How do I run a trading competition?
Quick answer
Run a competition by giving each entrant an identical free or low-cost account with the same rules, a fixed time window, and a ranking by profit or a risk-adjusted measure. Publish the rules and prizes, check winners for prohibited strategies, and use it to attract traders to paid challenges.
Detailed answer
A competition plan:
- Account type: same starting balance and rules for all entrants.
- Window: start and end dates and times.
- Ranking: return, with a drawdown cap to discourage gambling.
- Prizes: often free challenges rather than cash.
- Verification: review top accounts before announcing.
- Follow-up: offers for entrants after it ends.
On PropExecutor, a competition is an account type and a batch of accounts. You rank entrants from account data via the API, which reports balance, equity and statistics per account. Each entry uses one account credit.
Rules for fairness
- One entry per person, verified at prize time.
- Prohibited strategies apply.
- Ties broken by a stated rule.
- Results reviewed before announcing.
Measure the result
Track how many entrants later buy a challenge. That conversion rate, not the number of entrants, shows whether the competition was worth its cost in accounts and prizes.
PropExecutor team · Updated
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