User:Chopz/sandbox

Smarkets is a UK-based betting exchange company founded in 2008. It has offices in London, Los Angeles, and Malta.

History
Smarkets was founded in 2008 by Jason Trost and Hunter Morris as a peer-to-peer platform that allowed its users to bet on various sports and political markets.

Smarkets became Queens Park Rangers F.C.'s front-of-shirt sponsor in June 2016. In January 2018, the company announced that it was working with The Jockey Club to sponsor 35 race days in the 2018 calendar. The same year, the company noted that it was considering a US stock market float.

Smarkets was named the City A.M. Leap 100 Company of the Year for 2017. and came second on the 2017 Sunday Times Tech Track 100 list.

The company reported that it had taken £2.7bn of bets and profits of £13.7m in 2016.

The company notably initiated a wiki-like salary policy; the employees could view salaries of all of their peers, including the company CEO, on an internal wiki page. The company has a self-set salary policy, which authorizes employees to decide their own salary as often as every six months. This process is similar to a peer-review process carried out at designated times during the year.

Smarkets has received coverage in mainstream international sources like NY Times, Yahoo! Finance,   Forbes,  ABC News, Washington Times, Inc., The Guardian, Telegraph,  BBC,  and Fox Sports among others.