iPredict
ISCR and Victoria University are co-owners of iPredict.co.nz, New Zealand's first real money prediction market. Prediction markets, also known as ideas futures, are like share markets, but the stock that is traded is special: it pays a one-time dividend of a dollar if and only if a defined event comes true. The price this stock trades for is the prediction e.g. $0.60 = 60% probability.
Prediction markets work by harnessing the wisdom of the crowds trading on them. Since their debut in 1988, prediction markets have significantly outperformed traditional polling in predicting election outcomes. More recently, large organisations including Google and Microsoft have had their employees trade on internal prediction markets to learn, among other things, whether new products will launch on time, the accuracy of budgets and forecasts, and the commercial prospects for products still on the drawing board.
In addition to a public site - currently directed mainly at the 2008 election - iPredict is rolling out a service aimed at helping New Zealand organisations harness prediction markets technology to get better answers to important questions.
Enquiries are welcome - please contact the iPredict Chief Executive Matt Burgess at matt@ipredict.co.nz