Guide

How to Run a Fair and Fun Office Tournament in Under 10 Minutes

May 2026  ·  6 min read

Office tournaments are great team-building exercises, but they often come with baggage: someone organises the bracket, someone disputes the draw, someone claims the results were manipulated. PachinkoMaster's tournament mode removes all of that by letting physics do the deciding — transparently, in front of everyone.

This guide walks you through the entire setup from scratch, including how to configure the elimination rounds for your group size, what prize scoring setup works best, and how to wrap up with an exported leaderboard to send round the office.

Before You Start

You'll need two things: a list of participants and a decision about what you're competing for. The prizes can be anything — tasks, challenges, trivia categories, fun forfeits, or just points for bragging rights. The tournament runs the same way regardless.

Recommended group size: 6 to 64 players. Fewer than 6 and the tournament is over before it starts. More than 64 and each round takes a while to resolve, though PachinkoMaster can handle it.

Step 1: Set Up Your Prize Slots

Open PachinkoMaster and go to the Prizes panel. Delete the default prizes and add your own — these are the outcomes players are competing to land on. For a points-based tournament you want a range of values:

PrizeSuggested PointsNotes
🏆 Jackpot100Rare, narrow slot — keeps things exciting
⭐ Great502–3 of these across the board
✅ Good25The most common landing zone
🔄 Average10Plenty of these to fill the board
💀 Bust01–2 slots — adds jeopardy

The exact values are up to you — this is just a starting structure. The key is having a meaningful spread so that round outcomes actually differentiate players.

Tip: For a themed office tournament, name the prizes after your company's products, inside jokes, or team names. It makes the results much more shareable on Slack.

Step 2: Add All Players

Switch to the Players panel and add every participant. Each person gets a colour — you can customise them individually if you want specific colours for specific people (company colours, team colours, etc.).

  1. Click "Add Player" for each participant. Type their name.
  2. Assign colours. The default palette gives everyone a distinct colour automatically. Click any colour swatch to override it.
  3. Enable Tournament Mode using the toggle at the top of the Players panel.

Step 3: Configure the Tournament

With Tournament Mode enabled, set how many players are eliminated per round. A good rule of thumb:

Group SizeEliminate Per RoundExpected Rounds
6–10 players1 per round5–9 rounds
11–20 players2–3 per round5–8 rounds
21–40 players4–6 per round5–7 rounds
41–64 players10–15 per round4–5 rounds

If you want a quicker session, eliminate more per round. If you want drama and longevity — people sticking around hoping to survive one more round — eliminate fewer.

Step 4: Run the Tournament

This is the fun part. Put PachinkoMaster up on a shared screen if you're in the same room, or screen-share it on a video call.

  1. Click "Drop All" to release all players' balls simultaneously. Everyone watches their coloured ball bounce through the pegs.
  2. The round-end screen shows who is advancing and who is eliminated. Take a moment here — let it land before moving on. The drama of seeing names on the eliminated list is half the fun.
  3. Click "Next Round" to continue. Eliminated players are removed automatically; surviving players carry their cumulative scores forward.
  4. Repeat until the tournament reaches its conclusion.
Tip: For big groups on a video call, mute everyone just before the drop and then unmute — the chaotic noise of 30 people reacting to their ball's landing is genuinely one of the best parts.

Step 5: Wrap Up and Share the Results

When the tournament completes, the finale screen shows:

Hit Export CSV to download the complete results as a spreadsheet. Open it in Excel or Google Sheets and paste it straight into your company chat, tournament thread, or wherever you're tracking results.

What to do with the results

Beyond bragging rights, you can use the CSV to track recurring tournaments over time, build a seasonal leaderboard, or feed results into a larger event scoring system. The export includes each player's name, total points, and the round they were eliminated — enough data to do whatever you want with it downstream.

Common Questions

What if two players tie on points for the elimination cut?

The current round's score is used as a tiebreaker. If there's still a tie after that, both players advance (the more generous interpretation). You can also run an extra single-round tiebreaker manually if it matters.

Can I pause the tournament?

The tournament state is held in memory during your session — so don't refresh the page in the middle of a tournament. If you need to pause, take a screenshot of the current standings and note the round number, then rebuild the state manually when you resume.

Can I run the same tournament setup again next week?

Yes. Use the Share button to copy a URL with your exact board configuration saved. That URL loads the same prizes, settings, and player list. Bookmark it as your "tournament template" and open it each session.

Set Up Your Tournament →