Terms of use.

Last updated October 2, 2026

About these terms

These terms are a contract between you and IRM Ventures LLC (“we”, “us”). They cover pickleballgame.app: the game, accounts, leaderboards and the advertising pages. They also cover online play and the Pro plan once those open (together, “the Service”).

You agree to these terms when you use the Service, create an account, buy Pro, send an ad request or book an ad. When you sign up, continuing means you accept them. When you pay, we ask you to confirm with a click. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your data. Third-party software and media in the game are listed in licenses.txt.

Age

You must be at least 13 to create an account, join a leaderboard, play online or buy anything. In some countries the minimum age is higher, up to 16. If you are under 18, a parent or guardian must agree to these terms for you before you buy Pro. If we learn that someone under 13 has an account, we close it and erase it within 7 days.

Ads are sold to businesses. To request, book or bid, you must be 18 or older and able to sign for your business.

Accounts

You can play as a guest. Guest results are never ranked. To appear on a leaderboard, play ranked or buy anything, sign in with an email link.

  • Give accurate details and keep them up to date.
  • Keep your sign-in safe. You are responsible for what happens in your account.
  • One person, one account. Do not sell, rent, share or transfer an account.
  • Tell us at legal@pickleballgame.app if someone else uses your account.

You can delete your account at any time: email privacy@pickleballgame.app. The Privacy Policy explains what happens to your data. Deleting your account also ends your Pro subscription.

Playing fair

Do not:

  • cheat, or use bots, scripts, macros, modified game files or any tool that plays for you or changes a score, result or rating;
  • exploit a bug to get an edge or to disturb other players (report it through the contact page instead);
  • send fake results, or tamper with match tickets, replays or network traffic;
  • lose on purpose, trade wins, or play against your own accounts to move a rating;
  • harass, threaten or abuse other players, including through a display name;
  • pretend to be another person, a brand or our staff;
  • overload, scrape, probe or attack the Service, or create accounts in bulk;
  • break the law while using the Service.

We check ranked results by playing them back on our servers. We may remove any result, rating or rank that we believe came from cheating, a bug or a broken match, and rebuild the boards. Quitting ranked matches again and again can lead to cooldowns or rating penalties.

Leaderboards and names

Leaderboards are public. They show your display name, rating, record and other game statistics. Do not use your real name or email address.

A display name must follow these rules:

  • 3 to 16 characters, with no links or email addresses;
  • nothing offensive, hateful, sexual or misleading;
  • no impersonation of people, brands or our staff.

We may review, change or hide any name. A hidden name stays off the boards until you pick a new one. New accounts get a name like Player-4821 until they choose their own. You can report a name or a player on the contact page.

Ratings and ranks are for fun and have no cash value. We may change the rating formula, correct mistakes and reset a board.

Pro subscription

Pro is not on sale yet. This section applies once it is.

Pro covers hosting rooms, quick match and ranked online matches. Playing the computer, joining a friend’s room and viewing the leaderboards are free. Pro is open to accounts only.

PlanPrice in US dollars, renewing automatically
Monthly$4.99 every month
Yearly$39.99 every year

Taxes, such as sales tax or VAT (a sales tax used in Europe and the UK), are added where the law requires. Checkout shows the total before you pay.

Automatic renewal

Pro renews automatically at the end of each month or year until you cancel. We charge the payment method you gave at checkout, at the price then in effect. Payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card number.

If a payment fails, we may try again. Pro stays on for a short grace period, then ends.

Free trial

If we offer a free trial, checkout shows how long it lasts. When it ends, your plan starts and we charge the price shown, unless you cancel first. We may limit trials to one per person.

Cancelling

Cancel online at any time from your account, under Manage subscription. You do not need to call or email us. Cancel before your renewal date to avoid the next charge. Pro then stays on until the end of the period you paid for.

Refunds

We do not refund the unused part of a period you have already paid for, except:

  • when we charged you by mistake, or after you cancelled;
  • when we end Pro or remove a main Pro feature, as described below;
  • when the law gives you a right to a refund, such as in Your local rights.

Price and feature changes

We may change the price of Pro. We email you at least 30 days before the new price applies to you. It starts at your next renewal. If you do not accept it, cancel before then.

We may add, change or remove Pro features. If a change makes Pro clearly worse, we tell you at least 30 days ahead. You can then cancel and get a refund for the unused time.

