paper trading---They don't and it's with intention. You can find other paper trading online to test strategies but honestly you really learn when it's real and in the "fire".khkman22 said:
Does Tasty Works have a "play" account where you can practice strategies before fully implementing them with real money?
Also, is the Bob the Trader promotion still active if you fund your account now?
Remember with options you don't have to be exposed, verticals and iron condors are great ways to start without risking that much cash. One of the many nice things about tastyworks is that their revolutionarily low rate structure allows you to use and experiment with various multi-leg strategies on the cheap (big part of the reason tastytrade got back on the brokerage side, so people could easier/cheaply put into practice what is preached, trade small/trade often and get the number of occurances up for probability to shake out as they should).
Anyways it gets you sound of concept and you actually learn to manage things when the money is real, not just some goofy trades you put on with zero risk or managed without any actual reprecussion (no matter how much we may tell ourselves I'll trade this like it's an actual account). Half the game, actually more I'd say, is eliminating emotion, being mechanical and learning to manage both ends of fear and greed. The skillset will come and you don't have to risk much to develop it. Then in time you'll learn to fully take advantage of the edge options gives you from a probability stand point.
Bob the Trader (for those that don't know pretty cool feature especially for new traders where you can get trade ideas by looking at their teams actual trades and if you want they even have a button where you can with one push have the actual trade ready to go, either tweak it to your specs or just hit confirm/send and put it through). It has been extended I believe b/c the CME has really been making it take longer than it should for them to have futures available. Not sure if you needed to have your acct. setup but a certain date or not. Just say you were waiting to fund your account until futures were up and running and I'd almost guarantee they'd set you up with it. At least set up your account, and then you can fund it later. Call them and ask they are very helpful and sincerely the whole point they got back into the brokerage side of the game is for the retail trader. Just look at their fee structure vs. others for proof of that if nothing else (and there is a lot else). If they don't have access you can go one step further and email Tom Sosnoff the main guy at tastytrade (I'd link you his email but I'm on a houesboat in Arkansas and internet is spotty, having hell just getting onto texags not to mention I get jumpy whenever I hear a banjo ) and he'll likely tell them to set you up with Bob. (he helped me get my commissions reduced at TD Ameritrade back in the day b/c he hired the guy that was in charge of that when he ran thinkorswim (which TDA aquired from them later for about $600million).
If you do go through them please go through my link. I've been learning from and interacting with these guys since 2012. They are legit good people, never have asked for a dime for all of that education and personal responses (the tastytrade guys as policy answer every email personally since day one, they just ask you keep it brief).
https://start.tastyworks.com/#/login?referralCode=75H99Q6WEV