Iowa Electronic Markets
The Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM) are a group of real-money prediction markets/futures markets operated by the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business. Unlike normal futures markets, the IEM is not-for-profit; the markets are run for educational and research purposes.
The IEM allows traders to buy and sell contracts based on, among other things, political election results and economic indicators. Some markets are only available to academic traders.
The IEM has often been used to predict the results of political elections with a greater accuracy than traditional polls.
A precursor to the IEM was the Iowa Political Stock Market (IPSM), invented by George Neumann, and developed by Robert E. Forsythe, Forrest Nelson, and George Neumann.
Here are examples of contracts that the IEM traded, beginning June 6, 2006, concerning the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election Winner-Takes-All Market. (The contract descriptions came from the IEM site.)
On the first trading day in January, 2007, the DEM08_WTA contract sold for 52.2 cents.
At this point, a speculator has a number of options.
At the IEM site mentioned above, there was another bet on the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, based on vote share, which, because its payoffs are between $0 and $1, has prices that are, on average, closer together. (See "Graphs" below in External links.)
The IEM also trades futures based on financial markets, such as whether the Fed Funds rate will be raised at the following meeting.
The IEM is neither regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) nor by any other agency due to its academic focus and the small sums that are involved. Indeed, the IEM has received two no‑action letters that extend no‑action relief. A speculator may put at risk in the IEM only between $5 and $500. In contrast, other future markets like Nadex are regulated by the CFTC and allow speculators to take on or financially offset significant amounts of risk regarding economic events or the prices of commodities.
...
Wikipedia