Buying ads

Businesses can buy ad spots on the boards, walls, court and net of the game’s arena on the advertise page. You buy for your business, not as a consumer. By sending a request, booking or bidding, you agree to this section.

Ad requests. For now, you send a request on the advertise page: a spot, your company details and your artwork. A request is not a booking. It costs nothing and reserves nothing. We reply by email and may accept or decline it. The rules on prices, booking, bidding and refunds below apply once online booking opens. The artwork and licence rules apply now.

Give us accurate company and contact details. To book or bid, you need a signed-in account.

Spots and prices

Each spot has a weekly price, from $50 to $500 in US dollars depending on the spot. The advertise page shows the price before you pay. Taxes are added where the law requires. A run lasts 7 days of 24 hours.

Booking a free spot

A spot with no booking can be booked at its listed price. We hold the booking for 1 hour while you pay. If you do not pay in that hour, the spot is free again. Your run starts when we receive your payment. The 7 days keep running while your artwork waits for approval.

Bidding for the next run

When a spot is booked, anyone can bid for the next run. It starts when the current run ends. Nobody is removed from a spot during a paid run.

  • Bidding closes 24 hours before the current run ends.
  • The highest bid wins. If two bids tie, the earlier bid wins.
  • The first bid must be at least the spot’s listed price. Each new bid must beat the top bid by at least 5% (at least $5, in whole dollars). The current leader can raise their own bid by $5 or more.
  • The winner pays the amount they bid. A bid cannot be withdrawn.
  • Other bidders see the top bid and the number of bids, not who bid.
  • If nobody bids, the spot can be booked when the current run ends.

If you win, we ask you to pay when bidding closes. Pay before your run starts. If you do not, the booking is cancelled, the spot goes back on sale and we may refuse your future bids.

Artwork

Upload your logo or image on the advertise page. We review every ad before it goes live, with an automated AI check and, when it cannot decide, a person. We may approve it, reject it or ask for changes. If we reject it, we give a short reason, and you can send new artwork during your run. We may resize, crop or convert your file to fit the spot, and we remove anything unsafe from it, such as scripts in an SVG.

Your artwork must be accurate, legal and yours to use. It must not contain:

  • gambling, tobacco or cannabis ads, or other illegal goods or services;
  • adult, hateful, violent or weapon content;
  • false or misleading claims, scams or impersonation of another business or of us;
  • anything that infringes someone else’s copyright, trademark or privacy;
  • code, malware or links meant to harm players or the Service.

What you get

Once approved, your ad shows at your spot in the game for the run. We cannot promise a number of views, players or clicks. The game may show our own ads when a spot has no live paid ad. How your ad looks depends on the player’s device and camera angle. The ad counts we report are estimates.

You give us a worldwide, royalty-free licence to copy, resize, convert and show your artwork in the game and in images and videos of the game, during your run and while those images and videos stay online.

Removing ads

We may pause or remove an ad at any time, including after approval, if we believe it breaks these terms or the law, draws a valid complaint, or could harm players or us.

Refunds

Ad payments are final once a run starts, except:

  • if we cannot approve any artwork for your run, we refund the full price;
  • if we remove your ad, or cannot show it, for a reason that is not your fault, we refund the unused days of the run;
  • if two people pay for the same spot at once, the later payment is refunded in full.

If we remove an ad because it breaks these terms, there is no refund. Refunds go back to the original payment method.

Your promises

You promise that you have the right to run your ad, and that it follows this section and the law. If someone makes a claim against us because of your ad or because you broke this section, you will cover our costs, including reasonable legal fees. We will tell you about the claim promptly.

Content and licenses

Our rights

We own the game, including its code, art, animation, sound and brand, apart from third-party material listed in licenses.txt. We give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to play the game for fun, not for business. You may not copy it, sell it, or build another product from it. You may not reverse engineer it, except where the law lets you.

Your content

Your content means your display name, ad artwork and anything else you send us. You keep ownership of it. You give us a worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, show and use it to run the Service, for example to show your name on a leaderboard. You promise you have the right to give us this licence.

Feedback

If you send us ideas or bug reports, we can use them without paying or crediting you.

Suspension and ending

You can stop using the Service at any time.

We may warn you, remove content, hide a name, cancel a result, or suspend or ban an account if you break these terms, cheat, harm others, do not pay, or the law requires it. When we can, we tell you why and how to appeal. Reply to our email or write to legal@pickleballgame.app. If we end your access because you broke these terms, we do not refund fees you have paid.

