# The Traders' Light Contest — Rules

**Version of September 13, 2026. Announcement date: September 13, 2026.**

> This document is published **before** the first public mention of the contest.
> Everything below is therefore frozen: changing the value of a ticket or a date
> after the fact is exactly what makes a contest disputable.

---

## 1. The idea

I'm publicly documenting a challenge: taking a real trading account from
**$3,000 to $100,000**. If I get there, I draw **at least $2,000 USD** among the
people who commented on my posts — **two prizes of $500 USD on each of my two
YouTube channels**, the English one and the French one. Four prizes. That amount
can only go up (section 9), never down.

**If I don't get there, there's no draw.** Better said right now than discovered
along the way.

**Facebook is not part of the launch.** I want to be sure first that I can credit
the right people there. Facebook will be added later, **with its own start date
announced in advance and its own $1,000 USD** — two more prizes of $500. That's
an addition, and section 9 lets me add; it forbids me to take away. Comments
left on the Page before that date won't earn tickets, not even retroactively.

## 2. Who can enter

Anyone of legal age where they live, with an account created **before September
13, 2026, 00:00 Eastern Time**.

Now the unpleasant part, and I'd rather write it down than discover it with you
a year from now. **I don't check the creation date of every account that
comments.** My counter doesn't do it, and I'm not going to write here that it
does. Your tickets show up without that date ever being looked at. I look at it
in two cases only: when something smells wrong — a burst of brand-new accounts
all commenting at once, for example — and on a winner, before paying. On
YouTube, that check I can do: the platform gives me the creation date of a
channel.

What that means concretely: an account created on or after September 13, 2026 can
display tickets for months and then have them cancelled, including after being
drawn. It's the same exception as cheating, written down in advance in section
9. If it happens to a winner, the prize isn't paid, I draw again, and I say so
publicly with the reason.

Age, I can't verify at all before a claim: if you're not of legal age where you
live, you can comment, but you won't be able to receive a prize. Better to know
that now than on draw day.

Not eligible: my own accounts and pages, and anyone who lives with me or works
on the project with me.

## 3. How to earn tickets

Tickets are earned **automatically** by commenting on my **videos and my Shorts**
on my two YouTube channels. There's nothing to sign up for.

### The channels that earn tickets

- **YouTube — The Traders' Light** (English):
  [youtube.com/@thetraderslight](https://www.youtube.com/@thetraderslight)
- **YouTube — The Traders' Light - Français**:
  [youtube.com/@thetraderslight-francais](https://www.youtube.com/@thetraderslight-francais)

That's where the contest is played, and nowhere else: a comment left on another
platform doesn't earn a ticket. Facebook will be added with its own start date
(section 1).

### The scale

| | |
|---|---|
| First comment within the **first 24 hours** after a post goes live | **2 tickets** |
| First comment between 24 hours and **7 days** | **1 ticket** |
| After 7 days | no ticket |

The cutoffs fall on your side: a comment written **exactly** 24 hours after the
post goes live is worth two tickets, and a comment written exactly on the
seventh day is worth one. That's the counter doing that, not my mood on a given
day.

**One attribution per person per post**, no matter how many comments you leave:
it's the time of your **first** comment under that post that sets the value.
Commenting ten times doesn't give ten tickets. And coming back the next day
doesn't downgrade a double ticket you already earned.

The time that counts is the one the platform attaches to the comment, compared
against the time the post went live. Each post has its own window: two videos
published in the same week are two separate chances.

A post earns tickets if it goes live **on or after September 13, 2026, 00:00
Eastern Time**. Anything already online before that doesn't count, even if its
7-day window isn't over: a contest can't reward comments written before it
existed. Those posts aren't even read.

**There's no cap.** Someone who comments every week for a year piles up far more
tickets than someone who comments once. That's on purpose: the contest rewards
sticking around.

**The count is public and continuous** on thetraderslight.com. I update it at
least once a week — that same rhythm is what moves the sealing described below
forward. If an update runs late — vacation, outage, illness — it takes no ticket
away from anyone: it only delays the moment your tickets get their numbers. If
your total looks wrong to you, tell me in a comment under the post in question.
As long as the post isn't sealed, a fresh scan fixes it on its own. Once it's
sealed, that's final.

