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How a week works

The draw

Members take turns in the order they joined, and the owner can change that order. Whoever's up places a bet from their own betting account and adds the slip. The round stays theirs until their turn bet is in, or the owner marks it missed. The draw on Home and the Syndicate tab shows who's up next.

A new order starts after the current round. If it can't wait, the owner turns on Start the new order this round and saves: whoever's at the top is up straight away and the draw carries on down the list from them. It cancels any swaps from that round on, and past rounds and bets stay as they were.

Adding a slip

Tap Add slip. If your syndicate has screenshot reading on, pick your slip screenshots and PuntBuddies reads them into a draft. Otherwise, or if reading fails, fill the same draft in by hand. Nothing is saved until you check the draft and confirm it.

Sport is picked from a list, so the stats line up. Team and competition boxes suggest names your syndicate has used before, and screenshot reading reuses those spellings when it's the same team.

Turn bets and extra bets

A turn bet is the one placed by whoever's up for that round; it closes the round and the draw moves on. Anyone can add an extra bet of their own to the current week. Extra bets count towards that member's figures and get an Extra badge, but never close a round.

Settling

When a bet's done, settle it: won (the return from the slip, which you can change), lost, void or cashed out. A result screenshot is optional.

Result checks

In syndicates with screenshot reading on, PuntBuddies looks up a riding bet's result once its games should be over, and shows what it found on Home and on the bet: "Looks like it won", with the score, where it came from and Google's search suggestions for it. Nothing changes until someone taps Confirm; Not right clears it and you settle by hand. It needs a kick-off time on every leg. If the slip didn't show one, PuntBuddies looks the game up and marks the time "Start time found online"; if more than one game fits, it asks "Which game was it?" on Home and the bet. You can always fix the time yourself. A futures bet, like a season winner, gets a "Settles around" date and is checked once after it. If a leg was void or a dead heat, enter what the bookmaker paid. Checks use up to three quarters of the syndicate's monthly reading allowance, and stop after a day if no result turns up.

Once every leg has a kick-off time, a bet that should be over with no result found yet shows under Over to you on Home as "your bet should be over", with Settle it. That works in every syndicate.

Fixing or deleting a bet

Whoever recorded a bet, or the owner, can edit any of it or delete it from the bet's page. Every change is kept in the bet's history, and the owner can still read deleted bets in Syndicate settings. Deleting the turn bet that moved the draw on reopens that round, as long as nothing has happened in the next round yet.

If someone else changes the result of a bet you placed after it was settled, edits it or deletes it, you get an email saying what changed (like the result or the stake), never the new values. Whoever makes the change sees a note first. Turn it off with When someone changes my bets in your account.

Older slips

Bets from before your syndicate started using PuntBuddies can go in as past bets. They count on the ladder by the date they were placed, and they never close a round or move the draw. In a winnings pot, this year's past wins that have a date count in the pot too, from when it started counting winnings.

Seasons

A season is a date range you look at the records through, like a calendar year or a World Cup. Bets count by the date they were placed, not by their round, so seasons can overlap and can be added or deleted without changing any bets. All time is always there.

The pot and missed rounds

If a round isn't played, the owner can mark it missed. Whoever was up gets the syndicate's flat penalty (set by the owner, $20 to start) added to the pot, and the draw moves on. The pot is only a record the crew keeps. PuntBuddies never holds money.

The owner can also add a fine by hand under the pot on the Syndicate tab, to backfill fines already dished out this year (pick the date it was given), and can edit or remove any fine, for example doubling it when someone misses more than one round. Every fine counts as a missed round.

The owner picks what goes in the pot, and can change it in Syndicate settings:

• Winners keep their winnings. The pot is just penalties, payouts and adjustments.
• Winnings go to the pot. A winning bet's full return goes in, extra bets included. A loss or a void adds nothing, and whoever's up pays their own stake.
• Shared kitty. Everyone pays in, each bet's stake comes out of the kitty and whatever it returns goes back in. The owner records what each member paid, or everyone at once.

What the pot held at the start of the season can go in as carried over, not counting bets you enter as past bets. It's shown on its own on the pot screen, so it never reads as winnings. In a winnings pot, this year's past wins that have a date count as winnings on the date they were placed. An undated one doesn't, as it could be last year's. Changing the setting keeps the balance as it is, and bets count the new way from then on. The first change from just penalties to winnings counts this year's wins from 1 January.

P/L, ROI and the ladder

Returned and staked

Returned is everything paid back on settled bets, bonus bet returns included. Staked is the cash put on them.

P/L (profit or loss)

For a settled bet, the return minus the cash stake. Amounts are what the slip shows, never recalculated.

ROI

Total P/L of settled bets divided by the total cash staked on them.