We may change, pause or stop any part of the Service. If we stop Pro, or a paid ad run, before it ends, we refund the unused part.

Terms that by their nature continue after the end, such as payment, licences, disclaimers, liability and disputes, stay in force.

Disclaimers and liability

The game is free and we work to keep it running well. We cannot promise it never breaks.

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available”. We give no warranty of any kind, such as a promise that it will be free of errors, always available, or fit for a particular use. To the fullest extent the law allows, we do not promise that ratings, results or ad counts are accurate.

If something goes wrong, we are responsible for direct losses only, up to a limit.

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost profits, lost data or lost goodwill. Our total liability for all claims about the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim and US $100.

These limits do not apply to liability that the law does not allow to be limited. That includes death or personal injury caused by negligence, and fraud. Some places do not allow some of these limits, so they may not apply to you. See Your local rights.

We are not responsible for services run by others, such as Stripe or Google, or for what other players do. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events outside our control.

Your local rights

These terms do not take away rights that the law of your country gives you and that cannot be waived. If you buy for personal use (a consumer) in the European Union, the United Kingdom or another place with consumer laws, those laws apply even where these terms say something different.

Withdrawing within 14 days

If you are a consumer in the EU or UK, you can withdraw from a Pro purchase within 14 days of buying it, without giving a reason. Email legal@pickleballgame.app with your name and the email on your account. We refund you within 14 days, to the payment method you used.

At checkout we ask you to confirm that you want Pro to start straight away. If you then withdraw, you pay a fair share for the time you used before you told us. Ad bookings are made for business, so this right does not apply to them.

If something does not work

The Service and Pro must work as described. If they do not, you may have the right to a fix, a price reduction, or to end the contract and get a refund.

Changes

If we change the Service in a way that clearly makes it worse for you, we tell you in advance. You may end the contract free of charge within 30 days.

Courts

If you are a consumer in the EU or UK, you can take a dispute to the courts where you live, and the consumer laws of your country apply. The arbitration terms in Disputes do not apply to you.

California

California users can contact the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs at 1625 North Market Blvd., Suite N 112, Sacramento, CA 95834, or at (800) 952-5210.

Disputes

Talk to us first

Email legal@pickleballgame.app and tell us the problem. We will try to settle it within 30 days.

Governing law

The law of [State], United States governs these terms. Apart from the arbitration terms below and your rights in Your local rights, the courts in [County, State] will hear any dispute, and you and we agree to those courts.

Arbitration for US users

If you live in the United States, disputes between you and us are decided by arbitration instead of in court. In arbitration, a neutral person called an arbitrator decides the case, not a judge or jury. You and we give up the right to a jury trial.

  • The American Arbitration Association runs the case under its Consumer Arbitration Rules (adr.org). Its rules limit the fee you pay, and we pay the rest as they require.
  • The hearing is by phone or video, or near where you live.
  • The arbitrator can award what a court could, to you alone.
  • Either of us can use small claims court instead, if the case qualifies.
  • Either of us can go to court to stop misuse of our copyrights, trademarks or other intellectual property.
  • The Federal Arbitration Act, the US federal law on arbitration, governs this section.

No class actions

You and we can bring claims only for ourselves. Neither of us can bring or join a class action, which is a lawsuit on behalf of a whole group. If a court finds this rule cannot be enforced for a claim, that claim goes to court and not to arbitration.

Opting out

You can opt out of arbitration within 30 days after you first accept these terms. Email legal@pickleballgame.app with the subject “Arbitration opt-out”, your name and the email on your account. Opting out does not change any other part of these terms.

Changes and general terms

We may update these terms. The date at the top shows the latest version. For important changes we email account holders or show a notice on the site at least 30 days before they apply. Shorter notice is possible when the law or security requires it. The next time you sign in, we may ask you to accept the new version.

If you keep using the Service after a change applies, you accept it. If you do not agree, stop using the Service, delete your account and cancel Pro before the change applies. Changes do not alter ad runs you have already paid for.

  • These terms, the Privacy Policy and the details shown at checkout are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service.
  • If a part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest stays in force.
  • If we do not enforce a term, we can still enforce it later.
  • You may not transfer your rights under these terms. We may transfer ours, for example in a sale of the business.
  • We send notices to the email on your account or post them on the site.
  • The English version of these terms is the one that counts.

Contact

IRM Ventures LLC