I have long been a fan of paper trading. It gives me the ability to test some of my theories or strategies that I have learned about before actually trading with real money. Now, there are some critics that will state that not putting real money on the line is not the same thing as when you do, but it still can give you a pretty good indication of how you would do overall.

Often though, I would lose interest in the various web sites that offered this service. When my strategy proved viable (or not) I would move on and never revisit the paper trading platform. But then I discovered a service where you can win money when paper trading. The criteria to win is you have to be able to beat the S&P. The more you beat the S&P by, the higher the amount you can get paid (up to $500). So you could imagine that my interest stays with this service as I am motivated to not only beat the S&P but to try to beat everyone else in the game.  They also have other contests where you can win up to $3000, too.

So how much this great paper trading service cost to join? How about nothing! It costs nothing to join and play. It's totally free. So how do they make their money? They have advertising on the site, but it's not obtrusive. So everybody wins. You win by trying out strategies and that strategy beats the S&P, you get paid. The site wins because they have thousands of members that they can advertise to, again I don't believe it is very obtrusive.

As I have stated before, I am a fan of paper trading. But I am even more enthralled when you can win money when paper trading. This gives the best of both worlds.