### What a "post" is, and what a "comment" is

A post is a **video or a Short** on either of the two YouTube channels. Neither
community posts nor live chat: they're outside the contest. For a premiere or a
livestream, the 24-hour window starts when the video becomes public — not when I
uploaded it.

A comment is a **top-level comment**. A reply under another comment — including
under mine — doesn't earn a ticket. If you want your ticket, write a separate
comment.

A brand channel counts the same as a personal one: everything counts.

### What doesn't count

A comment that gets removed — hateful, harassing, commercial spam, or promoting
other services — doesn't earn a ticket. By "promoting," I mean commercial spam
and affiliate links: naming another trader, another broker or another channel
isn't promotion, and it costs you nothing.

A comment deleted — by you or by me — **before** its post is sealed doesn't earn
a ticket: it isn't there anymore when I count. Deleted **after** sealing, the
ticket stays. Sealing is the next section.

A comment held by the platform's automatic moderation isn't visible to me, so it
doesn't count — **while it's held**. If it's released before its post is sealed,
it counts normally, and it's **its original posting time** that sets its value,
not the time it was released. If it's released after, it's too late: sealing is final.
That's why I wait seven more days after the window closes, and why I clear my
moderation queue before every scan.

And I exclude accounts that cheat: one person running several accounts,
coordination. Their tickets fall, and if one of them was drawn, I draw again.

### How a ticket becomes a number

A ticket on its own isn't enough to be drawn: it needs a **number**. Here's how
it gets one, because this mechanism explains everything else.

**Sealing.** Once a post's 7-day window has closed, I wait **7 more days**, then
I check that **my last two reads give exactly the same tickets to exactly the
same people**. Only then is the post *sealed*: its count is final, its tickets
receive their numbers, and I never read it again.

The 7-day grace period exists so that a comment held by moderation and released
on the ninth day isn't lost; the two matching reads, so that a technical hiccup
doesn't become permanent. When in doubt, I seal later and I seal less: a sealing
that missed tickets can be fixed by adding them; a sealing that handed out too
many can't be fixed, since taking them back is exactly what section 9 forbids
me.

**Numbers are assigned at sealing**, per platform, starting at 1. Each channel's
numbering is its own: each has its own register and its own number 1. Once
assigned, a number never moves again. A double ticket takes **two consecutive
numbers**: two chances means two numbers, not one number counted twice somewhere
in a spreadsheet.

The order is the order of the **sealing batches**: at each update, the posts ripe
for sealing take the next numbers, sorted among themselves by window close date,
then by comment time, and ties broken by the comment's ID — all three of them
public data. So a post held back an extra week because my two reads didn't match
joins a later batch, and its numbers are higher than its close date alone would
suggest. That changes nobody's odds, and I have no hand in where a ticket lands:
the criteria are mechanical and checkable against the register.

One consequence: **a post that's still open doesn't have numbers yet.** Its
tickets are counted in the total and shown as "pending," then numbered at
sealing. If I numbered them right away, a comment arriving tomorrow would have to
be squeezed in, and renumbering is exactly what I forbid myself.

Another consequence, and it's intended: **one person's numbers are scattered**,
and a ticket earned early can carry a high number. That changes nobody's odds —
the draw is a random number between 1 and the last number assigned on that
channel.

**One exception to the grace period, written here in advance:** at the moment the
count stops (section 4), the posts still open are sealed on the spot, exactly as
they stand at that instant. Since no further comment can add a ticket to them,
there's nothing left to wait for. A comment written before the stop but released
by moderation afterwards doesn't count. That's what guarantees that on draw day,
the sequence 1…last number is complete on each channel.

**A post deleted after sealing takes nobody's tickets away.** If I delete a
video, make it private, or the platform pulls it, the tickets earned under it
stay on the register with their numbers. That's the whole point of sealing.

**An account disqualified after sealing loses its tickets** — that's the only
thing that can make a ticket fall. Its numbers then stay as **gaps** in the
sequence, and the draw's upper bound doesn't shrink: a drawn number that lands on
a cancelled ticket is simply redrawn. Shrinking the bound because a ticket was
cancelled would change everyone's odds without saying so. Every gap is counted
and displayed.

**There is no manual catch-up.** The count is automatic from end to end, and I
have no way to add a ticket to anyone. That's a limit I accept: a comment the
platform never returned to me is lost. I prefer that to a mechanism where I could
add tickets and you'd only have my word that I didn't.

