Intrade is an internet based prediction market. What is a prediction market? It’s a market that allows you to make predictions on the outcome of hundreds of real-world events. Stock exchanges find the price of stocks, and futures markets find the price of commodities. Prediction markets find the probability of something happening – a predefined, uncertain future event.
Will the financial markets be up today? Will a certain candidate win the next election? Who will win the Academy Awards? If you have an opinion on what will happen then you can make a prediction on Intrade. Predict correctly and you can win real money profits.
An Intrade market – always YES or NO! These events are always defined on Intrade as a YES/NO proposition. For example, here are a few of the markets currently available:
•The Dow Jones to close on or above 13,000 on 30 Dec 2012
•Barack Obama to be re-elected President in 2012
•The United States or Israel to bomb Iran before the end of 2013
There are two possible outcomes to each of these events – yes, the event will happen as described, or no, it will not happen
And right now people are putting money on whether or not USA and/or Israel to execute an overt Air Strike against Iran before midnight ET 31 Dec 2013: And the odds generated (automatically) by the money being invested on this happening is basically 49.9%.
Intrade is considered to be very important and generally ‘on the money’. At one time it assisted the U.S. Department of Defense in a controversial scheme (ultimately canceled) to assess probabilities of future terrorist attacks. Intrade supplies market data at significantly discounted fees or free to academics.
You can never for sure predict the future, but Intrade comes very close.
