The Federal Auction

The third place gear changes hands, after the Supplier and the Fence — and the only one where what's for sale was taken off somebody at gunpoint.

When a RICO raid confiscates a piece of hot gear, its owner gets 24 hours to buy it back out of evidence (see the Evidence Lockup page, under Crime, Heat & the Law). If they don't, it goes on the block here for another 24 hours, and anybody except them can bid on it in Dirty Cash.

The rules of the room

The winning bid is destroyed. It does not go to the person the gear was taken from — they get nothing, ever. A raid can never make you money, and gear is never a way to turn stock into cash on demand.

The reserve is what its owner would have paid. The opening figure on every lot is exactly the price that player was quoted to pull it out of evidence. That's what makes "let a mate win it back cheap and hand it over" pointless — it costs more than simply buying it back would have, and then costs a Fence cut to transfer.

You cannot bid on a piece taken off you. Your chance to keep it was the evidence window. Once it's on the block you can only watch. Lots that were yours are marked on the page.

How bidding works

Bids go up in steps of at least 10% over the standing bid, and your money is held, not spent: the moment somebody outbids you, your full amount is refunded and you're notified. Only the current high bid is ever holding cash — yours or anyone's.

You can't bid against yourself while you're already leading, and you can bid more than the minimum if you'd rather make a statement than be ground up ten percent at a time.

A bid inside the last 15 minutes pushes the gavel back 15 minutes. Nothing here is won by being at a keyboard at exactly the right second — if you get outbid at the death, you always get a fresh window to answer.

Who else is bidding

Not everyone on the board is a player. Independent buyers work the auction too, and they behave like buyers rather than obstacles: some lots don't interest them at all and can be taken at the reserve, and every one of them has a walk-away price. You can always win a piece by being willing to pay more than they are. They're there so the block isn't an empty room on a quiet night, not to price you out of it.

If one of them takes a lot off you, you'll probably hear about it on The Wire.

When the gavel falls

The high bidder gets the item, unequipped, in their inventory. If nobody bid at all, the feds destroy it and it's gone for good.

Either way the player it was seized from is told exactly what happened — including who walked out with it.