How the parlour pays its way

Every table in the parlour is open to anyone who walks in: no membership card, no door fee. Behind them sit a rented server, a yearly domain fee and many evenings of checking deals and tidying rules. This page sets out who is expected to settle that account.

Adverts in marked frames

The account is meant to be settled by advertising. Pages made mostly for reading, such as the Hall, the Card Room, the Library shelves and the Study, each hang a frame with a small brass label that reads "Advertisement". Only inside those frames may an advert appear. We are linking Google AdSense up to fill them; until that switch is thrown, each frame holds a short note of ours asking advertisers to come forward.

Sponsoring a game

A firm may also lend its name to one game or to a run of numbered deals. Anything a sponsor pays for wears a small "Sponsored by" plate with the firm's name on it, much as a donor's name sits beneath a portrait, and the parlour's own writing never wears one. A sponsor has no say over the rules, the deals or the solver's verdicts.

What the parlour will never do

• no advert will ever be pinned to the baize of a card table or hung over its buttons;
• no shortcut is for sale: not an easier deal, not one extra undo, nothing that tips a game;
• what we know about visitors, which is very little, is not sold or handed to anyone;
• no pop-up will ever barge into the room while a game is on.

Advertising and sponsorship enquiries

Write to hello@patienceparlour.com if you would like to take a frame or sponsor a game. A person reads that inbox, not an auto-responder. How adverts will treat cookies is covered on the privacy page.