Dollar Candy FAQ

(Frequently asked questions)


General:
1) What is Dollar Candy?
2) Is the money I make real (or only exists in the game)?
3) Is Dollar Candy legal in the U.S.? Can I play in my state?
4) Can I play DollarCandy outside the U.S.?
5) How is the element of luck removed from Dollar Candy?
6) How much can I make / win?
7) What level of game should I choose?
8) When do higher entry fee games become unlocked?
9) How does DollarCandy make money?

Safety:
10) How do you stop newbie-hustlers?
11) How do you stop robo-cheaters?

Financial:
12) How do I deposit funds for the entry fee?
13) How do I withdraw my winnings and unused entry fees?
14) Can I send and receive money from India?
15) Can I send and receive money from Pakistan?

Game rules:
16) What are the rules for Match 'Em?

Tech support:
Apple: iPhone / iPad / Ipod:
17) Why can't I see the whole game on my iPhone / iPod?
18) Why are the top and bottom rows of the game covered with navigation bars on my iPhone / iPod?
19) Help, my game it stuck at the beginning (and I can't leave it) on my iPad/ iPhone / iPod!
20) Help, I can't leave the game on my iPad/iPhone/iPod!



1) What is Dollar Candy?
   
Dollar Candy is a game that lets you make money competing in sixty second games of skill.
  • Compete in 4 person tournament games like "Match 'em" and "Find It".
  • Make from 9¢ to $300.00 per game, based on entry fee and skill level.
  • Play recreationally or competitively. The better you get, the more you make.
Dollar Candy is playable on mobiles (iPhone, Android, etc.), tablets, and computers (PC and Mac). More info …

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2) Is the money I make real (or only exists in the game)?
   
It's real, legal U.S. currency and spendable anywhere real money is. Like all U.S. currency, you can also use third party companies to convert it to non-U.S. currencies or virtual currencies (like bitcoin).

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3) Is Dollar Candy legal in the U.S.? Can I play in my state?
   
U.S. law prohibits gambling (playing games of luck for money) in most states. However, we've removed the element of luck from the game, so that skill determines who wins. Playing skill games for money is fully legal and not prohibited by any U.S. law.

However, some states have additional laws (beyond federal law) that regulate or prohibit skill gaming for money. For this reason, U.S. players must be in one of the green states (below) to play Dollar Candy for money. (If you're not, you're still allowed to play the free/practice games. But you cannot play for money.):



Players in the following states may not play Dollar Candy for money (and may only play the free/practice games): Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, North Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Puerto Rico, Colorado, Minnesota, Indiana, Montana, South Carolina. We also cannot accept or send money to/from financial accounts registered to users in these states. Players from these states who attempt to circumvent site security, will have their funds confiscated and their actions reported to their state law enforcement. Instead, you may wish to contact your state lawmakers and tell them you want to see real money skill-gaming fully legalized in your state.

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4) Can I play DollarCandy outside the U.S.?
   
Generally, yes. U.S. law does not prohibit us from offering this service to players outside the U.S., making it legal for us to provide it to you. However, it's possible that your own country's (or state's or region's) laws further restrict or prohibit you playing. Since it's impossible for us to keep track of the millions of jurisdictions around the world, you are solely responsible for researching your personal situation and determining whether it is legal or not for you to access the service.

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5) How is the element of luck removed from Dollar Candy?
   
  • All players in a tournament receive the exact same board. (This eliminates the "luck of the draw" found in all card games and most video games).
  • No random events occur to individuals during gameplay. (This prevents "lucky/unlucky breaks" from occurring to some players and not others).
  • Players who randomly select tiles rather than deliberately picking them are terminally penalized. (This eliminates "lucky guessing").
  • All tile categories and matches can be recognized by the average 15-year-old, and all players must be at least 18 to play. (This eliminates the luck factor found in highly specialized skill games like three card monte, which require expertise that only a handful of people possess. In such games, virtually all players are forced to rely on their luck.)
  • No player is allowed to purchase power ups or any special gameplay advantages over the others.

