If Gordon Gekko’s jail cell has Wi-Fi, then he’s certainly playing on UpDown.com. Hailed as “fantasy football meets the trading floor,” UpDown.com is a one-year-old virtual stock trading start-up with a few new wrinkles.

For starters, if you manage your $1 million stock portfolio of funny money to consistently beat the S&P 500, you can make real cash. Several contests also allow you to grab a piece of the pie. For example, $3,500 is up for grabs in the UpDown.com Q3 contest and $10K is at play in a student investment contest.

You can also turn those virtual greenbacks into real money by writing up solid stock analysis and referring friends to join UpDown.com. There is even a social element to the site; you can start your own boiler room or join one of the existing groups, such as the Mad Street Addict Money Fund. Jim Cramer would be proud.

Some UpDown.com players have already parlayed their initial $1 million well past the $10 million mark; so it might not be a bad idea to brush up on your day-trading skills with message board tips and handy market news before diving in.

UpDown’s free website and service, which has more than 70,000 registered members, just took a $1 million investment from Switzerland-based angel investor Joachim Schoss into its coffers to bring its total funding to more than $2.2 million. Apparently it takes a good investment to know one.

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