Terms and conditions

About the platform

InkNod is a site for playing nine games online: five Romanian card games (Macao, Seven Cut, Sweep, Liar Liar and War), Texas Hold’em Poker, Backgammon, Tile Rummy and Chess. The site operates at inknod.com and is run by Web Loft SRL, with its registered office at Str. Buzoieni 14, Sector 5, Bucharest, Romania.

Using the site is free. There are no subscriptions, nothing is bought, nothing is paid and nothing is played for money. There are no stakes, bets, purchasable chips or cash prizes: this is not a gambling site. The leaderboard rating is a number, not a value.

By creating an account and using the site, you accept the terms below. If you do not agree with them, do not use the site.

Definitions

Site / platform

The InkNod site and everything you can do on it.

Account

Your player account, made with a player name, an email address and a password.

Guest

Someone who plays without an account. The site gives them a name (“user” followed by six digits) and they can play casual matches. Guests have no leaderboard, profile, friends or chat.

Player

Someone who sits at a table and plays, with an account or as a guest.

Spectator

Someone who enters a table’s room without taking a seat. They see the table but do not play. If they have an account, they can write in the room.

Table

The place where players gather for a particular game. It has a name, an invite code, a number of seats and a pace.

Room

The space around a table: the log of what happened and the conversation among those present. The room exists before the match and stays after it.

Host

The person who opened the table. The host starts the match, can add bots, and can remove or mute someone at their table.

Match

One actual game, from the deal to the result.

Bot

An automated player run by the server. It has no account.

Ranked match

A match whose result changes the leaderboard rating.

Administrator

Someone who is responsible for the site and has access to the admin panel.

Creating and using an account

You can also play without an account. If you open a table or sit at one without being logged in, you instantly get a guest name (“user” followed by six digits) and play under it. As a guest:

• you play only casual matches: the table you open is not ranked, and you cannot sit at someone else’s ranked table;
• you have no leaderboard, profile, friends or notifications, and you cannot write in the room chat;
• the table you open carries a name given by the site, and you can hold only one table at a time;
• the name lasts as long as the session in your browser. If you leave, clear your cookies or stay away for a week, you cannot return to it.

For everything else you need an account. It is free, and its rules are below.

• Player names are 3 to 20 characters long: unaccented letters, digits and underscores. A name is unique on the site and public.
• Your email address must be confirmed. After you sign up you get an email with a link. Until you click it, the account cannot be used. You can ask for the email to be resent from the confirmation page.
• Your password must be at least 8 characters. You can change it at any time from your profile, and if you forget it we send you a reset link valid for 60 minutes.
• One account per person. Multiple accounts used to influence the leaderboard are not allowed.
• The account is yours and may not be given, lent or sold to anyone else.
• The minimum age to play on the site, with an account or as a guest, is 16.

You can delete your account at any time, on your own, from your profile. See section 10.

Your responsibility

What is up to you:

• Your password. Keep it to yourself. Everything done from your account is considered done by you. If you suspect someone else has gotten into your account, change your password and write to us at [email protected].
• Your email address. It must be one you have access to, because it is how you recover your account. You can change it from your profile, with your current password.
• What you write and upload. You are responsible for your player name, your profile photo and your messages in rooms.
• How you use the site. You may not try to get into other people’s accounts, bypass technical limits, send automated requests in bulk, use programs that play for you at ranked tables, or exploit a game bug instead of reporting it.

If you find a security problem, write to us at [email protected] instead of using it. It is the most useful thing you can do for the other players.

Game rules

Each game has its own rules page in the catalog, and you can also open the rules from the table, without leaving the match.

The rules written there are the ones the server applies. These games are played differently from one region to another and from one family to another; the site applies a single variant of each, and that is the one on the rules page. If you play differently at home, here it is still played as written there.

The match is kept on the server, not in your browser. A move that breaks the rules is refused by the server, whatever your screen shows. Other players’ cards never reach you: you receive a version of the match without them.

A game’s rules can be corrected if a mistake is found. The change appears on the game’s rules page.

Creating and joining tables

Whoever opens a table chooses its game, name, number of seats and pace.

