Oxford start-up launches new stock market trading game

Trade Chase, the Wired.co.uk Startup of the Week, has formally launched a new range of financial trading games, which give players the chance to win real money. The founders, James Tromans and Colin Smith, an Olympic silver medallist, believe Trade Chase is the first site to offer pool betting and prize competitions based on the financial markets.

Trade Chase is designed to reduce the cost, complexity and risk of financial investing, while still allowing users to experience the excitement of playing the markets. Players can choose from a range of games with entry fees starting from just £1. These deliver a similar gaming experience to that of online poker - a forum for players to pit themselves against each other for a communal prize pot. Operating under real market conditions, Trade Chase is also designed to be educational, but requires no experience of stock trading.

In addition to operating real cash competitions, Trade Chase has a number of features that distinguish it from other fantasy trading games. Firstly, players trade real companies, currencies and commodities using real-time data. Secondly, players can buy trading tools, such as a Margin Account, to boost their performance. Finally, Trade Chase is heavily integrated with social media making it the first truly social financial game.

In a move that further develops and legitimises the growing links between gambling and social gaming, Trade Chase took the unusual step of applying to be regulated by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) despite a number of other companies using different game structures and corporate structures to avoid regulation.

The granting of a UK gambling license acknowledges the high standards of compliance and professionalism that Trade Chase has adopted. With questions being asked about the lack of regulation of social gaming, and lawmakers considering taxing gambling at the point of consumption, the company decided that operating under license in a regulated industry, while expensive and complex, offered the greatest protection to customers.

It is free to join the website, but in accordance with UK gambling laws, players must be 18 or over and must pass through an identification process. The company already has almost 2,000 members who have participated in the development of the site.

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For further information or images, please contact Colin Smith on +44.7747.618.344 or office@tradechase.com

Wired.co.uk: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-08/08/startup-of-the-week-trade-chase

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