The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
It was one helluva middle of the night idea spurred by Chris Rabalais, who created the world's first sports stock market. That's right, you read correctly. "There is nobody else," said Rabalais, the president and chief executive officer of AllSportsMarket.com The idea was triggered when Rabalais, who has a background in stock trading, got addicted to day trading. He studied the economic side of it and developed a prototype with a friend. "People loved it," said Rabalais, who resides in San Jose, Costa Rica. Rabalais, who was born in Louisiana, said the size of the investing interested public combined with the size of the sports-interested public demonstrated the potential of the product. "The numbers are staggering and capturing just a tiny percentage of either or both made the business idea viable," Rabalais added. Creating this site allows sports buffs to buy, sell and trade stocks for all the major North American leagues like investors do in the actual market. There are people who are doing well on his market as one person has $374,000 in earnings. "Not everybody is going to make money," he added. "The risk is equal to Wall Street." The AllSportsMarket has 1,565 team tickers in 43 leagues with 10,500 traders investing $23.3 million. If you're wanting in on the action, there is no fee to pay. You can sign up with no restrictions. Imagine having a stock in the Edmonton Oilers or Toronto Maple Leafs? The only person not making money is Rabalais. "I made this commitment to investment parties that I wouldn't make money until it goes public," he said. "The path we're on could make it happen by the end of this summer." That is his goal, to put it on a platform such as NASDAQ. "I want it to be globally accepted," said the 36-year-old. "Right now there are no laws in the three major jurisdictions that we've studied (Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom) that cover AllSportsMarket.com," he explained. "Since this has not been done before, it is undefined." Rabalais continued by saying there are several bills in front of U.S. Congress that they're seeking to amend. "This would set the platform to officially recognize the creation of a sports derivative (what is traded on ASM) and the AllSportsMarket.com exchange itself," he concluded. 3/5/06
