Rules

There are 51 seats: the 50 states plus DC. Each one has exactly one holder at a time. The 50 states have a governor. DC has a mayor, because a federal district does not have a governor and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

Three things you can be

• Governor. Hold one state.
• Candidate. Hold 27 of the 538 electoral votes, five percent of the college. You appear on the ballot at the top of the page.
• President. Hold 270. The site gets your name on it.

Payments are handled by Stripe. We never see a card number.

Every state carries its real electoral votes, so California is worth 54 and Wyoming 3. We do not price them differently; the college does that for us.

Taking a seat

• An empty state opens at $1.
• A held seat costs the standing bid plus $1. One dollar more is always enough, at any price.
• Bids are whole dollars. Rank is the bid, nothing else. No votes, no algorithm.
• Payment first, seat second. The map only moves once the charge clears.

Losing a seat

Read this part before you pay. You are buying a seat, not a length of time. Somebody can take the crown an hour later. What you keep is your place on that state's board.

• Anyone can take your seat by paying the price above.
• You are not deleted when you are impeached. You stay on that state's page with the amount you paid. You lose the star and the logo on the map.
• Money already spent is not refunded.
• Raising your bid costs only the difference between your standing bid and the new price.
• Somebody settling a higher bid while you are at checkout costs you nothing. They rank above you, and you still get the position you paid for.

What you get

• Your logo on the state, your name and link on the leaderboard, and a line in the takeover feed every time you take a seat.
• A link out to your site. Tracking parameters are stripped on the way in.
• Every outbound link carries rel="sponsored nofollow". You are buying attention from people, not link equity from a crawler. Anyone selling you the second thing is selling you a Google penalty.

What we remove

• Anything illegal, adult, hateful, or impersonating someone else.
• Malware, phishing, and link shorteners that hide the destination.
• Removals are refunded. Everything else is final.

What this is not

It is not gambling. You buy a defined placement at a price you can see, and you get it immediately. There is no chance element and no payout.