Opinion trading platforms help exchange virtual contracts related to the outcome of future events such as sports competitions or elections.
A new study conducted by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi provides a comprehensive analysis of the Opinion Trading platform, providing strong evidence that such activities are driven primarily by skills rather than opportunities. The study title is “Skills on Quantitative Opinion Trading Platforms”, Analyze user behavior, transaction outcomes and mathematical models to evaluate the skill nature of this emerging information market form.
Opinion trading platforms help exchange virtual contracts related to the outcome of future events such as sports competitions or elections. Each contract reflects the expected outcome, for example, the expectation that a particular team will win the game. Users holding contracts that are consistent with actual results may achieve profits, while those who are incorrect in predictions will cause losses. These platforms operate in a way similar to financial derivatives, where users jointly evaluate and allocate probability to real-world events.
Why skills are important in legality
In India and many other jurisdictions, the legal status of the game will often depend on the “advantage test”, i.e. skill or opportunity primarily affects the outcome. The IIT Delhi study attempts to evaluate opinions deals against four recognized skills indicators:
- Skills outperform opportunities
- Consistency of player performance
- Learning improvements over time
- There is a skill gradient in the player group
Key Discovery
1. Skills and Opportunities
Using theoretical modeling and real-world market data, researchers found that skilled traders always outperform random strategies. Theoretical simulations show that even limited predictive insights can produce positive returns, while pure random traders often suffer net losses, especially after taking into account platform fees.
An empirical “skill dilution” test was also conducted, in which event results are randomly flipped by various probabilities. As the randomness increases, traders’ winning rate and return rate are significantly reduced. The results show that success on these platforms cannot be attributed solely to luck, and statistical tests produce extremely low P values (as small as 10°⁰⁰), which actually excludes opportunities from the main factors.
2. Performance consistency
The study analyzed transaction data throughout the calendar year (2024) and found that users who performed well within one month usually continue to perform well in the following months. For such a large user base, the correlation coefficient of the winning rate and the return between months are in the range of 0.52 to 0.65. A brief decline was observed during the March-May period, due to the influx of new users in a major sports season, which temporarily increased variability.
3. Learning evidence
The researchers tracked over 37,000 new users and monitored their performance in the first 720 transactions. Both win rate and return improve with experience, especially in the initial stages, forming a curve commonly observed in the field of skill acquisitions such as chess or games. This “learning effect” is particularly evident among users who end up being high-performance users, indicating that the most successful traders not only have innate abilities, but also learn faster.
4. There is a skill gradient
The existence of “skill gradients” where some users always outperform others further supports the notion that opinion trading is not an opportunity game. The study introduced a scoring mechanism called OPTRA (Opinion Trading Skills) score, which quantifies the transaction success of individual users over time. This score showed a strong correlation with long-term performance, with high performers having significantly higher scores than average users. These differences persist in various market conditions, further emphasizing the role of skills.
meaning
The IIT Delhi findings contribute to ongoing debate around the classification of opinions trading platforms. Combining theory, powerful analyses of large-scale data and statistical validation provide a compelling case for viewing opinion trading as skills-based activities.
From a regulatory perspective, these insights may impact how such platforms are managed under gaming and financial laws. Recognizing the role of skills may lead to clearer legal frameworks, user protection, and more innovations in the intersection of growing gaming, finance and data-driven decisions.
Complete research, “Skills on Quantitative Opinion Trading Platforms”, Available through the IIT Delhi Institutional Repository.
