I worked for a company that tried to sell prediction markets (we worked on the Policy Analysis Market, if anyone remembers that debacle), and the legality is one of the biggest sticking points.
It was pretty easy to sell the idea, but invariably once the contract landed in the legal department they'd put the brakes on, and we'd have to do some contortions involving play money that gets converted to real money and so forth. Once you start taking the real money out of the equation the results are a bit more suspect.
Nevertheless we did manage to convince a major media company, a couple large pharma companies, and an advertising company to set up some small scale prediction markets.
It was pretty easy to sell the idea, but invariably once the contract landed in the legal department they'd put the brakes on, and we'd have to do some contortions involving play money that gets converted to real money and so forth. Once you start taking the real money out of the equation the results are a bit more suspect.
Nevertheless we did manage to convince a major media company, a couple large pharma companies, and an advertising company to set up some small scale prediction markets.