Opinion trading platform TradeX has shut down its real-money gaming operations, with the company moving to a free-to-play, casual social gaming platform. The shutdown comes amid growing regulatory scepticism over opinion trading sites.
In a blog post, TradeX said that the shut down was on account of “heavy” 28 per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST) on online gaming platforms, which “favours bigger players and made growth and profitability difficult”.
Opinion trading platforms provide their users or participants a platform to trade or enter into arrangements wherein the payout is dependent on the outcome of a yes/no proposition of happening or not happening of the underlying event.
Apart from TradeX, the sector in India has companies like Gurugram-based Probo and MPL Opinio. While the former offers questions on a varied set of sectors like sports, elections and cryptocurrency, the latter only deals with questions related to cricket matches.
These platforms allow participants to earn money by investing in their predictions on any sports, political, weather, or crypto events. Participants can bet on any event based on their predictions. If the predictions are correct, a participant makes money, and in case the prediction goes wrong they lose.
TradeX’s shut down comes at a time of growing scrutiny into the so called opinion trading segment. Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) cautioned investors against dealing with such platforms.
“Since none of the platforms providing opinion trading can qualify to be recognised stock exchange, and are neither registered or regulated by SEBI, any trading of securities on them is illegal (in case some of the opinions traded qualify as security),” it said.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
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