• Pace is the number of seconds a player has for a move, or “no timer”. It is chosen when the table is opened, you see it before you sit down, and it stays the same for a rematch. If you sat at a fast table, it stays fast.
• A table’s address is public. That is how you invite a friend to play: you send them the address. Anyone who has it can watch the table from the sidelines, meaning exactly what you would see standing next to a real table: who is sitting there and the cards on the table, never anyone’s hand.
• The host starts the match. Until then, anyone who wants to can take a free seat.
• If the host leaves before the start, the table closes. If they leave later, the room can pass to someone else who is present.
• The host can remove someone from their table. A removed player cannot rejoin that table. It is not a ban from the site, it is a ban from that table, and it lasts as long as the table does.
• Open tables where no one but the host has sat down close on their own after one hour, so they do not fill the lobby with dead invites.

Behavior during games

There is only one rule, the same as at a real table: you play with people, not with screens.

• Stay at the table for the whole match. If you do not move before the timer runs out, the server removes you from that match so the table can carry on. In Poker it does not remove you: the table checks or folds for you and you go on a break. It is not a punishment; it is the only way the others do not get stuck. At a table with no timer you can think as long as you like while the page is open; if you close it on your turn in a ranked match and do not return within 5 minutes, you are removed from the match (in Poker, you go on a break).
• No insults, threats, harassment or language that attacks someone for who they are, whether in chat, in a player name or in a profile photo.
• No advertising, spam or links in table rooms and general chat. An automatic filter stops messages with links, HTML code, offensive words or topics that have no place here (explicit sex, drugs, real-money gambling), and anyone who keeps trying gets a pause from writing in general chat.
• No collusion between players at ranked tables: you do not show your cards to someone on another channel, and two of you do not play against a third by swapping information on the outside.
• No one else’s personal data in chat.

The host can mute someone at their table. Administrators can mute an account across the whole site, delete a message from a room and close a table.

Bots and automated features

A bot (an automated player run by the server) can be added to a table if the host allowed this when opening the table. Bots have two play levels: beginner and normal. Each game has its own bot.

While a bot is at the table, the match is not ranked. A bot has no rating to put at stake, so a win against it measures nothing. Ratings change only between people who both risk something. The table does not stay unranked forever, though: if the host opened it as ranked, and before the next match the bot leaves and only people remain at the table, that match is ranked.

Bots belong to the site. You may not use automated programs that play for you, read the page, open tables or send requests to the site outside the normal way of using it.

The site also has automatic features that are not bots: the timer that removes a player who did not move in time, the removal of a player who left a ranked match with no timer, and the closing of tables left empty. All three are described above.

Leaderboards, ratings and ranked matches

Each game has its own leaderboard. There is no overall leaderboard: a Sweep master has no reason to rank high at War, where luck matters more.

• Ratings use the Elo system and start at 1000 in each game.
• After each ranked match, your rating goes up or down depending on who you played: a win against a higher-rated player earns more than one against a lower-rated player. The swings are larger at first and settle down after your first 30 matches.
• Your best rating in each game is also kept, even if you have dropped since.
• A match is ranked only if the host opened the table as ranked and, when the match starts, only people are sitting at the table. A bot makes the match played with it unranked, but not the ones after it leaves.
• Only players with accounts can sit at a ranked table. A guest has no rating to put at stake. A host who wants to play with someone without an account can make the table casual, from the table settings, as long as nothing is being played at it.
• The leaderboard shows only accounts that have played at least one match.
• A player removed from a match for running out of time, or for being away from the table on their turn, ranks behind everyone left at the table, and if several leave, the first to leave ranks last. At a ranked table, this means lost rating. Otherwise, anyone who saw they were losing would just close the tab.

We reserve the right to correct or cancel ratings obtained by breaking these terms, through multiple accounts, collusion between players or automated programs.

Suspending or closing an account

When you leave

You can delete your account at any time, on your own, from your profile, under “Delete account”. It asks for your current password and your exact player name: two keys, so it cannot happen by accident. Deletion is immediate and permanent. What is deleted and what remains is set out in the Privacy policy.

If you play as a guest, you have no account to delete. You can leave at any time: the name you played under no longer belongs to anyone, and what remains of it is deleted on its own, within the period stated in the same policy.

When we step in

For breaches of these terms, an administrator can take three measures, in order of severity:

• Muting: the account stays, the game stays, but you can no longer write in rooms.
• Suspension: the account can no longer be logged into, however correct the password.
• Account deletion.

The first two are reversible and are lifted as easily as they are applied. The measure is proportionate to the act, and if it seems like a mistake to you, write to us at [email protected] and we will review it.

