Media Predict started out four years ago taking bets with play money, asking people to “wager” on TV ratings and box office numbers.

For example, a person could go to the MediaPredict.com site and bet on the ratings of the premiere of “Two and a Half Men” or the opening-weekend box office of the next “Mission Impossible” movie. Bettors also can make comments explaining their wagers. When the ratings come in, if the bettor beats the spread, he wins. If not, he loses.

Since its debut in 2007, the company has sold the bets and the comments to studios as market research. Now, Media Predict is taking $100,000 of its revenue and staking players for real-money bets.

The company will continue its play-money game, but has hand-picked 4,600 people – those who did well in the past, along with some TV and film executives – and is giving them $10 to $50 to keep them betting. Good prognosticators could win real money and cash out.

“It’s not so much that users are giving their opinion,” said Jon Currie, vice president at the company’s Encino office. “It’s that they’re risking and staking their belief on it.”

Brent Stinski, the chief executive, doesn’t see parting with the money as anything unusual.

“You would get paid for a survey or a focus group,” Stinski explained.

Clients include Fox Broadcasting Co. and 20th Century Fox. Media Predict, which is headquartered in Encino and New York, has seven employees. Last year, Stinski, who’s in New York, brought in Currie, an audience researcher in Encino, to develop Hollywood clients.

Currie said the company’s wager-based research has been met with skepticism from some studios and networks that use traditional audience surveys from companies such as New York-based Nielsen. So this week’s TV premieres will be a crucial test for the company’s method of audience prediction.

“This is a big week,” he said. “Let the chips fall where they may.”