Make Way for Opinions Trading: Here's How Probo is Changing the Trading Game

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India is home to the second-largest base of casual online gamers with a population of 420 million individuals, as per primary and secondary research conducted by KPMG.

Even before the Coronavirus outbreak, the Indian internet gaming sector was expanding rapidly. However, COVID-19, and the succeeding lockdowns and WFH models, provided a tipping point in terms of how online casual gaming, prediction gaming, and fantasy gaming have emerged as key channels, including both game base (420 million in FY21) and revenue output to the gaming industry (INR 60 billion, in comparison to the total gaming industry size of INR 136 bn in FY21).

Gamifying opinions have recently started dominating the prediction market and Probo is one another example of how companies are focusing on opinions and their trading. Crafted in India, Probo takes pride in launching an app that focuses on the discovery of truth. Here's this StartupTalky article that will let you have a glimpse into the Probo success story, its founders and team and more.

Probo - About
Probo - Founders and Team
Probo - How to Trade On Event Questions
Probo - Funding and Investors
The Rise of Game of Skills Beyond Gambling & Betting Into the World of Trading
Probo - Game Of Skills Vs Gambling or Betting

Probo - About

The universe of monetary value is constantly growing. Data, digital assets, and even basic clothing markets are becoming as important as conventional commodity markets such as oil, agriculture, and gold. This indicates that the financial derivatives market does have some catching up to do. This is where Probo provides event choices as a distinct asset type that covers a wide range of topics and subjects across all varied domains. Finance, Sports, Entertainment, or News – such events have the potential to become powerful assets in the toolkit of today's value-driven investors.

Probo users are drawn to the platform for the very same reasons that traders are drawn to the stock or securities markets: they want to profit from their thoughts and knowledge while increasing their financial goals and learning something new. The nature of these events frequently makes trade methods more comprehensible, versatile, and exciting.

For example, did you predict that the Government will repeal any of the three Farm Laws? Did you predict that India will regularise Cryptocurrencies? Do you often have opinions on sports matches? Do you have immense knowledge of a specific subject?

If you answered yes, you must feel excited about Probo. While previously there has been no platform that allows you to gain returns on your opinions, Probo ascertains that you profit from your opinions by trading them. Don’t let the word ‘Trading’ throw you off, you don’t need to have any prior trading experience to join and earn money on Probo. All you got to do is answer simple Yes or No questions, select the amount you’d like to invest in your opinions or predictions, and based on the actual outcome of the event if your predictions were correct, you win. Once you complete your KYC, you can instantly withdraw your winnings using UPI. What gets better than this?

If this new age concept seems interesting to you, and you’d like to explore Probo, keep reading to know how to get started.

Probo - Founders and Team

Probo, founded by Sachin Gupta and Ashish Garg, is an opinion trading platform where two users with opposing viewpoints can sell their opinions for mutually agreed-upon price and gain benefits. Probo's app is accessible for Android users and covers subjects such as sports, education, politics, entertainment, the economy, and business.

Probo compares a user's opinion to a counter-opinion, then if the user's view fits a real-life event, he or she wins and earns money. In essence, it is based on a prediction market model in which winning or losing is determined by the outcome of a real-life event.

Probo - How to Trade On Event Questions

Download the Probo app from the website, or click here to start the download. Once you Sign-up using your phone number and complete the registration, you will get Rs.25 as a sign-up bonus. Now, follow these steps to trade your opinions and win rewards on Probo.

Step 1: Explore different categories such as News, Crypto, Sports (Cricket, Football, Tennis), Entertainment, etc

Step 2: Choose your category of interest

Step 3: Find event questions in your choice of category

Step 4: Share your opinions/ predictions by selecting ‘Yes’ or ‘No’

Step 5: Decide the price and quantity you would want to invest

Step 6: Submit your opinions and wait for the event outcome

If you’d like to see how to trade on Probo, you can check their tutorial video on YouTube video.

