Indivisibilities is a web-based game where you bet an amount of virtual money on artists and songs which have a chance of getting to number 1 in the charts on Sunday. If you bet on the artist/song which does become number 1, you win some more virtual money dependent on the odds of that particular artist.
In the future however, Indivisibilities should be able to support a wide variety of bets, for example, betting on sports matches. If you have any problems not solved by looking at this page, please e-mail cocodude@indivisibilities.com.
Currently, there are two types of bets available. The first is Number 1 Single on Sunday. You can choose to bet an amount of money on a song becomming number one by clicking the option circle to the right of the artist, typing in how much money you want to bet in the box at the bottom and clicking on 'Place Bet'. If your song is number one on Sunday, you will bet back your money bet plus that multiplied by the odds on that song.
The second bet is Number 1 Album on Sunday and this works in exactly the same way as the Number 1 Single on Sunday, but obviously involves the best selling albums of the week.
Let's say the odds for a particular artist were 0.50. This can be read as '0.50 to 1' or '1 to 2'. If you were to bet £500 on an artist at odds of 0.50 (i.e. 'one to two'). If the song is number one, you will get back your original £500 plus ( 0.5 × £500 ) = £750.
If there is a song which is very likely to be number one, the odds on that song will be low (but it will never go below 0.00), because many people will bet on that choice. However, if there is a song which only has a slight chance of being number one, but has high odds, it could be worth the risk of betting some money on this because your returns will be very high if the song is number one.
If you want to delete a bet, you can click on the 
beside the bet you want to delete. There is no penalty incurred by doing this. This feature will possibly be removed in future however.
That'll probably be because no one has placed any bets yet. You may be thinking that placing a bet at odds of 0.00 is pointless (as you will not gain any money), but the chances are that there will be other people making bets and the odds will change come Sunday. See below for more information.
Currently, when you place a bet, the odds that apply to your bet are those as of Sunday 16:00 when betting closes. If you are placing a bet, say on Thursday, and the odds are at 1.50, these odds are only an indicative status of what the odds could be like on Sunday (based on the current bets).
In the future, when more people are playing the game, I intend to make it a bit more like real betting, i.e. the odds that you placed your bet at are the odds that count.
An each way bet costs twice the amount of a normal bet, but you will get a return if the song chosen is 2nd or 3rd in the charts. You can think of the bet being split into two - one half is betted on the song being number one, the other is bet on the song being 2nd or 3rd. Therefore, if you bet £100 on a song with odds 4.00 which becomes number one, you will get back £100 + ( £50 × 4.00 ) = £300 (a gain of £200).
If the song is 2nd or 3rd though, your return is currently one quarter of what the odds would normally be (this is how it works in horse races, but if I find that it is too 'strict', I may increase it). If you bet £100 on a song with odds 4.00 which becomes number two or three, your return will be £100 + ( £50 × 4.00 ÷ 4 ) = £150 (therefore you will gain £50).
Indivisibilities is designed so that you can only bet up to half of your total money. This is because if you could bet all your money and you lost on all your bets, it would be game over. With the saved money method, you could continue playing because you can only lose up to 50% of your money per week, not that you should try to do that, of course.
Yes. Between 4pm and 7pm (when the single charts are aired on the radio), betting is closed for obvious reasons. Also, betting will be closed for some time after 7pm because the system has to process the outcomes of each bet and I have to enter the data for next week's new entries. Normally, betting will be resumed before 8pm on the Sunday, or during term-time at around midday on Monday.
OK. If you refer someone to Indivisibilities and they enter your username into the 'Referrer:' column in the signup page, you will get 5% of their winnings; they do not lose out on any money, but you gain 5% of what they earn. If they lose money, you don't lose any, so don't worry!
The value of 5% is subject to change, so if I feel it is too high, I will lower it. Please note that we do not promote 'spamming' in off-topic newsgroups, so please do not do it.
Please e-mail me if you find a bug, or if you have any query about Indivisibilities. I am contactable at cocodude@indivisibilities.com. If you do notice a bug, I cannot promise to give you something in return, I'm afraid, but please tell me anyway!
Indivisibilities runs on Linux. It is written in the programming language PHP, uses the database MySQL and its web server is Apache. It was designed on RISC OS using Zap and Fresco, and run through my local serial network connected to a Win'95 laptop (again, running PHP, Apache and MySQL).