Predictive markets gained prominence in 1988 with a system created by the University of Iowa to bet on U.S. elections.

They work similar to stock markets. You buy and sell “shares” in a candidate, with the payout depending on who wins.

While betting on politics is illegal, the firm PredictIt, got an exemption by pledging to use the data for academic research done by the Victoria University of Wellington.

PreditIt data is available on Bloomberg {ALLX PRITUS2 <go>}.

While it can be hard to compare polls, PredicitIt does a nice job of smoothing out data so trends are visible to traders used to charts.