> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://tickside.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# FAQ

> The questions people actually ask, answered with numbers where numbers exist.

## Security

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Do you ever see my private key?" icon="key">
    **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](https://privy.io) 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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can you touch my funds?" icon="ban">
    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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Passphrase, or remember this device?" icon="lock">
    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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What if I lose this browser?" icon="laptop">
    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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Someone asked me for my key. Was that you?" icon="triangle-exclamation">
    **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.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Fees

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What does tickside charge?" icon="circle-check">
    **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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What does the venue charge?" icon="percent">
    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:

    ```
    fee = coefficient x shares x price x (1 - price)
    ```

    | Category                | Coefficient |
    | ----------------------- | ----------- |
    | Sport and most others   | 0.05        |
    | Crypto                  | 0.07        |
    | Finance, Politics, Tech | 0.04        |
    | Geopolitical            | 0           |

    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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Show me what that costs in money" icon="calculator">
    A football market at 2.00, so 50c a share, and you want \$100 on it.

    |        | Cross the spread                      | Rest and wait |
    | ------ | ------------------------------------- | ------------- |
    | Shares | 200                                   | 200           |
    | Fee    | 0.05 x 200 x 0.50 x 0.50 = **\$2.50** | **\$0**       |

    Then it moves to 1.43, 70c a share, and you close:

    |     | Cross the spread                      | Rest and wait |
    | --- | ------------------------------------- | ------------- |
    | Fee | 0.05 x 200 x 0.70 x 0.30 = **\$2.10** | **\$0**       |

    Same trade, same prices. Crossing both times costs \*\*$4.60** 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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Why is your P&L different from the venue's site?" icon="scale-unbalanced">
    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.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Using the desk

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What do back and lay mean?" icon="scale-balanced">
    **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](/trading/backing-and-laying).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Where do I click to place an order?" icon="hand-pointer">
    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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How do I cancel?" icon="xmark">
    | Gesture                                   | Cancels                                     |
    | ----------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- |
    | Click your amber stake in the odds column | everything at that price, both sides        |
    | Right click a BACK or LAY cell            | that side of that price                     |
    | **✕** in the Unmatched panel              | that one order                              |
    | <kbd>X</kbd>                              | every order on the ladder under your cursor |
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Do my orders survive if I close the tab?" icon="power-off">
    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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What is paper mode?" icon="flask">
    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.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## 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.

<Steps>
  <Step title="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. You get $200 back, so $100 profit. If
            they do not, the $100 is gone. That is the whole bet.
  </Step>

  <Step title="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**. You paid $100. You are \$40
    up, on paper.
  </Step>

  <Step title="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.
  </Step>

  <Step title="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.

    <Note>
      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.
    </Note>
  </Step>

  <Step title="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.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Note>
  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.
</Note>

## Accounts

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="How do I get in?" icon="door-open">
    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](/essentials/connect).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="I connected but no funds were found" icon="wallet">
    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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Private key or public address, which is which?" icon="shield-halved">
    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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I change my username?" icon="user">
    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.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I have more than one account?" icon="users">
    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.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## 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](/trading/finding-markets) for how the board is
laid out.

<Warning>
  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.
</Warning>