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Ten Lines in the Official Rules, and What They Actually Mean

Nobody reads them. They are also the only document that tells you what you are actually playing for, and roughly half of it is there because somebody once got sued.

12 min read · page 6 of 11

5

The entry period, with a time zone

Where a surprising number of disputes actually come from.

“Entries accepted from 12:00:00 a.m. on the 1st through 11:59:59 p.m. on the 30th, Eastern Time.” The seconds are not lawyerly showing off.

A promotion that says “midnight” without saying midnight where has created a genuine ambiguity worth several hours, and someone who entered during those hours will eventually want to know which side of the line they were on. A promotion that says “midnight on the 30th” has created a worse one, because midnight on the 30th is arguably the start of it.

So the good ones nail down a zone and a second. If you are entering near a deadline, that line tells you exactly how long you actually have — and it is often three hours more, or less, than you assumed.