I was thinking of something like globalarbtrader's description of Jack Schwager's Fundseeder program in a previous thread. Apparently Fundseeder produces leaderboards that rank traders by a formula involving profits+risk+consistency. I think there were other ways that leaders could be scored too... The thread is: https://elitetrader.com/et/threads/fundseeder-my-experience.298394/
The few I've seen don't. They're organized by local brokerages and offer small prizes for the top 3. The winner was not some brilliant trader but someone who had a straddle before earnings announcement and the return was massively above anyone else.
Well not exactly like that You give 2 traders a fresh account with the same initial balance So there is a fair start to both the contestants Time duration could be anything from a day to a week, definitely not a year Well you don't go broke because you don't trade your own capital but rather the company's account
To avoid massive ups in lot sizes, you can lower the leverage and also set a violations for floating drawdown. You think that would avoid straddling and gambling behavior ?
then it's a lottery. As a trader you have nothing to lose and with that short a time frame it's a coin flip. Consistency is what matters, not getting lucky for a week.
I played here when they first got started, but they speed everything up too much for me to use my system effectively. So, after winning a couple of hundred dollars, I stopped placing in the top spots and cashed out with my prize money, never to return to any of their pay-to-play contests again. (This was maybe two years ago?)