Check out:
http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/
This is the University of Iowa electronic futures market. It's a
real-money market where you can buy and sell futures contracts written
on political and economic events. For example, you can buy or sell a
contract based on whether or not a particular candidate will win the
republican presidential nomination. A contract on Bob Dole is worth
$1 if Bob Dole is nominated and $0 otherwise. Right now, such a contract
can be purchased or sold for about 62 cents.
The current republican market is as follows:
Symbol Bid Ask Last Low High Average
Winner-Takes-All Market
ALEX 0.068 0.070 0.070 0.067 0.070 0.070
BUCH 0.093 0.097 0.097 0.092 0.109 0.097
DOLE 0.621 0.623 0.623 0.610 0.623 0.618
FORB 0.126 0.128 0.128 0.120 0.129 0.125
RCROF 0.022 0.023 0.022 0.019 0.023 0.020
GRAM 0.005 0.008 0.009 0.004 0.009 0.007
KEMP 0.014 0.017 0.014 0.014 0.016 0.015
POWL 0.038 0.040 0.038 0.038 0.041 0.040
QUAY 0.003 0.004 0.003 0.002 0.003 0.003
There are also futures written on all kinds of other interesting things,
such as:
* Microsoft trading price at the end of each month.
* US Presidential election.
* Whether or not Colin Powell will join the republican race.
* Various foreign elections.
* Various published economic indicators.
Although I haven't done this, it seems to be easy to trade in this
electronic market. You open and account (min $5, max $500) and trade
in real-time via the web. Buy/sell quotes are updated every 15 seconds.
It's amazing that gambling becomes legal when you call it "futures trading".
I wonder when they start writing futures on sporting events.