Assuming it can be legally structured as a "Futures Market", rather than as "Illegal Gambling", it could make money. (There are obviously some bets it's unlikely to handle, such as the bet that Idea Futures markets would be successfully

At 10:56 PM 7/29/03 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: prosecuted

as illegal gambling :-)

*Real* futures markets are effectively integrating all the AP type risks (plus others, like weather) relevant to their markets. The Pentagon plan was trying to get the same kind of private but well-done research that real futures traders do, with emphesis on issues of interest to it. As well as a feedback channel to the domestic psyops boys. CNN, etc. also perform a sort of gambling (probabilistic investment, "futures"), in how they distribute their resources in anticipation of regional "news".