**Nothing is thrown out silently.** Every excluded comment is excluded under a
named reason that is counted and displayed: outside the window, disqualified
account, no identifiable author, house account, later comment from the same
author. Every post not yet sealed says why it isn't. A draw where money moves has
to be able to explain every exclusion.

## 4. What triggers the draw

The draw happens **14 days after the first daily close of the account above
$100,000** — the end-of-day balance set by my broker, positions closed, no
floating gains. If the threshold is crossed on a day with no close — weekend,
holiday — it's the next close that counts. The balance is public and dated on
thetraderslight.com: nobody gets caught by surprise. An intraday spike on open
positions triggers nothing. The same rule applies the other way: the challenge
ends on a **close** below $3,000, not on a wick.

**The ticket count stops at that close.** Comments left after it no longer earn
tickets, even if their post's 7-day window isn't over: without a clean stop, the
register can neither be frozen nor verified. That's the moment the posts still
open are sealed and numbered (section 3).

**I publish the complete register and its SHA-256 hash within 7 days** of that
close. The draw is on day 14. Those seven days in between are for you, not for
me: that's your time to go find your line and recount before any money moves.

**Once published, the register doesn't change.** The hash I publish that day is
the one the draw runs on. Nothing gets added to it, nothing gets taken out.

**If the close above $100,000 happens before the 52 weeks are up, the draw
happens**, even if the 14-day wait lands after the deadline. It's the date of the
close that counts, not the date of the draw.

### What ends the contest with no draw

- **52 weeks** have passed since the announcement date: the contest ends
  **September 12, 2027 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time**;
- the challenge ends first: a close below **$3,000**, or my public statement;
- **circumstances outside my control**: illness or accident, the broker closing
  the account, a ban from a platform. Not "I changed my mind" — if I stop because
  I decided to, I'll say it like that, with the real reason. I'd rather admit it
  than hide behind a vague word written in advance.

In every case, **the announcement is published with the reason on both
ticket-earning platforms, within 7 days of my decision to stop.** If I'm
prevented — health, accident, something bigger than a contest — the announcement
comes as soon as I can: I'm not going to promise a deadline for the exact case
where I'm not around to keep it. I'm not committing to never stopping — I'm
committing to saying so.

If there's no draw, **the tickets you've collected are worth nothing**: I delete
the register, the counting archives and the public tickets page within 30 days of
the closing announcement. Nothing is kept.

## 5. How the winners are drawn

**What the published register contains**, one line per ticket: the **ticket
number(s)**, the **display name**, the **post**, the **link to the comment** that
earned it, and **when it was written** (Eastern Time).

The register has to contain all that: without the list, nobody can verify that
the drawn number lands on the name announced, and my SHA-256 hash then proves
nothing to anyone. What it does **not** contain is the account ID: that's what I
use to count and to deduplicate, and it stays on my side.

**One register and one draw per channel.** Each channel's numbering starts at 1
and belongs to that channel.

**The draw, in three lines:**

1. I draw a random number on **RANDOM.ORG**, between **1** and the **last number
   assigned on that channel** — that number is displayed in large type on the
   tickets page, well before the draw, next to the register where you can recount
   it by hand;
2. that number **is** a ticket number. Its owner wins;
3. for the second prize on the same channel, **I keep the same numbering** and
   draw again. A number that lands on a ticket belonging to the first winner —
   one of their tickets is enough, all of them are set aside — or on a cancelled
   ticket is simply redrawn, and I keep redrawing until it lands on a live
   ticket. Every discarded number is shown on screen with its reason.

That's it. No sorting, no formula, no spreadsheet: a number comes out, one line of
the register carries that number, and anyone can go read it.

So your odds of winning are exactly proportional to your number of tickets. One
ticket is a real chance; five tickets are five times that.

**The draw is filmed: one single take, no editing, published within 24 hours.** My
intention is to do it live, and that's what I'm going to try to do — I'm writing
it as an intention, not as a promise. What I commit to with no reservation is the
single take, uncut, published within 24 hours. Same logic for the tool: if
RANDOM.ORG is down that day, I say so on screen and use another public,
verifiable draw, shown the same way, in the same take.

Nothing lets me link an English YouTube account to a French one, and I won't try:
if the same person wins on both channels, they keep both prizes. What I do
exclude is several accounts belonging to the **same person on the same channel**,
and the same person winning both prizes on the same channel.