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6) How much can I make / win?
   
Prizes range from 9¢ to $300.00. You choose the prize payouts for your games, based on your choice of entry fee and level .
  • Lower entry fees have lower prizes. Higher entry fees have higher prizes.
  • Casual games have smaller prizes, spread among many winners. Intense games have larger prizes, spread among fewer winners.
Here's a list of all possible payouts:

Penny games:
 
Entry fee: $.09. Casual: 3 of 4 players win.
  • 1st place: 12 cents
  • 2nd place: 10 cents
  • 3rd place: 9 cents
Entry fee: $.49. Medium: Double $ in 1st place.
  • 1st place: $1.00
  • 2nd place: 52 cents
  • 3rd place: 14 cents
Entry fee: $.99. Intense: Triple $ in 1st place.
  • 1st place: $3.00
  • 2nd place: 30 cents
Mini buck games: (unlocked after you play 1 game)
 
Entry fee: $2.99. Casual: 3 of 4 players win.
  • 1st place: $3.99
  • 2nd place: $3.32
  • 3rd place: $2.99
Entry fee: $4.99. Medium: Double $ in 1st place.
  • 1st place: $10.18
  • 2nd place: $5.27
  • 3rd place: $1.43
Entry fee: $9.99. Intense: Triple $ in 1st place.
  • 1st place: $30.00
  • 2nd place: $3.00
Big buck games: (unlocked after you play 5 games)
 
Entry fee: $29.99. Casual: 3 of 4 players win.
  • 1st place: $39.90
  • 2nd place: $33.20
  • 3rd place: $29.99
Entry fee: $49.99. Medium: Double $ in 1st place.
  • 1st place: $101.80
  • 2nd place: $52.70
  • 3rd place: $14.30
Entry fee: $99.99. Intense: Triple $ in 1st place.
  • 1st place: $300.00
  • 2nd place: $30.00
Don't see a specific payout you want to play? Let us know!

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7) What level of game should I choose?
   
There are three levels of games: casual, medium or intense.

  • Casual games: for relaxed, casual fun. 3 out of 4 players win every game.
  • Medium games: larger prizes and more competitive than a casual game, but not quite as much as an intense game.
  • Intense games: the most competition and excitement. Fewer, but larger winners who double or triple their money.
Click here to see more details.

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8) When do higher entry fee games become unlocked?
   

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9) How does DollarCandy make money?
   
We feed ourselves by retaining a small share (12-15%) of the entry fees.

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10) How do you stop newbie-hustlers?
   
Newbie hustlers are experts who play against new users and unfairly take their money. Traditional skill gaming sites attempt to stop them by creating matching systems which claim to match players of equal skill. But in practice, most systems can be cheated fairly easily (example: by an expert pretending to play badly). To compensate for this, traditional sites create security systems to look for users who are winning "too much". However, these systems are not perfect either, and often result in legitimately skilled players being banned for their own success.

Dollar Candy takes a completely different approach. We segregate newbies and experts by structuring the payouts so that newbie levels are attractive only to newbies, an expert levels are only attractive to (legitimate) experts. The newbie levels emphasize safety, with winnings that are too small to make hustling an effective use of time. Expert levels emphasize winning, with the ability to double or triple one's money. So this allows newbies to play with other newbies and experts to play with other experts. And this prevents us from having to ban legitimately skilled players for their success.

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11) How do you stop robo-cheaters?
   
Robo-cheaters are computer programs that use the computer's superior skills to unfairly beat human players. Being ripped off by a robo-cheater is neither fair nor fun.

