[needs update] Intrade was founded by Ron Bernstein and Sean McNamara, a New York futures and options floor trader in 1999.
[9] The 2012 US presidential election was a bellwether media event for Intrade, garnering the company high levels of web traffic (greater than 50 million monthly page views in October and November, source; Google Analytics) and hundreds of media mentions related to the accuracy of the Intrade markets and the correct market predictions of the outcomes of all US state electoral contests except Florida and Virginia.
Shortly thereafter (though not explicitly in direct response), Intrade announced it would no longer allow U.S. customers to participate in the real-money version of the site.
[14] Intrade allowed bets on a wide range of future outcomes: political events (in the US, India, Germany, Israel etc.
), entertainment (Academy Awards, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars), science (the observation of the Higgs boson), technology (web browser market share, Google Lunar X Prize, Apple iPad unit sales), finance (DJIA, S&P 500, NASDAQ-100, gold price), but did not predict stocks or sports competitions.
Intrade did however operate markets on sports-related events that did not involve athletic competition, such as bids to host an Olympics.
[citation needed] While the vast majority of the thousands of markets listed have had easily verifiable outcomes, some have not, and disputes have arisen over the wording of some contracts.
The contract allowed speculation on whether North Korea would, by 31 July 2006, successfully fire ballistic missiles that would land outside its airspace.
Traders considered this to be in strict compliance with the stated rule but contrary to the intention of the market (which was to predict the launch event, and not whether the US Defense Department would confirm it).
[16][17] On 3 January 2012, Intrade settled contracts related to the 2012 Iowa caucus in favour of bettors supporting Mitt Romney, on the basis that Iowa Republican Party chairman Matt Strawn (incidentally a Rick Santorum supporter) had declared Romney to be the winner by a narrow margin of 8 votes, adding that there would be no recount.
At one time it assisted the U.S. Department of Defense in a controversial scheme (ultimately cancelled) to assess probabilities of future terrorist attacks.