**If there are fewer than two distinct people with at least one ticket on a
channel** at the time of the draw, the prize or prizes with no taker there are
drawn from the other channel's tickets, by the same method. All four prizes are
drawn in every case: what moves is the split, never the amount. The only cases
where a prize isn't paid are the one in section 6, where nobody claims it after
three draws, and the one in section 8, where no payment method works where the
winner lives.

## 6. The winners

Each winner is announced **publicly**, with their display name, the winning ticket
number, their channel, and the link to the comment that won. I keep the account ID
on my side, and that's what settles it, not the name: if you changed your display
name between your comment and the draw, it's still you.

On top of the announcement, **I reply directly under the comment that earned the
winning ticket**, with a **claim code**, so the person gets a notification.

Winning means **being named publicly**. That's a condition, not a detail: I guard
my anonymity and I understand people guarding theirs, but I can't move $2,000 in
public without showing who it went to. Someone who doesn't want to be named
shouldn't claim — the prize then goes to the next draw.

### Claiming, in two steps

The principle, because it governs everything else: **what proves it's really you
happens in public, under your comment, from the account that wrote it.** Anyone
can read that thread; nobody but you can write in it from your account.

**Step 1 — you go get your code.** At **thetraderslight.com/claim**, you leave an
email address and you answer the skill-testing question. Right answer, the page
gives you a **unique code**, tied to that address. An address created for the
occasion works perfectly well.

**Step 2 — you publish that code.** As a reply **under your winning comment, from
the account that wrote it**. You have **5 business days — Quebec business days,
where I live, counted from the time the announcement was published**. If automatic
moderation holds your reply, I see it in my queue and I approve it: that doesn't
make you miss the deadline.

That's it. I look up the email tied to the code you published, and I write to you
there.

What locks this down: the code is tied on one side to your **email address**, on
the other to your **YouTube account**. Only one person did both. Someone else can
go get a code from the page — theirs will be different, and they can't publish it
from your account. And someone who sees your code in the public thread can do
nothing with it: it's already tied to an address that isn't theirs.

From there, everything happens by email. That's where you tell me **what form you
want the prize in, with the details that go with it**. None of that goes through a
public comment, and nothing in it forces me to give you a legal name or to ask you
for one.

**When there's no comment to reply under** — a post that has disappeared since
sealing — publish your code as a top-level comment
under my most recent post on the channel concerned, from the account credited on
the register. Nothing else changes.

**I will never message you privately first.** The announcement is public, your code
is published by you, and you're the one who gives me an address. So if someone
messages you privately pretending to be me, tells you you've won and asks you for
a fee, a payment, a password, an ID or a recovery phrase: that isn't me. I will
never ask a winner for a cent, at any step. That kind of fake message happens in
every contest, and it will happen in mine.

### The skill-testing question

To get your code, you have to answer a mathematical skill-testing question
correctly and without help — a four-step arithmetic problem, along the lines of
`(12 × 4) + 30 − 6 ÷ 2`. That's a legal requirement in Canada, not a trap I'm
setting for you: **you can try as many times as you need**, and the question
changes on every attempt. Nobody is going to lose $500 over a slip.

### The deadlines

Once your code is published, you have **30 days** to finish the rest: answer my
email and tell me what form you want the prize in, with the details that go with
it. No word after 30 days, and the prize goes back to a draw.

If there's no claim within the deadline, I draw again on the remaining tickets, by
the same method, **filmed and published like the first one**. I do that at most
**twice** per prize. If nobody has come forward after the third draw, I say so
publicly and that prize isn't awarded.

## 7. Privacy

The ticket count relies on the public display name and the account ID of the
people who comment — nothing else, and nothing that isn't already visible under my
posts.

**The published register contains the ticket number, the display name, the post,
the link to the comment and its date. Not the account ID.** Those names and those
comments are already displayed under my videos: I'm exposing nothing new. The ID
stays on my side — it's what I use to count, to deduplicate, and to recognize a
winner who changed their name, not something to publish.

One exception, and it only concerns winners: to send a prize, I need something to
send it to — a wallet address or an email. I ask for it in the private channel, at
the moment of payment, never before.

If the contest ends with no draw, I delete the register, the counting archives and
the public tickets page within **30 days** of the closing announcement. Nothing is
kept.

