An innovative World Cup Stock Market Game

Stock Market Games

Stock market games are games that allow players to trade stocks in a virtual market. The virtual stocks are based on real-world events. A popular variety are election stock markets (also called election prediction markets), where players can buy virtual stocks of political parties, and the final value of a stock is determined by the result of the election. These games have the reputation to often predict the outcome of elections and polls more accurately than professional forecasters — the wisdom of the crowd at work.

FIFA Football World Cup

Based on these ideas, we invented the World Cup Stock Market Game, to be played at prediction.zone. Players can buy stocks of participating teams, e.g. Brazil or England. The final value of the stocks is determined by the final results of the teams in the tournament. The value of the winner is 1000, the value of the runner-up is 700, etc.

The player who is best at trading stocks when the price is right wins by owning the most valuable portfolio of stocks at the end of the game.

Trading

The World Cup is perfectly suited for a stock market game, even better than an election. Daily games cause the prices to change rapidly, sometimes from one minute to the next. For example, during the opening match of the 2014 World Cup, the price of Brazil dropped when Croatia took the lead after 11 minutes, but quickly recovered as they turned around the game to win 3:1. In our game you can buy or sell stocks with one mouse click, making it very interactive.

Orders

While this real-time trading is fun, bigger profits can be made by picking the right stocks at the right time and waiting for your teams to win. During the Euro 2016, one could buy Iceland for 130 at the beginning. They ended up paying out at 300, trading over 360 at times, after kicking out England to reach the quarter-finals. Instead of real-time trading, you can also just enter trading orders in your own time, and whenever the price is right, you will automatically buy or sell stocks.

Players that react to events on the pitch quickly have an advantage, but not so much that the game becomes uninteresting for the others. It’s a good compromise between real-time and strategic gaming, between short-term and long-term predictions.

Participating

Participating in the World Cup Stock Market Game is free, with no (real) money involved. Players can sign up at prediction.zone. Trading begins on Tuesday, 48 hours before the start of the first match, but joining in at a later stage is always possible.