Play the $20 draft game online

What is the $20 draft?

It started as a video format: two people are given a fixed budget — usually twenty dollars — and take turns bidding on names as they come up, building a roster out of whoever they can afford. The comedy is in the arguing, and in watching somebody blow half their money on card one and spend the rest of the game broke.

The version people film usually runs on an honour system and a piece of paper. The problem with that is the money: it is genuinely hard to track who can afford what while also being funny on camera. That is the part this does for you.

How it works

1. 1

   You split $20, and that is the whole scoreboard

   Both players start with the same bankroll and the same number of roster slots. Whatever you do not spend, you keep — and at the end the leftover cash is the only number that matters. There is no points system and nothing calculates a winner.

2. 2

   The deck deals the picks, not you

   Nobody chooses who comes up. The server shuffles a hidden list and turns over one name at a time. Neither player can see what is coming, which is what stops the whole thing being a memory test.

3. 3

   Take it at a dollar, or give it away

   Whoever is up either takes the card at the minimum bid — and then the other player can bid it up — or hands it over for free, which burns a slot on their opponent's roster. Giving is limited, so it is a weapon with ammunition rather than a way out of every card.

4. 4

   You can never bid yourself into a corner

   The server keeps back the minimum bid for every slot you still owe. You cannot spend money you need later, so nobody ends the game unable to fill their roster because they got excited on card two.

It does not have to be football

The trend started with football players, and there is a Football Draft on the shelf ready to play. But the game works on anything people have opinions about — snacks, movie villains, dog breeds, cereal. There are premade categories to pick from, and if you want something that is not there you can type any category you like and the deck gets built for you.

If you are making videos of it

There is a mode built for filming: a vertical 9:16 board with the card and the clock centred, both rosters stacked, and the right edge kept clear of the buttons TikTok draws over your video. It comes with a transparent browser source for OBS and a results card you can post at the end. That part is paid; everything above is not.