Moola (website)

Moola is a Canadian-based online gaming website open to United States and Canadian residents. It is now offline. Players receive free credits to wage against other players in return for watching a 10, 15, or 30 second video advertisement and randomly answering a trivia question about it. By extending credits to the viewer of the advertisement, players have funds to place bets against other players without risking any of their own money. These player may then 'cash out' the accumulated winnings for real cash once the equivalent of $10 or more has been reached. Moola has been "offline" for game play according to the website and has no stated timetable for resuming game play.

Moola ranked 11th on PC World magazine's "The 15 Best Places to Waste Time on the Web" in 2007.^[1]

Gameplay

In the Moola's three original games, two players play against each other. Players also have the option to play against a bot ("AutoPlayer") when no human opponent is available. Players are given m$0.01 by Moola to begin betting. They may only bet in doubling amounts (1¢, 2¢, 4¢, 8¢, 16¢, 32¢, 64¢, $1.28, $2.56, $5.12, etc.) Moola emphasizes that by doubling winnings 30 times, a player will earn over m$10 million. When a player loses all of their money, Moola provides a penny to begin with again.

Membership

The site used to require new players to receive invitations to play from registered players. However, now new users can sign up on the main page. By inviting other players, the inviting player receives a graduated percentage of the invitee's winnings when the latter puts money into savings or receives a "booster", but only if both players provide their cell phone numbers to "verify" their accounts. Verification is done via an SMS "text" message. A player can put money from their playing account into their "savings account" so they cannot lose it, which helps players accumulate more money to cash out. The referral amount does not come out of the invitee's winnings but is instead paid by Moola to help gather new members. There are several commercial and fan-created websites created that seek to provide the invitations indirectly, so that the share of the winnings can be funneled to the creator of the site itself.

Another option for an invite is to click on links given out by members, which automatically send you an invite when you fill in the appropriate information.

Moola is open to Canadian and United States residents except residents in Louisiana, Nevada, and Quebec. International players can also play but they cannot verify their accounts or cash out.

Moola uses Facebook so users can play games through Facebook.

Games

Moola features four main games.

• Hi-Lo: A modified version of the classic game of screw the dealer, in which each player has to decide whether the next card is higher or lower than the last. If they guess correctly, the player moves on to the next card. If they guess wrong, the player loses a life and starts over from the beginning. Players may lock, which will save their position, or lock and change, to deal in a card to replace the current card, and then save your position. Locking costs the user a life. The player who ends the game with the most cards locked in wins. If both players reach the end, the player with the most lives wins. This can be best played using a card counter (see #External links). Hi-Lo is Moola's most popular game.
• Ro-Sham-Bo-Fu: This game is a twist on the classic rock-paper-scissors, where in each of six rounds one of the available choices (e.g., rock, paper or scissors) is randomly chosen and shown. The player gets bonus points for voluntarily not using this choice, applied whether they win or lose that round. Ro-Sham-Bo-Fu is Moola's least popular game.
• Gold Rush: This game involves betting gold pieces to win gold pieces, played in 6 rounds. In each round, the player has to choose one of his/her 6 gold nuggets (numbered from 1 to 6) to place on a scale against the other player's choice. The winner of the round gets the value of both nuggets as well as the randomly selected nugget which had been placed in the middle of the scales.
• Charity Cash Cow: A progressive jackpot slot machine where each player has the option to bet in four different denominations (1¢, 4¢, 16¢, and 32¢ bets). As each player bets, a progressive jackpot is building until someone gets all 3 community chest symbols on the highest betting denomination. When a player wins the progressive jackpot Moola matches the jackpot amount and donates it to a charity of the winner's choice.