Bonus bets

Cash stake is $0 and the return shown already leaves the bonus out, so the whole return is profit. They're left out of the ROI denominator.

Void and cashed out

A void gives the stake back (P/L $0) and doesn't count towards strike rate. A cash-out uses the amount you got back.

Riding on

Bets not settled yet. They only count towards riding on, not P/L or ROI.

The ladder

Each member's returned, staked, P/L, ROI and strike rate for the season, sorted by P/L, returned or ROI, with a turn bets only toggle. The group total is everyone added together.

Headline figure

The owner picks whether Home and the weekly wrap-up lead with P/L or the total returned. Returned always shows what was staked under it, and the ladder shows both either way.

Stats

The Stats tab shows the season by sport (bets, P/L and leg strike rate) and by team (legs won and lost), plus a season race chart of everyone's running P/L week by week, with a table version under it. Filter by season or by member; the filters stay in the page link, so you can share them.

If the same team has crept in under two names, the owner can tick them and merge them into one. PuntBuddies says how many legs will change first, and each bet's history keeps the old name.

Swaps and handovers

Can't make your turn? Swap one of your upcoming turns with someone else's: they say yes or no in the app. Or, when it's your round and your slip isn't in, offer it to the crew. The first to take it gets the round and you take their next turn. No penalty either way. The owner can swap or hand over turns directly, and undo them while the turns are still to come.

Emails

PuntBuddies only emails about your turns, your crew and your account. The only promotion is one line in the weekly wrap-up about starting your own syndicate. Bets are in shows the legs, odds and stake of the crew's bets for the round, and for a bet still riding what its slip says it returns if it wins, never a bookmaker. Results only come in the weekly wrap-up. Otherwise the only amount is your own penalty. Emails that can wait don't go out between 9 pm and 8 am NZ time; they arrive at 8 am. You get at most 3 turn request, member joined, reminder or wrap-up emails in any 7 days; the rest stay in the app.

The weekly wrap-up

It goes out once a week, on the day and at the time the owner picks, and covers everything since the last one. Bets still running at send time land in the next wrap-up. The owner picks the tone: Pragmatic, Polite, Roast or Vulgar (18+, swearing). Roast and Vulgar give every member a hard time about their bets, and anyone who missed their round cops it first. They never go after anyone's money, habits or who they are. Vulgar adds swearing and crude pub banter; turn on Keep my wrap-ups clean in your email settings and you get the Roast version instead, in the email and in the app.

By default crew emails (Bets are in and the wrap-up) go as one group email to everyone in the syndicate who gets them, so the crew see each other's email addresses and can reply all. The owner can switch them to one email each. A group email has no one-tap unsubscribe (it's shared), so change it in your email settings instead. To keep your address private, turn on Keep my email address private there: you get your own copy, with its own unsubscribe link, and your address isn't shown to the crew.

Changing your emails

Turn each email on or off under Emails on your account page, or turn them all off with Stop all notification emails. Every email with a toggle has an Unsubscribe link at the bottom that turns off that one email, and mail apps that offer one-tap unsubscribe use the same link. Sign-in codes and deletion notices always come through.

Your account and privacy

Signing in

There's no password. Enter your email and we send a six-digit code that works for 10 minutes. Can't see it? Check junk or spam, and on Outlook or work email check quarantine too.

18 and over

PuntBuddies is for people 18 and over. You confirm that when you set up your profile and when you join a syndicate.

Screenshot reading

Screenshot reading is part of AI, which a syndicate's owner turns on under Billing on the Syndicate screen (a free trial, or NZ$49 a year). When it's on, the screenshots you add are sent to Google Gemini to read the bet. You check every detail before anything is saved. Result checks send each leg's teams, market, selection and start time (never screenshots, amounts or names) to Gemini with Google Search to find the result.

What we keep

Your email, display name, the syndicates you're in and the records members enter, plus screenshots in syndicates with reading on. Members see their own syndicate's records; the operator sees counts and names to run the service, not your bets or screenshots.

Deleting your account

From your account page. You're signed out everywhere and taken out of your syndicates, and we email you to confirm. Your past bets stay in each syndicate under the name you had, so the ladders still add up. If you own a syndicate, hand it over or delete it first.

Analytics and feedback

If you accept analytics, PostHog (EU) records how the app is used, including session replays; email addresses, sign-in codes, invite links and screenshots stay hidden. Feedback you send goes to our inbox whatever you chose.

The details are in the privacy policy and the terms.

Keeping it a game

PuntBuddies keeps records. It doesn't take bets, hold money or give betting advice, and it never suggests placing a bet.

If betting's stopped being fun, talk to the Gambling Helpline: call 0800 654 655 or text 8006, any time. It's free and confidential. gamblinghelpline.co.nz