Unfortunately (and somewhat amazingly), 99% of games on traditional skill gaming services have one or both of the following flaws, which makes them easy prey for robo-cheaters:
  1. Computers play the game significantly better than a human. (They demolish humans using their perfect aim, vocabulary, memory, blazing fast response time, lack of fatigue, etc.)
  2. The engine of the game runs on your mobile phone, tablet or PC, where it a trivial matter to modify it and cheat. (For example, magically changing the position of the player to be right next to something the other players are trying to find.)
As a result, there are innumerable complaints on the Internet about traditional services being overrun by robo-cheaters. In response, the sites have created "security systems" to watch for suspicious behavior (for example: looking for players who win "too much"). Unfortunately, it's impossible to catch a sophisticated cheater, because they purposefully lose and look exactly like a legitimate player. And some sites have been accused of routinely banning their most successful players, which unfairly punishes the innocent along with the guilty.

Dollar Candy believes this entire process is fundamentally flawed. We take a completely different approach:
  1. All of our games are played significantly better by humans than computers.
  2. The engine for our games is hidden away on our server, instead exposed on the device.
. This is why you will never see games like Scrabble, Concentration, Wheel of Fortune (tm) or Deer Hunter (tm) on Dollar Candy. But you will enjoy the fact that the person you're playing against is really a person, and not a computer!

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12) How do I deposit funds for the entry fee?
   
Dollar Candy accepts payments via PayPal and credit card. (And we plan to add other payment methods in the future). PayPal charges a small fee for both of these services, so we deduct that fee from your amount and then deposit the rest into your account.

Click here if you live in India or Pakistan.

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13) How do I withdraw my winnings and unused entry fees?
   
You can initiate a withdrawal at any time in the game. Click on the credits icon, choose "withdrawal" and then follow the prompts.
The cost of sending funds through the 3rd party payment processor you choose, is deducted from your amount before it is sent. See the terms and conditions for more details.
Before sending out your payment, Dollar Candy is required by law (and site policy) to review the account for fraud (for example, a player playing from, or attempting to be paid in a prohibited state). Due to this, withdrawals can take up to 15 business days to process. For full information on withdrawals please see the terms and conditions.

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14) Can I send and receive money from India?
   
Yes (as long as you limit yourself to $10,000 per transaction and withdraw funds in 7 days to a bank account).

Dollar Candy currently uses PayPal and at one time the Royal Bank of India (RBI) completely restricted PayPal's use in India (TechCrunch: Feburary 5th, 2010). However, since then they've allowed sending up to $500, $3,000 and now $10,000. The RBI's other requirement is that you withdraw funds in 7 days to a bank account.

Also in the future, Dollar Candy will support other payment methods as well.

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15) Can I send and receive money from Pakistan?
   
PayPal (Dollar Candy's current payment processor) is not directly supported in Pakistan.

However, you can use PayPal if you also use Payoneer. With Payoneer, you get a mastercard which you can connect to a PayPal account (to send money). And to receive money, you can use Payoneer's U.S. Payments service.

Also in the future, Dollar Candy will support other payment methods as well.

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16) What are the rules for Match 'Em?
   
Screenshot summary:

All players receive the same board of colorful tiles, which looks something like this:


Rules:
  • Touch / click pairs of tiles that are the most similar. For example, these tiles are both zebras:
  • When you select a pair, they will flash for 2 seconds. During that time you can change your mind and unselect the pair (without penalty) by re-touching / clicking either item in the pair. Once the flashing stops, your pair is scored.
  • Levels: Lower levels cater to less experienced players and pull tiles from more categories, which is easier. Higher levels cater to more experienced players, and pull from less categories, which is harder.
    • Casual: 3 categories. Example: tiles are in the categories of animals, sports and architecture.
    • Medium: 2 categories. Example: tiles are in the categories of animals and sports.
    • Intense: 1 category. Example: tiles are in the category of animals.
  • Points:
    • Matching:
      1,000 points for each correct match. -1,000 point penalty for each incorrect match.
    • Streak bonus:
      Match multiple pairs of tiles correctly in a row and your score for the match is multiplied by the length of your streak to that point. So:

