Last year, we covered the launch of Flick a Trade, a mobile-based binary options game. Marketed as a game, Flick a Trade provided players with virtual money and the ability to play against other users or individually against the market. Within future plans for the game was the addition of real money accounts for users to take short-term positions in the market.
Hitting that goal, Flick a Trade has recently ‘turned on’ real money trading, as they launched it for UK players. As a real money game, the firm added a UK gaming license under the name Reality Gaming Limited. With the game evolving to mimic real trading, Finance Magnates connected with Simon Ramsden, Managing Director of Reality Gaming to provide an update on the app.
Ramsden explained that Reality Gaming continues to view Flick a Trade first and foremost as a game. In that regard, the app is being promoted as a game and not a trading product. As such, Reality Gaming has a goal of keeping the game fun for players with features such as tournament play and weekend trading using virtual assets. However, by adding real money playing, Flick a Trade is also being positioned to showcase its “real world benefits and the possibility making money and learning about the market.”
Gaming vs Broker License
As part of Flick a Trade’s goal of remaining a game and not a brokerage offering, Reality Group took the path of getting the app regulated under a UK gambling license instead of as a broker from the FCA. Ramsden explained, “Flick a Trade is an exotic rates product and not a traditional option or derivative that falls under financial Regulation .” As such, although it is similar to binary options, it operates slightly differently. Rather than taking a directional bet for a short duration with a fixed payout, Flick a Trade players have a fixed period of time to trade long and short as much as they can in any direction they want. Ramsden explained that in this regard, Flick a Trade is more similar to a series of “ladder of options that can be opened and closed up to 24 hours.”
So far, real money playing has only been opened for UK players, with a wider European rollout expected soon. Beyond the UK and Europe, Ramsden cited that they are investigating other regions such as Asia, and whether further gaming or trading licenses are needed in other countries.
$1.2 billion in daily trades
Since launching last year, the app has grown to where Flick a Trade’s founders stated that over $1.2 billion in trades and over 110,000 trades are executed every day. While only a fraction of the $1.2 billion is real money trades, Ramsden believes that the figures do reveal the Scalability of the app, with similar technology used for handling both real and virtual money accounts.
As a game, real money accounts on Flick a Trade are geared towards smaller size, instant funding deposits. Therefore, the game allows for minimum deposits of £10 and a maximum of £3,000, with average deposits around £500. Overall, Ramsden explained that they want to keep deposit sizes in a comfortable range in order to be able to continue offering instant deposits and withdrawals to players.
Looking ahead, Ramsden stated that continuing as a B2C facing company and adding more countries to activate real money accounts are their main plans. However, they haven’t ruled out plans of using a B2B model to offer their technology to gaming operators and brokers.
