By Stips · Updated
You do not need to know anything about markets to play. There are two things worth understanding: what the price means, and what happens when the market ends.
Prices run from 1¢ to 99¢ and read directly as a percentage. Yes at 67¢ means the market puts the chance at about 67%. No is always the remainder — if Yes is 67¢, No is 33¢, because exactly one of them will be true.
A correct share is worth $1 when the market settles. So buying Yes at 67¢ pays $1 if you are right, a profit of 33¢ per share. Buying a long shot at 10¢ pays the same $1, a profit of 90¢ — which is the whole reason to take an unpopular side when you think the crowd is wrong.
Every trade shifts the market. A large order on Yes raises the Yes price and lowers No, because it is evidence that someone believes it. This is why the number on a busy market means more than the number on a quiet one — it reflects more people putting something behind their opinion.
A brand-new market opens at 50¢ unless its creator staked a side, in which case that stake sets the opening line. Markets with no trades yet say so, because an untraded price is a starting guess rather than a consensus.
Pick a side, choose a stake, and the ticket shows exactly what you stand to get back before you commit — the total return if you are right and the profit on top of your stake. Nothing is hidden behind a confirmation.
Your credits are reserved when the trade is placed, and your position appears in My Bets straight away with its price and payout. Open positions show as open; settled ones show as won or lost with the amount actually paid.
At the close time a market stops taking trades. It then resolves against the criteria published on its page, and payouts run automatically — winners are credited the full value of their shares, losers are settled at nothing.
Your balance, win rate and streak update from the settled result. Win rate counts settled markets only: positions still running are not evidence either way, so they are not counted as losses while you wait.
Leaderboards rank traders by return, win rate, profit, volume and streak, over a range of timeframes. They are a record of calls made in public, which is the point of keeping score at all.
Clubs are private groups with their own markets, for when the argument is with a specific set of people rather than everyone.