MIT launches online market for trading on predictions
MIT Review has launched a market game where participants receive 10,000 game dollars which can be used to buy contracts that represent bets on various topics. They'll avoid subjects like future terrorist attacks (which former Admiral Poindexter was setting up at the Pentagon) according to this New York Times story (registration required):
The Technology Review marketplace, called Innovation Futures, began operating a month ago but was not announced publicly until last week. It is free to users and lets players bet on propositions like when Google will go public and which month, if ever, Boeing will commit to building the 7E7, its next-generation commercial jet. The most successful traders have a shot at winning a plasma-screen television or other prizes.
...Such trading systems work because they present a continuously updated consensus view of a large number of interested, informed people making their best guesses. Innovation Futures (http://trif.technology review.com/bk/index.html) uses technology from NewsFutures, a three-year-old electronic markets company.