## 8. How the prize is paid

The prizes are **$500 USD** each. That's a **value** I'm freezing here, not a
payment method.

What I commit to, and what won't move:

- **$500 USD of value**, received by the winner;
- **the full amount**: the fees, whatever they are, are on me;
- **a form that doesn't force me to reveal my identity** to the winner — a bank
  transfer, PayPal or Interac would show my legal name to the recipient, and I've
  held my anonymity since day one of this project;
- **the choice belongs to the winner**, among the forms available at the time of
  payment.

What I do **not** freeze: the form itself. As of today, the two forms I can offer
are a **transfer in a US-dollar-backed stablecoin** and a **gift card** usable
where the winner lives. Those are examples, not a promise: I'm naming no token, no
network and no platform here. The payout is at least **21 weeks** away, probably
much more, and what a Canadian platform is allowed to offer or to send changes
fast. Naming a token today would freeze for a year a dependency I don't control.

Two things to know before choosing, if it's a crypto transfer: it's **public and
permanent**. The address you give me stays visible to anyone, with the amount —
and your display name will already have been announced. Give me a fresh address
created for the occasion rather than your main wallet. And for the gift card, I
offer what I'm able to buy and deliver in your country; I can't promise a specific
brand for 190 countries.

**Any tax in the winner's country is on the winner.** Where awarding a prize is
forbidden by law, or where I can't legally send funds, the prize isn't awarded and
a new draw takes place.

There's one case left that I don't control: a winner for whom none of the
available forms works. If that happens, we look together for 30 days for a form
that works for them and doesn't force me to give my name. **If we find nothing,
the prize isn't awarded and a new draw takes place** — and I announce it publicly,
with the date and the reason, so nobody has to guess whether I walked off with the
$500.

Those payment details are used for the payment and nothing else, and I delete them
once the prize is sent, but I keep **proof of payment for one year**: the
transaction number or the gift card receipt. Not out of a habit of hoarding — it's
the only thing I'll be able to show if someone claims one day they never received
anything, and coming from an anonymous guy, "trust me" is worth nothing.

## 9. What I can change, and what I can't

**I can add prizes.** If I decide to draw one more, on one platform or on all of
them, that only improves your odds — and it will be announced before the draw.

**I can add a platform, but only going forward**, with its own announced start
date. That's planned for Facebook (section 1). Nobody will be retroactively
credited for comments left where the contest didn't exist yet — and nobody will
lose what they've already collected elsewhere.

**I can lengthen a window or raise the value of a ticket**, never shorten or lower
them. But a widening only applies to posts still open and to posts to come: a
sealed post is never read again, so it won't give up anything more. When that
happens, it's displayed on the tickets page rather than passed over in silence.

**I can't take anything away from someone who plays fair.** Not reduce a prize,
not change the value of a ticket, not shorten a window, not shorten the grace
period before sealing, not cancel tickets already earned. What's written here
moves in one direction only.

Three exceptions, written here in advance because they could not be added later:

- a comment removed for hate, harassment, spam or promotion of another service; an
  account that cheats — multiple accounts or coordination (section 3); and an
  account that wasn't eligible, meaning created on or after September 13, 2026 or held
  by a minor (section 2): those tickets fall, and that's the only thing that can
  make a ticket fall. Their numbers stay as gaps;
- the count stopping at the close above $100,000 (section 4), and the sealing of
  posts still open at that instant;
- **if a platform can no longer be counted** — access closed, channel lost, a rule
  change at the platform, author IDs it no longer returns to me — its two prizes
  don't disappear: they're drawn from the other platform's tickets, by the same
  method. I announce it the day I know, with the reason, not on draw day. The
  total amount doesn't move.

**A ticket earned stays earned.** If I delete a video, make it private, or the
platform pulls it, the tickets already earned under it stay on the register. And
if I re-upload the same video later, it doesn't open a new window: it's the same
post, not a new one.

## 10. Other things worth saying

This contest is not sponsored by, administered by, or associated with YouTube,
Google, Meta, Facebook, TikTok or X.

Quebec is eligible. The Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux stopped
regulating publicity contests on October 27, 2023. What still applies is the
Criminal Code (s. 206-207): that's where the skill-testing question in section 6
comes from, and that's why it's mandatory and not decorative.

This is the English version of these rules. A French version is published for the
French channel. If the two ever disagree, the French version governs — it's the
one I write myself.