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Security

No. We never store it, and we never receive it. Not encrypted on a server, not hashed, not in a log.If you pasted a key, it is encrypted in the browser you typed it into with AES-GCM-256 and stays on that device. If you created an account here, key management runs on Privy and the wallet is yours.Either way, every order is signed in your browser and sent from there. Our servers are not in the path, so there is no store of keys for anyone to steal and nothing we could hand over if we were asked for it.
No. Your balance sits in your own account at the venue the whole time. There is no tickside wallet in the middle, no deposit to us, nothing to withdraw from us.We could not move your money if we wanted to, because we never receive the key that would let us. The same fact cuts the other way: we cannot reverse a trade, unfreeze anything, or recover a lost key.
Worth understanding, because it is the one security choice you actually make here.Passphrase. Stretched with PBKDF2 over 310,000 rounds. Nothing unlocks without it, including on your own machine.Remember on this device. The desk unlocks itself. Faster, and fine on a laptop only you touch. On any machine somebody else can reach, it means anyone who opens your browser can trade.Pick the passphrase if you are unsure.
Nothing is lost. Your funds and positions live at the venue, not here.A key you pasted is re-exportable from wherever it came from, Magic or your own wallet. An account you created here can export its key in one click, from inside a Privy window on its own domain, so the key in plain text is visible only to you.Connect again on any browser. A wallet we have seen before even gets its name back on its own.
No. Nobody who works here will ever ask for your private key or a seed phrase, on any channel, for any reason. We have no way to ask you for it and no reason to. Any message that does is a theft attempt.

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Fees

Nothing. No subscription, no seat, no software fee, on any order, maker or taker. There is no volume tier because there is no fee to tier.
A resting order that gets filled later pays zero. Only an order that crosses the spread and fills immediately pays anything.When it does, the fee follows the price rather than your stake:
It is largest in the middle of the book and shrinks toward the extremes. A coin flip costs the most to cross. A near certainty costs almost nothing.
A football market at 2.00, so 50c a share, and you want $100 on it.Then it moves to 1.43, 70c a share, and you close:Same trade, same prices. Crossing both times costs **4.60∗∗outofa4.60** out of a 40 gain. That is why the desk makes resting the easy gesture: you click away from the price rather than into it, and it waits for you.
The venue’s site reports gross. It does not subtract the taker fees it charged you.We report net, which is the cash you actually have. Every P&L figure on the desk already has fees inside it, including the ones in the ladder’s own P&L column. Hover any figure to see both numbers and the bridge between them.

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Using the desk

Back is a bet it will happen. On a prediction market that is buying the outcome. On a stock market it is going long.Lay is a bet it will not. That is selling the outcome, or buying the other side of it. On a stock market it is going short.Never used a betting exchange? The only thing you really need is this: one ladder covers both sides, so you never have to pick which market to open. Blue is money waiting to back, red is money waiting to lay.Full version, with a picture: backing and laying.
On the BACK or LAY cell of the price you want.Click into the market’s price and it fills straight away. Click away from it and the order rests at the price you chose until the market comes to you. Resting is free. Crossing is not.Click the same cell again to stack more there. Your total shows in amber in the odds column.
Yes. A resting order lives on the venue’s order book, not in your browser. It keeps working, and can match, while you are away. Positions are on chain in your account.What stops is only what you can see. Reopen the desk and everything is where you left it. The same is true if we go down: your orders are still resting at the venue and your positions are still yours.
A full simulator on the real live book. Same prices, same fill logic, same fees inside the P&L, no real money anywhere.New here, stay in paper until the ladder stops feeling like a wall of numbers. Switching to live is one toggle.

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A trade from start to finish

This is the example worth reading, because it is the thing the desk is built around and it is hard to picture from a list of features.
1

You back something

Arsenal to win is at 2.00. You put $100 on it by clicking the BACK cell at 2.00, which buys 200 shares at 50c.If Arsenal win, each share pays 1.Youget1. You get 200 back, so 100profit.Iftheydonot,the100 profit. If they do not, the 100 is gone. That is the whole bet.
2

Arsenal score

The market reprices. Arsenal to win is now 1.43, which is 70c a share.Your 200 shares are worth 200 x 70c = **140∗∗.Youpaid140**. You paid 100. You are $40 up, on paper.
3

You look at the P&L column

You do not have to work any of that out. The column on the right of the ladder already shows, for every single price, what closing there would put in your pocket after fees.Somewhere around 1.43 it reads about +$38. Further down the ladder the numbers are bigger, further up they turn negative.
4

You click the number you want

The P&L column is a button, not a display. Clicking a cell sells everything you hold, at that price.Click +$38 at 1.43 and you are out now, at the price on screen.Or click further down the ladder, at a price the market has not reached yet, and that exit rests there and waits. You have set your target before the game got to it and you can go and watch the match.
The column always deducts the fee for crossing at that price, because that is the cautious number. An exit that rests and gets filled pays nothing, so it beats the figure on screen. The column will never flatter a trade you have not made.
5

Or take whatever is there, right now

⇄ hedge flattens the whole position through the book in one click, at whatever the market is currently offering. That is the button for when the price is moving against you and you have stopped caring about the last few cents.
That is the difference between a desk and a betting slip. On a slip you place a bet and find out at full time. Here you took $38 out at 1.43 and the match is still running.

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Accounts

Two ways, and they lead to the same desk.Create an account. Sign in with email or Google and a wallet is made for you. No seed phrase, nothing to write down.Bring one you have. Paste the signer key of the account you already trade with. Your address, your funds and your account type are worked out for you.Details either way: getting in.
Almost always one of three things.Your cash has to be at the venue. USDC sitting in a plain wallet does not count until it is deposited. Deposit on the venue’s own site first and the balance shows up here as trading cash.Check the public address. On the venue’s site, open your profile and copy the 0x… address shown, or paste the profile page’s URL into the Funds step and we will pull the address out of it. That address is public and on chain, so sharing it is safe. Your private key is not, and never is.Money on a different wallet? Paste that wallet’s address into the Funds step. We check it directly and lock on when it holds your money.
The private key signs orders. It is the secret. Anyone who has it controls the account.The public address, the 0x… one, is where funds sit on chain. It is visible to everybody by design and sharing it is harmless.If someone asks for the first one, they are stealing from you.
No. Names are permanent, set once when you first connect. Leave the field blank and one is picked for you.Reconnecting a wallet we have seen before always brings its original name back, on any device.
As many as you like. Account, add account. One per strategy, one per venue, one you only ever paper trade on.Switching swaps the whole desk: the paper book, the history and what you are entitled to move together, and nothing leaks between them.

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What can I trade?

Anything the venue lists. Sport is where most people start, but the ladder does not know the difference between a corner count and a presidential election. Football, basketball, tennis, esports, MMA, baseball, cricket, golf, boxing. Politics, geopolitics, finance. Crypto price windows. Awards, launches, approvals. The world markets routinely carry more resting depth than every sport put together. See finding markets for how the board is laid out.
tickside is an independent trading interface for prediction market venues. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by any venue it connects to. Trading prediction markets involves risk of loss, and what you can access depends on where you are. Nothing here is financial advice.