User content

What you put on the site is: your player name, your profile photo, the names of the tables you open and your messages in rooms. That is all; the site has no other way to upload anything.

• Your content stays yours. You only give us the right to display it on the site, where it belongs, while it is there.
• The photo must be yours or one you have the right to use. WEBP, JPEG or PNG files of up to 400 KB are accepted.
• An administrator can delete a message from a room, and the host can mute someone at their table.
• A message’s author name is frozen when it is written. A name change does not rewrite old conversations, and deleting your account does not delete them, because they also belong to the others who sat at the table. What deletion breaks is the link between the message and your account.

If you see a message or a name that breaks the rules, write to us at [email protected].

Intellectual property

The games themselves belong to no one. Macao, Seven Cut, Sweep, Liar Liar and War are traditional Romanian games, played for generations, and Texas Hold’em and backgammon are played all over the world. No one owns the rights to them or to their rules.

The following, however, belong to the operator and are protected by law: the site’s software, the way it looks, the texts written for it (including the rules pages), the card designs, and the InkNod logo and name. You may not copy, reproduce or use them elsewhere without the operator’s written consent.

Content posted by players stays theirs; see section 11.

If something on the site infringes your rights, write to us at [email protected] with a description of the material and where it is, and we will look into it.

Service availability

The site is provided as is and as available. We do not promise it will work without interruption, without errors or at any particular speed.

There may be stops for maintenance, updates or failures at providers the site depends on. When we can, we announce them in advance. When it is a failure, we cannot.

An interrupted match may be lost. The state of the match is kept on the server and resumes where it left off, but if the server stops in the middle of a match or an error occurs, the match may end with no result. We do not give compensation for lost matches, lost rating or leaderboard positions; none of that has any monetary value.

Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, the operator is not liable for: interruptions or errors of the site, the loss of a match, rating or leaderboard position, the behavior of other players, the content they write in rooms, or the operation of third-party services the site depends on.

Nothing in this section excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded by law, in particular liability for damage caused intentionally or through gross negligence, liability for harm to life or personal integrity, and your rights as a consumer.

The site is free and is not played for money, so no financial loss can arise from using it.

Changes to the service

The site changes: games are added, rules are corrected, the look of a page changes, and sometimes something that did not prove good goes away. We may modify, suspend or permanently stop any part of the site. If we shut the site down completely, we will announce it in advance, so everyone can request their data or delete their account; see the GDPR page.

Changes to the terms

The terms can change. The valid version is always the one on this page, and the date of the last update is written at its beginning and end. If the change is a significant one, we will let you know by email or through a message on the site before it takes effect. If you do not agree with the new terms, you can delete your account; that is how the agreement between us ends.

Data protection

What data we take, why, how long we keep it, who else sees it and what rights you have over it are set out in full in the Privacy policy, and briefly and step by step on the GDPR page. Both are part of these terms.

In short, here is what is worth knowing:

• your player name, photo and rating are public;
• your email address is never public;
• room conversations are visible to whoever is at the table and to administrators;
• the cards in your hand do not leave the server while they are in your hand;
• the site has three cookies, all strictly necessary. It also has traffic measurement, Rybbit, hosted by the operator, which starts only if you say “I agree”; without consent it does not even load (see traffic measurement). There are no other statistics or tracking services;
• ads appear on some pages, each with its own label: “From InkNod” for the site’s own promotions, “Advertisements” for those paid for by others. None appear at the game table (see ads).

Governing law and contact

These terms are governed by Romanian law. Disputes are settled amicably; if that is not possible, the courts at the operator’s registered office have jurisdiction, without affecting your right, as a consumer, to go to the court where you live.

If you have a complaint we cannot settle between us, you can turn to ANPC, the Romanian consumer protection authority: the complaint form is at eservicii.anpc.ro, and information on alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is at anpc.ro/sal.

The European online dispute resolution platform (ODR) no longer exists: it was closed on July 20, 2025, by Regulation (EU) 2024/3228. The list of dispute resolution bodies in the member states has moved to consumer-redress.ec.europa.eu. That is why you will not find an “ODR” badge on this site: it would point to a bricked-up door.

• OperatorWeb Loft SRL
• AddressStr. Buzoieni 14, Sector 5, Bucharest, Romania
• RegistrationTax ID (CUI) 44674942 · Trade Register No. J40/13171/2021
• Email[email protected]