Probo - Funding and Investors

Probo has already raised a funding round from Sequoia Capital and Elevation Capital in March 2021 where it has been successful in raising $2.5 million. This round also included Rohit Bansal, Bhavik Koladiya, Kunal Shah, Kunal Bahl, and Vaibhav Domkundwar.

As per the recent reports dated February 21, 2022, Probo will now be raising another $25 mn in a Series A round from a mix of new and existing investors, which will include Fundamentum and other existing investors. This funding round will be valuing Probo somewhere between $100-120 mn.

The Rise of Game of Skills Beyond Gambling & Betting Into the World of Trading

Gambling and betting, in the form of games, is possibly as old as mankind and has been practised both officially and illegally all over the world. The attitude of society toward gaming has changed across diverse geographies, and in most situations, regulations have favoured gambling on skill-based activities while prohibiting wagering on games of chance. Betting entails the exchange of money or assets, and this agreement can be reached in person or virtually.

The age of the Internet has opened up new horizons of gaming and established a global market for activities on which people can legally play in their different jurisdictions. People nowadays place their bets through phones, computers, and so on. With easy access to internet gambling sites and an international presence, gaming regulation has become an essential concern. Telecommunications technologies and global financial transfers have enabled gaming hosts to be joined into networks. Despite these developments, ‘skill’ or 'luck' remains a critical criterion in assessing the legality of a gaming enterprise in India.

Skill gaming differs from restricted wagering or games of betting, both of which are considered gambling in nature. The distinction between games of skill and games of chance, with the former authorised and the latter outlawed, has long been a characteristic of Indian law. Section 12 of the Public Gambling Act exempts skill-based games from gambling-related penalties – “Nothing in the foregoing provisions of this Act contained shall be held to apply to any game of mere skill wherever played.”

Now that we have discussed how Skill gaming differs from gambling and betting games, let’s understand more about the skills game below.

Probo - Game Of Skills Vs Gambling or Betting

A ‘game of skill’ is one in which the player's success is mostly determined by superior knowledge, training, attention, experience, analytical abilities, personal traits, and aptitude. While the component of chance cannot be completely eliminated, the element of talent on the part of the participants plays a major role in predicting the game's outcome. Games of skill are designated as a distinct category since several Indian states (except Assam, Orissa, and Telangana) have codified gambling acts that remove games of skill from the scope of gambling.

Assume that you believe the world will undergo a significant shift toward electric vehicles in the next few years based on your knowledge and research. How can you apply this knowledge to your advantage? Using traditional means and tools, the most viable strategy would be to acquire shares in a popular electric car company, such as Tesla.

As and when electric vehicle adoption increases, Tesla's sales will increase, and you'll make loads of money. That may work, but purchasing Tesla shares exposes you to tremendous risk. What if a new automaker develops superior-technology electric vehicles? So, what will happen then?

Probo, on the other hand, allows you to share your opinions and predictions by allowing you to trade directly on the sales of electric cars. Will electric cars, for example, have a market share of more than 5% in India by 2025? You will profit from answering the question correctly and holding your opinions on certain events till their expiration date.

Because the market is related to a fundamental measurement of the real world, you will not be at risk of underpricing driven by public sentiment. Similarly, when it comes to sports prediction, you have limitless opportunities to answer event questions from across different categories.

So, why waste your opinions, when you can earn from them? It’s time to trade your opinions on Probo.

FAQs

What service does Probo provide?

Probo is an opinion trading platform that provides opportunities to learn, earn and have a lot of fun for everyone!

What’s Probo’s process to protect its users?

We are particularly cautious to defend the well-being of our consumers and marketplaces. Some distinct policies for the foreseeable future:

●       There is no counterparty risk because all trades are stored in Probo's vault.

●       We will soon ship several tools to nudge, guide, and educate the user for them to make smart trades.

How are event questions chosen?

Probo's category teams curate and review each event, researching and validating whether the event question is suitable to be listed on the platform. In all fairness, the review process is somewhat complex, however here are a few necessary aspects:

●       To offer a fair playing field for all members, the marketplace should have a low risk of manipulation.

●       The market does not promote bad behavior.

●       The market's outcome is derived from a credible and trustworthy source.