What Is Your Construction Arbitrage Score?

Your construction arbitrage score is a number from 0 to 100 that says how well you run the model under real pressure. It is the percentage of simulated runs you beat across the same three months of work. Score 88 and you are in the top 12%. The ceiling is 98, the top 2%.

You get it by playing the construction arbitrage game at constructionarbitrage.com/play. It is free, it runs in a browser, and there is no sign up.

What the construction arbitrage score actually measures#

It does not measure what you know about construction arbitrage. You can read every page on this site and still score 30.

It measures whether you can hold four things in your head at once while the month runs on:

1. Price. What the job is worth to the client, before you know what the trade will charge you.
2. Road. Hand the job whole to another firm for a thinner slice, or put your own people on it for a fatter one and own everything that goes wrong.
3. Diary. Days are finite. Every job you take is a job you cannot take.
4. Cash. You pay the trade before the client pays you, and the tax you are holding was never yours.

That fourth one is the killer. Most runs that die are profitable on paper. They just run out of money on the wrong day, which is exactly how it goes wrong in the real business.

The score is one number because that is the honest summary. A firm that prices beautifully and cannot pay its subs on Friday is not a good firm.

The construction arbitrage score bands#

The game shows the score and a rank title. Here is what each band means, and what it says about running this for real.

Score	Percentile	Rank	What it means
94-98	Top 2-6%	Site legend	You ran the whole quarter about as well as it can be run.
88-93	Top 7-12%	Main contractor	Priced well, chose roads well, never got caught short on cash.
80-87	Top 13-20%	Runs a real firm	A real operator's run. Something small cost you, and you know what.
66-79	Top 21-34%	Runs a tight book	Careful, profitable, a bit slow. Usually leaving money on the table.
45-65	Top 35-55%	Getting dangerous	You have the idea. The execution still has one big hole in it.
25-44	Bottom half	Learning the trade	You finished something. The mechanics have not clicked yet.
1-24	Bottom quarter	First van	The run ended early. Almost always cash, almost never pricing.

Two honest notes on that table. The score is anchored to about six thousand machine-played runs of the same board, not to other players, and the card says so. And in that simulation, roughly one run in five survives all three months. A first score in the 20s to 50s is the normal result, not a bad one.

How to get your construction arbitrage score#

1. Open the game.
2. Play the first month. A board of work lands, you have 24 working days, and you price each job and choose how it gets done.
3. Your score appears at the end of the month, and again when the run ends.
4. Play it a second time. The score is built to move.

It takes about 20 minutes. Beginner mode explains each decision as it arrives and tells you why an outcome happened. Advanced mode strips the lessons out and runs at full speed.

Money in the game is shown in one currency for consistency. The model and the maths are identical in any currency, and identical at any job size.

Can you run construction arbitrage? What the score really tells you#

This is the question the score exists to answer, so let me answer it straight.

A high score does not mean you will succeed. It means the decision-making part is not what will stop you. Winning the work is still a real job. Finding trades who turn up is still a real job. Neither is simulated in twenty minutes.

A low score does not mean you cannot do this. It means one of the four levers is broken, and the game tells you which one. That is worth more than the number. I would rather someone score 30, read why, and fix the specific thing than score 70 and learn nothing.

The people who should genuinely reconsider are not the low scorers. They are the ones who score low twice for the same reason and do not want to know why. That is the trait that kills real firms, and it is the only thing a twenty minute game can honestly tell you about yourself.

The score is a mirror, not a gate. It shows you which mistake is yours.

The four things that move your score most#

Pricing before you know your cost. The single most common way a good run goes thin. Get a price from the trade, then price the client. Full detail in pricing and margins.

Taking every job. The diary is the constraint nobody feels until day 18. A full month of thin jobs scores worse than a half month of fat ones.

Choosing the wrong trade to save a few hundred. The cheapest quote is the most expensive decision in this business. How to vet subcontractors is the half the game punishes hardest.

Spending money that is not yours. The tax you have held back and the invoice that has not landed are both traps. Cash flow and getting paid covers the defences.

After the score#

If the score came out low and you want the model itself rather than the scoreboard, start with how construction arbitrage works and then the 90 day start plan.

If it came out high, the honest next question is not another game. It is whether you can win the first contract. That one is not simulated.