External Moola API games

• GamesWorldOnline: A site that offers games such as Blackjack, Five-Card Draw, Dice Poker, Guess the Numbers, Card War, Battleship, Hangman, Coin-Flip, Poor Man's Lottery, Slots, and Roulette. GWO was the first Moola enabled site. It has disabled multi-player games above level zero, slots and roulette until Moola's cashout issues are resolved.
• Blimplay: This site has two main games that quickly became popular: Farkle and Progressive Lotto. Since its launch, Blimplay also released a low bid auction style game called Squeeblee, in which users must obtain the lowest unique bid to win the days prize, which had topped $100. Squeeblee has recently been disabled. Blimplay site is no longer available.
• Wryer's Sports Prediction: Bet on sporting and television events. It is offline.
• MoolaGamers and MoolaGaming: Two sites run by the same people. MoolaGamers is a forum that pays Moola points for users to post on it. MoolaGaming develops 3P flash games. MoolaGaming has no games, but one game is nearing completion.
• DuffLotto: A new 3p site which offers single player Guess the Number and Coin-Flip

Points API

In 2008, Moola announced an API to integrate third party games with the Moola Points system, allowing them to award Moola Points.^[2]

In November 2008, Moola offered Sports Prediction by Wryer and Blackjack by GamesWorldOnline. In January 2009, Five Card Draw by GamesWorldOnline was added. Playing any of the games requires setting one's account to allow third party access. One of their moderators created BlimPlay, where players can play a popular dice game, Farkle. Blackjack and Five-card draw have been removed from the site.

Tournaments

There are multiple forum-based tournaments that have gained popularity on the Moola Website, some of which have cash prizes for the winners. A few of them are:

• Survivor: Moola: The first 'long-term' tournament on Moola. It can be found in the forum (as all of the tournaments are). This tournament lasts around 3 to 4 months, and it last completed its third 'season.' It is credited for being the first 'reality game show' on Moola. It was first created by a Moola member and is still being hosted by its creator. The final prize of the first, second, and third season was $20. The location of the first season was the fictional Moola Island, the second location was the Moola Outback (based on the Australian Outback), but the third was based in Egypt. Some have speculated that the fourth season will be located in Dresdonia, a fictional Middle Eastern City imagined by the host.
• Moola Big Brother: Another long-term reality game show that is currently being played on Moola through the forum. Appeared after the first Survivor: Moola tournament ended. Created and hosted by another Moola member, the second season is now being played, and a new host has been introduced.
• The Moola Mole: Another long-term reality game show based on the international television show, "The Mole". The Moola Mole is played on Moola through the Tournaments forum. The first season was completed by host Reflection717, who is now MIA. It is being brought back for a second season by new host horrordude0215, who is supplying the $50 pot entirely by himself.
• Break The Bank: A "quiz show" run by the host of Survivor: Moola. Promises to be the biggest Jackpot in a Moola game, but the show ended up being canceled due to technical problems.
• Moola Apprentice: A long-term reality game show that is played with the site's games, or random games found by the host. It is based on "Apprentice." The host for this games also went MIA after just one season.
• Moola Endurance: A long-term reality game show based on "Endurance. Contestants compete on the site's games, or over the internet with various games found by the host. It was also the first Moola tournament in which contestants played in pairs, testing their friendship and teamwork.
• Moola's Top Designer: A spin-off of American Idol adapted for Moola's forum. Contestants compete each round to make the best signature banner or other designs.
• Super Mario Mafia: A two-team game based on IRC's werewolf game with a Mario Theme. Both teams take turns trying to get rid of the other team's leader. The 8th one has just ended and the regular host MarioMaster777 has sadly told the forums not to expect another one by him too soon.
• OutSider's Triva Challenges: OutSider81 runs a couple of different style trivia games, both single-player and multiplayer. There is most likely a cash prize at the end of it so people are eager to play. These however seem to have ended for now, the creator now has a "Bad joke of day".
• Lotteries: Moola allows its members to run lotteries on its forum and because nobody is the same you can expect each one to be a little different. At the moment the lotteries seem to be varying between $0.01 per ticket or $0.50 per ticket! To make sure that the lotteries are fair the Hosts of the lotteries must use Random.org to find the winner! And to may sure everyone gets to have fun some players host free lotteries.
• Other Games (Ex: Mafia, GTN): There is games happening in the forums a lot of the time. Before people could start one randomly if there was no buy-in but now because of a mishap where too many games were going at once there is now a queue for all games.

All Moola tournaments are currently run by members of the site and not by the site administration.

References

External links

• Moola.com - Moola homepage