Investing in today’s stock market may be about as secure as buying a lotto ticket but there are a couple of companies you’d love a stake in if you could get your hands on the shares. Unfortunately everything you’ve got is tied up in funds and without a background in finance it seems safer not to risk it.

Why not test the stock market waters at UpDown where you can earn real money for predicting the stock market, while managing a virtual portfolio and competing against all of the other UpDown users to see who can really beat the bust.

Sign up for UpDown and you’ll get $1,000,000 to spend on the stocks of your choice – all prices are determined by the real market and your trading limits and time frames are determined by real world limitations. Each month, you’re eligible to get paid real money if you’re beating the market average and you can also earn cash for writing guides about different companies and their market value or being one of the best performing traders on the site.

When you discover you’re a mega market mogul, it might be time to switch to sniping real world shares but until then, UpDown lets you manage your risk and even offers a bit of reward.

And that sounds like a safe investment.