      Length of streak Points
      2 x 2 = 2,000
      3 x 3 = 3,000
      4 x 4 = 4,000
      Etc.…

       
    • Clear the board:
      Clear the entire board before time runs out and get a bonus! The faster you do it the higher your bonus. Score 1,000 x (60 - seconds between 1st click/touch and clearing board). Note: at the end of the game, you will see an initial guess of your bonus. However your device can't calculate this exactly (due to varying speeds of devices and internet connections). So a second and definitive scoring will be done by our servers, and the final result shown to you in "my history".
    • Excessive mind changes:
      To prevent automated bots from cheating (by quickly clicking on every tile combination and using the "change your mind" feature to avoid being penalized for wrong guesses), there is penalty for excessive mind changes. Players who change their mind more than 10 times in a game receive a -55,000 point penalty for each mind change. Additionally, they are also reviewed for fraud. Fraudulent players forfeit their account, have all funds confiscated and are expelled from the site.
    • Ties:
      If two or more players have the same score, ties go to whomever had the shortest elapsed time between their 1st selection and their last. In the unlikely event that any players still remain tied, PBJ Games (at its sole discretion) will determine an alternate measure of skill to break the tie. This may include a new and separate contest between the tied players.

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17) Why can't I see the whole game on my iPhone / iPod?
   
There are two unfixed Apple bugs that can cause this:

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18) Why are the top and bottom rows of the game covered with navigation bars on my iPhone / iPod?
   
(This problem only occurs in the web version of the game. You can avoid it completely by installing the iPhone/iPod app).

If your iPhone / iPod has iOS7 installed and you launched the game from your Safari web browser, there is a bug in it that will cause the top and bottom rows of the game to be covered with navigation bars. It looks like this:




Until Apples fixes this bug, you can work around it by rotating your phone into portrait mode and then back to landscape mode:


When you do this, the extra navigation bars will disappear like this:



If you don't want to do this every time, and don't want to wait for Apple to fix the bug, then another alternative is to install Google Chrome for the iPhone / iPod and run the game from there (by visiting https://www.DollarCandyGame.com/Games/DollarCandy/ in Chrome).

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19) Help, my game it stuck at the beginning (and I can't leave it) on my iPad/ iPhone / iPod!
   
(This problem only occurs in the HTML5 app version of the game. You can avoid it completely by installing the iPad/iPhone/iPod app).

If you launch the game from an icon on your home screen, you may find that an Apple bug appears:

In addition to stopping in the game, it locks your home button, which prevents you from switching to other apps.

How do I recover from it?
  • Double pressing the home button may still work. If so, you can then close all instances of the app out ( swipe away in iOS7 or click "close" in pre iOS7). Reopen the app and usually it's back to normal.
  • If the above doesn't work, then hold your home button to invoke Siri. When it comes up, press it again to close Siri. This will (somewhat) unlock your device. Then reboot your device. When it restarts, close all instances of the app out (described in previous step). Then you can reopen the app.
What causes this problem?
 
It is caused by two Apple bugs. One of these bugs is in Apple's iOS7 and can be triggered by invoking the game multiple times. Another is in all versions of iOS, and causes the game to not properly rotate to landscape mode and hang at certain (and sometimes random) times. Apple has been informed of these bugs, but as of this posting, they have not not committed to fixing them.

How can I avoid this problem entirely?
  1. Every time you exit the app, make sure to explicitly close it (Double-press the home button and then swipe it away in iOS7 or click "close" in pre iOS7).
  2. OR install Google Chrome for the iPhone / iPod. Then play the game by opening Chrome and visiting https://www.DollarCandyGame.com/Games/DollarCandy/ in Chrome).

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20) Help, I can't leave the game on my iPad/iPhone/iPod!
   
This is caused by the same Apple bug as described here. The above link also describes how to work around it and/or avoid it.

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