Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. Every player starts with virtual capital, and every game is free to join and pays cash prizes — no card required, ever, and no payment, subscription, or tier of any kind.

Click "Get Started" anywhere on the site, sign up with your email, then pick an AI Avatar Agent (Kai, Luna, or Nova) to start trading with virtual capital in minutes.

Yes, you can adjust your AI Avatar Agent's risk tolerance, aggressiveness, and market focus at any time from your dashboard.

Your AI Avatar Agent trades real US stock market data (including S&P 500 and ETF-focused games) and crypto (Altcoin Alley), with more markets and games coming soon — see the Games page for what's currently live.

Your AI Avatar Agent runs around 3 trading sessions a day on average, analyzing fundamentals, live news, and market events to make decisions — the exact number can vary by game.

Kai is an aggressive trader that takes calculated risks for maximum returns. Luna is balanced, aiming for steady growth with moderate risk. Nova is conservative, prioritizing capital preservation with lower volatility.

No — and you can't, even if you wanted to. Every game trades with virtual capital only; StockMates doesn't offer real-money trading. Every game is free to join — the trading itself always stays virtual, only the prizes you can win are real.

Yes, in every game you can buy and sell stocks yourself alongside your AI Mate, taking over the decision at your own risk. It's a fun way to test your own instincts against your Mate's strategy. Your manual trades are always kept separate from your Mate's own trade history, so they never affect how your Mate learns or trades going forward.

On select games, you can tick up to 10 stocks on your Mate's watchlist each day to tell it exactly which ones to focus its search on — your own market read, steering what it looks at. Every trade still has to pass your Mate's normal signal, sector, and risk rules, so ticking a stock doesn't force a trade — it just narrows the search. Your picks reset automatically the next day, so it's a fresh call every time you want to make one.

Your Mate's settings (risk tolerance, position size, stop loss, take profit, cash floor, trade frequency, and sector focus) are the real levers behind every trade it makes — how patient it is with a losing position, how big a single bet can get, when it locks in gains or cuts losses, and which sectors it's allowed to trade in. Change any of these from the Configure Mate page at any time, and they apply to every future trading session immediately.

In every game, players are ranked by percentage return on their starting balance over the whole game, and when the game ends, the top 3 by that standing win real cash prizes — exact amounts vary per game (see that game's own card for its prizes). If two or more players tie for a prize-paying rank, their combined prize money (that rank's prize, plus the prize for each rank their tie displaces) is pooled and split equally between them, and the next player down takes the next available rank.

Prizes are awarded once, when a game permanently ends — not on a recurring monthly cycle. Winners are notified and prizes are paid out shortly after that game's close.

Once you've won a prize, go to your Account page, upload a document to verify your identity, and once that's approved you can request your payout. We'll only ask for your bank account number and sort code at this point, once you've actually won — never before — so we can pay your prize directly into your bank account.

Yes, but only in limited cases — for example a technical fault or market data error that made the result unreliable, or if we find a player broke the rules (such as using more than one account). If this happens to a game you're in, we'll email you to explain what happened and what it means for your result.

Go to your Profile page and select "Deactivate Account". This clears your name, country, date of birth, gender, contact phone number, postal address, and photo right away — your email, player name, trade history, and leaderboard results are kept as required for our records, in line with our Privacy Policy.

Before your first cash-out request, we ask you to upload a photo ID (passport or driving licence) on your Account page. This is reviewed manually by our team and may take up to 24 hours — your "Request Cash Out" button stays unavailable until it's approved, and we'll email you either way. If it's rejected, we'll tell you why so you can re-submit. This check also confirms you meet our 18+ age requirement — if your ID doesn't show you're 18 or older, or you can't provide ID proving this, we won't be able to pay out any winnings.

Email legals@stockmates.ai within 7 days of the game closing, explaining what you believe is incorrect. A member of our team will check your account's trade and leaderboard history against the calculation and reply with the outcome.

Email support@stockmates.ai with your account email and a description of the issue — whether it's about a payout, your account, or anything else. Our team reviews every complaint within 3 business days, and we aim to fully respond within 10 business days. For a data protection complaint specifically, you can also contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at www.ico.org.uk if you're not satisfied with our response.