Demo accounts - binary betting
Binary betting comes in two broad forms.
1) There's those where the interface only comes up with a single figure, the amount of the bet at the moment. So for instance you would type in that you wanted to win £100 if, say, a particular Index would hit 5000 within the next 20 days, and the webpage would report the cost of that bet as a single number. This is seen in betonmarkets and betsfortraders, and betsfortraders is quite slick in having little slider bars, so you can see the effect of varying the number of days, and/or the amount you want to win.
2) Then there is the sort of interface where a whole table of numbers, like in a spreadsheet, are all varying the whole time you're looking at the screen. This is seen with binarybet and choiceodds.
I know of two where you can trade with pretend money - betonmarkets and betsfortraders.
With betonmarkets you have to opt specifically for a virtual account when you register, so it will be completely separate from your real money account, with a different log-in and password.
However, when you open an account with betsfortraders, once you're in, you select from a dropdown menu either $, £ or V$. Its virtual dollars you'll want to trade with, so select V$.
Although not strictly a demo account, I would mention choiceodds because they let you trade with a minimum sum of 10p a point which of course means that as the mid-price is 50 then you'd be in for a £5 - and as their prices are quoted using only the numbers 0 to 100, then you could conceivable get in at, say, 10 for a £1, or if the number on the screen is 90 then for £9 if you've typed-in the stake value as £0.10 (or ten pence).
For the largest variety of bet types, and to see loads of numbers flickering through the numbers between 0 and 100, you can open an account with binarybet but fail to credit your account with any funds.
This would allow you to explore all the various screens, but you wouldn't be able to place any pretend trades.
There may be other providers, but these are the only platforms I'm familiar with.
Please be aware that you can't always get out of a trade if you use single figure platforms like betonmarkets or betsfortraders. So once the bet is on, with some bet types (e.g. intra-day) there's nothing more you can do than wait to see if you've won or lost. On some of their bets they will let you "sell the bet back" to them before the closing date you've asked for, but often the price they offer you is peanuts. And with some bets that haven't reached their expiry date, they'll let you offer them to other punters who use the site, but there's no guarantee that anybody will bother to look at that screen to see what's being offered, and no promise that a buyer will offer to buy it if they do see that it is for sale.
However, with the platforms that have tables of fluctuating numbers, like binarybet and choiceodds, you simply click the opposite button to the one you used to enter the trade (buy vs sell, or sell vs buy) while that bet is still in play, and you'll get out at the currently displayed price.
And as the only numbers that can be used for prices there are 0 to 100 then you know in advance what your maximum loss would be.
Also please be aware that if you're trying to do some clever trading, perhaps involving multiple bets on the same screen as the market moves in a particular direction, the platform may decline to action the bet that you've clicked on.
So although a particular price is currently on offer on the screen, and you've clicked on it, there is a delay which can end with one of two phrases: "Your bet has been accepted"; or "Your bet has been unsuccessful - please try again", and of course when you try again the price may have moved out of your acceptable range which will make you angry, or it may have moved further in your favour. Either way, the price offered will reflect the way the underlying index, currency, commodity or share has moved.
Some platforms won't let you place a bet at the market open, and some insist that you can't bet right up to the market close.
Good luck - I'd be interested to hear how you get on.
