There's a longstanding sports/event book, tradesports.com, that operates its business on this same model, and their players' betting on the timing of Saddam's fall was FEROCIOUS -- almost 100K open contracts at one point in March.
Plus, of course, the dummies in the gov't are missing a bet (no pun intended) if they DON'T use UIDs to track down would-be terrorists. Some of these bozos (the terrorists, that is) are just dumb enough to plunge heavily on an event they ''know'' to be upcoming, and might very well give the game away on some number of occasions.
That's what I was thinking. Then I saw this "rule" on the website:
U.S. government agencies will not be allowed to participate in PAM and DARPA will not have access to the identities or funds of PAM traders.
I thought this whole thing might just be a set-up to track terrorists and rogue states who may have designs in playing this market and making the predictions come true. If this clause is accurate, I would say this is a very stupid and potentially dangerous exercise.