Lock policies and late tips

A lock time is the deadline after which tips can no longer be submitted or changed for a fixture. Fanzava enforces lock times strictly to ensure fairness.

Default lock behaviour

By default, each fixture locks individually at its scheduled start time. This means:

• A Friday night game locks at Friday night kick-off
• Saturday games don’t lock until Saturday morning
• Participants can tip Saturday games even after Friday’s game has started

This is the most flexible option and is recommended for most hubs.

Lock policy options

Configure in Admin → Competition → Settings → Lock policy:

Policy	How it works
Individual (default)	Each fixture locks at its own start time
Round	All fixtures lock when the first fixture of the round starts
Custom offset	Fixtures lock N minutes/hours before their start time

The Round policy is useful if you want to prevent participants from using early results to inform later tips.

What happens to late tips

If a participant hasn’t submitted a tip for a fixture by lock time:

• The fixture shows as “No tip” on their tipping page
• They score zero for that fixture
• Their tipset is still valid for other fixtures in the round

Fanzava does not allow retroactive tip submission, even if a participant claims they had a technical issue.

Partial tipsets

Participants don’t need to tip every fixture in a round. A tipset with some fixtures unanswered is valid — they simply score zero for the missed fixtures.

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Warning

Participants who consistently miss tips will drag down the leaderboard and disengage. Consider setting up a round reminder email to fire 2–4 hours before the round’s first lock.

Fixture postponements and cancellations

If a fixture is postponed after tips have been submitted:

• Fanzava removes the fixture from the round’s scoring if it can’t be rescheduled within the round window
• Tips already submitted for the postponed fixture are voided — no points awarded, no penalty
• The participant’s tipset for other fixtures in the round is unaffected

If a fixture is moved to an earlier time, the original scheduled lock time still applies. Fanzava does not automatically adjust lock times when kickoff times change.

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Note

Fanzava monitors fixture schedule changes from the data feed. If a kickoff time change is detected more than 6 hours before the original lock time, the lock time is updated automatically and affected participants are notified.