About BantabaMarkets

BantabaMarkets is a free simulator game, built first for The Gambia and now expanding across the border into Senegal. There is no real money or funds attached to it, ever -- it's built purely for fun and learning, to help people understand how real-world events actually affect daily life. You predict real-world, verifiable outcomes using virtual Bantaba Coins: a football qualification, an inflation print, an election result, a piece of regional culture news. The community's combined predictions settle transparently against a published source once the outcome is known.

Where the name comes from

A “bantaba” is the traditional West African gathering place, often a tree, a clearing, or a shaded platform at the centre of a village, where people sit together to debate, share news, and reason through what's likely to happen next. Elders settle disputes there. Neighbours argue about the harvest, the weather, a football match, an election. It is, in the truest sense, where a community forms its collective judgment about the future, out loud, together, in public.

We built BantabaMarkets to bring that same spirit online: a place where a community's collective read on an uncertain outcome is visible to everyone, backed by real stakes instead of just opinions, and settled openly instead of being forgotten the next day.

Why we built this

Prediction and forecasting tools have existed for years, but almost none of them were built with West Africa in mind, assuming an audience following international markets and leagues rather than the events people here actually follow. We wanted a game that starts from that reality instead: no bank card, no payment of any kind, nothing to lose but bragging rights, and markets about the things people here actually argue about: regional football, national politics, the Dalasi and the CFA franc, festivals, and the news everyone is already talking about.

We also believe forecasting is more honest when something is actually on the line. A show of hands is cheap. A staked prediction (one you can't take back once the market closes) forces a real judgment, and the resulting pool of staked predictions tends to be a far better signal than a poll or a comment thread -- even when what's staked is virtual coins, not cash.

How the game works, briefly

Every market opens with a plain-language question, a resolution source, and the exact criteria that will decide it. All of it is shown before you stake, not after. You choose an outcome and commit an amount of Bantaba Coins; those coins move out of your available balance into a locked position until the market resolves. Once the outcome is known, we resolve the market against its published source, take a small commission from the total coin pool (5–10%, disclosed on every market, which keeps the in-game economy balanced), and share the remainder among the winning side in proportion to what each person staked. The full mechanics, with a worked example, are on our How It Works page.

This is deliberately not a casino and not a continuous-trading exchange. There's no house setting odds against you, and there's no minute-by-minute price you can flip in and out of, and there's no real money anywhere in the loop. You take a position on a real-world question and wait for the real answer.

What we believe

  • Transparency over the house. Every stake, settlement, and payout is recorded on an immutable ledger. Resolution sources are stated upfront, so we don't get to quietly move the goalposts after a market closes.
  • Community over any single voice. Prices on BantabaMarkets come from how the community has staked, not from a bookmaker's judgment of the odds.
  • Local first. Built around the currencies, languages, and mobile money habits of the people actually using it, rather than adapted from a platform designed for somewhere else.
  • No real money, ever. BantabaMarkets is a free simulator game. Bantaba Coins have no cash value and can never be bought, sold, deposited, or withdrawn -- stakes are simply capped by your coin balance. See our Platform Disclaimer for more.

What you can stake on

Markets today span four hubs: Sports, Politics, Economics, and Culture. Each has its own sub-categories, from national elections and currency rates to festivals and regional entertainment news. New categories and markets open regularly as real events come up across The Gambia and Senegal.

Where we operate, and where we're headed

BantabaMarkets is live in The Gambia and expanding into Senegal, as a free simulator game everywhere it's available -- no real money, no licensing to worry about, just the game. See our Platform Disclaimer for the full picture. In the meantime, we're building out the product in the open: more languages (the platform already supports English, French, and Portuguese), more market categories, and richer ways to play, including multi-leg combo positions.

Get in touch

Have a question, feedback, or a market idea? Visit our Contact page because we read everything that comes in.