Most Americans own stock in one form or another. Through mutual funds, 401ks and other means, more Americans own a share in the corporations that shape our lives than at any other time. You like a company and what they're doing, so you put some money into that company, hoping to earn a return on your foresight.
Why not do the same for your favorite college hoops team? PROTRADE, a company billing itself as "The Sports Stock Market", has recently added NCAA hoops to its offerings, so those that like to wager on college basketball can now put some coin on the home team while also learning about market dynamics.
The Buckeyes are currently trading at $206.35 and based on the system used to assign value, they would have to sweep the regular season, win a few conference tournament games and make the Final Four to earn any returns. Then again, if you were smart enough to buy at $149 in mid January, you'd be in pretty good shape right about now.
With claims of 35% of male college students and 7 in 10 adults making some type of wager within the last year, Americans love us some gambling. But if nothing else, this market could be used to fill out your brackets. There are a whole lot of people much smarter than us that swear by open market predictions -- in fact, the Pentagon had even looked into using a disaster futures market to forecast conditions in the Middle East.
(Via Wisconsin Badger Sports)
