost every new organiser takes it. Where we do not cover the league, you run the fixtures yourself.

Do it for me — we add each round’s fixtures and enter the results as they come in. You pick a start date up front, round 1 is there from the moment the competition exists, and your job is just to get people to join.

I’ll do my own — you enter the matches and the results yourself each round, and you set the lock time. More work, but complete control over what counts and when.

It is not something you can change yourself once the competition exists, but it is not set in stone either: ask us and we will switch a competition from one to the other.

Do I have to wait for every match to finish before entering results?

No — if you run your own fixtures, put results in as they come in. Enter one and process the round, and anyone whose team has lost is out there and then: they find out on Saturday evening instead of Sunday night, and the players still in can see where they stand.

The rest of the round carries on as normal, and you keep adding results as the matches finish. If we supply your fixtures there is nothing to do — we enter them for you as the results come in.

What if I enter the wrong result?

While you are still entering them, tap a result again to clear it and put a different one in. Nothing is committed until you submit the round.

Once you submit, the results are final and there is no way to change them in the app. Get in touch with us and we will see what can be done. Be aware that unwinding a submitted round is not a simple edit — it has already decided who won, who lost a life and who went out, and every one of those has to be put back by hand — so it is worth checking the results carefully before you submit.

If the only damage is that one player has been knocked out who should not have been, say so and we will sort it. Do not use Bring back in for that — it would use one of your places to correct a mistake that was not yours to pay for.

Can I change the rules after starting?

Some of them:

• —Name and description: yes, whenever you like
• —Lives and the no-team-twice rule: no, these lock once the first round starts

Changing the game rules underneath people who are already playing would not be fair on them, which is why those two set hard.

What does resetting a competition actually do?

It puts the competition back to the start. Every round, pick and result is cleared and everyone still in it is restored to full lives, ready for a new set of fixtures. It does not finish the current game or file the stats away — the previous run is simply gone.

The point of it is that you do not have to invite everybody again. The invite code stays the same and your players keep their place without lifting a finger. If one of them does not fancy another go, remove that single player rather than starting from scratch.

Your first 20 places are still free. Beyond that, bringing a player back uses a place, the same as if they were joining for the first time — the last run’s places were spent on the last run. You are shown the exact number before you confirm, with the option to back out and tidy up your player list first.

Can I bring an eliminated player back in?

Yes. On your Players screen, open the menu against their name and choose Bring back in. They go straight back into the competition and can pick in the next round.

They come back with no lives left, whatever the competition started with. That puts them level with everyone who has already used theirs rather than ahead of them: the next loss puts them out again. It would not be fair on the players who never went out to hand somebody a fresh cushion on the way back in.

Bringing a player back uses one place, exactly as though they were joining for the first time. Your first 20 places are free, so if you are inside that it costs you nothing and you will not be asked about it. Beyond 20 it uses a credit, and you are told the price and what you will have left before you confirm — never by pressing the button.

It is worth telling your other players when you do it, whatever your reason. Somebody reappearing in the standings with no explanation is the sort of thing that causes an argument in week six.

Can I run a buy-back, like poker?

Yes, and this is what a lot of organisers use Bring back in for. A player goes out in week three, pays into the pot again, and you put them back in. Their money grows the prize, they get another go, and your competition keeps the people who would otherwise have stopped paying attention the moment they were knocked out.

How you charge for it is entirely up to you. LMSLocal never touches your players’ money — we do not take entry fees, buy-backs or prizes, and we do not know what you charge. Most organisers collect a buy-back the same way they collected the entry fee in the first place, at the bar or by bank transfer, and simply bring the player back in once it is paid.

Set the rules before you need them, not after. Decide whether buy-backs are allowed at all, what they cost, and — the one people forget — how late into the competition you will still accept one. Poker rooms close late registration for a reason: if anyone can buy back in during the closing weeks, finishing has stopped meaning very much. A common shape is to allow buy-backs for the first few rounds and make it a straight knockout after that.

Be even-handed about it. If you let one person buy back in, be ready to let the next person do the same, or say up front why not. The cost to you is one place per buy-back, on the same terms as any other player joining.

Can I give a player an extra life instead?

No. Lives are set by the competition and worked out from the results — they are shown on your Players screen but you cannot hand them out.

That is deliberate. If lives could be topped up each round, nobody would ever be eliminated and the competition could never finish, which is not much of a Last Man Standing. Where an organiser genuinely wants to give somebody another go, Bring back in does that job openly: it is visible, it is on the record, and everyone can see it happened.

If a player has been knocked out by a result that was entered wrongly, that is our problem to fix rather than something you should be paying for. Get in touch and we will put it right.

Why are my free places still used when a competition has finished?

Because a place is held by a player rather than spent on a game. Each player takes one of your 20 for as long as their competition exists, so a competition that finished last month is still holding the places its players took. That is why you can be at the limit on a brand new competition with only a handful of people in it.

Your billing page lists every competition and how many places each one is holding, so you can see exactly where the 20 have gone.

Deleting a competition frees the free places its players are holding. It also removes that competition’s results for good, and does not refund credits you have bought.

If I remove a player, do I get their credit back?

Only if you remove them before the competition has started. Once it is underway, removing a player frees up their place but does not refund a credit that has been spent.

What happens if a player tries to join when I am full?

They see a message saying the competition is full and to get in touch with you. You get a notice on your dashboard shortly afterwards, so you can buy more places or tell them where they stand. Your billing page lists which of your competitions are holding your places.

What is the "Set Pick" option against a player’s name for?

An optional override for making or correcting a pick on somebody’s behalf — the player who texts you their team because they will be on a plane at lock time, or one who has picked the wrong side of a fixture by mistake. You do not need to use it to confirm picks players have made themselves.

How do I handle disputes?

You have the final say, and the tools to back it up:

• —Set or change any player’s pick before the round locks
• —Adjust a player’s lives, or their in/out status
• —Add or remove players at any point
• —Reset the whole competition and start again

The platform runs the competition; it does not referee it. Where a call is a judgement rather than a fact — a postponed match, a player who says they picked and did not — the decision is yours, and being seen to make it consistently matters more than which way you go.

Account, privacy and problems

I cannot log in — what should I try?

1. 1Check you are using the email address you signed up with
2. 2Use the forgot password link to set a new one
3. 3Try a different browser, or clear this one’s cache
4. 4Get in touch if none of that works

Can I change the name I play under?

Yes, and it does not have to be the same everywhere. Set your name in Profile, and under it a separate name for each competition you are in — the name the pub knows you by is not always the one the office does.

Can I give a competition a name of my own?

Yes. Tap the pencil beside a competition on your dashboard and call it whatever tells you which one it is.

Only you see that name. Everyone else still sees the one the organiser chose, and the competition itself is not renamed — organisers who want to change the real name do it in the competition settings.

What timezone are the deadlines in?

Yours. Times are converted to whatever timezone your device is set to, so the deadline you see is the deadline where you are.

Is my data safe?

Passwords are hashed, connections are encrypted, and we do not sell or share personal data. We ask for an email address and a display name and no more, because we would rather not hold anything we do not need.

Can I delete my account?

Yes, from your profile settings. It takes you out of every competition you have joined and deletes your picks and history along with the account.

If you organise competitions of your own, delete those first — the account cannot be removed while it still owns live ones.