Iowa Electronic Markets

And that's the difference.

Now, that type of market... dates back originally to the Iowa electronic markets that were run at the University of Iowa in the late 1980s.

And I think a lot of the positive buzz around prediction markets reflects that academic origin.

which is the academics at the University of Iowa showed that this very limited thing, and again, transaction costs are a big issue, you couldn't gamble more than $500.

Many economic experts are optimistic about their accuracy, like Robert Forsyth.

He's one of the co-founders of the original modern-day prediction market called the Iowa Electronic Market.

It launched in 1988 at the University of Iowa.

Years later, a fellow Iowa professor studied its accuracy.

Tom Reitz did a study and found out that Markets predicted election outcomes better in polls, I believe,

70% of the time.

From 1988 to 2004, the Iowa electronic market outperformed polls 74% of the time in presidential contests.

Research out of Dartmouth also suggests prediction markets aren't politically or demographically biased, despite its users skewing young, tech-savvy, white, and male.