Broker's virtual to real trading contest can be a good way to earn recognition as well as prize money. I see there are many brokers offering these contests to keep their traders motivated.
Backtesting can be a good tool to practice before jumping for live trades. We can use demo to expedite our learning process because they come with free virtual funds and live market conditions.
The traders are well versed in managing all the associated risks with their trading and thats why both risk and money management is important to learn.
Trading does not promise riches right over the night yet if we learn the skills we can make good money enough to support our dreams and does not have the worry finding work and payouts to rely any further.
I can say better to check the repute since there are many bad examples of the past where even the regulated brokers turned into scam and never paid back to their traders.
Demo accounts are provided by the brokers like hfm, xm, lmfx, exness etc to test the processes before investing money with them, this is just another function of these demo accounts.
Nowadays we almost have everything for free on the internet we just have to properly search for it rather than paying for the things which are actually free.