On December 19, 2011, The North American Derivatives Exchange (Nadex) announced filing with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for approval of the trading of Political Event Binary Options on the U.S. 2012 elections:
• Presidential Election: contracts will be listed for all major candidates of any party or independents as of January 1, 2012. The outcome will be determined by the winner of the election announced in Congress in January 2013.
• Majority Control of U.S. Senate: contracts will be offered for Democratic and Republican Party control of the Senate. The outcome will be determined by whether a party holds 51 or more seats on the first day of the new Congress in January 2013.
• Majority Control of U.S. House: contracts will be offered for Democratic and Republican Party control of the House of Representatives. The outcome will be determined by whether a party holds 218 or more seats on the first day of the new Congress in January 2013.
CFTC responded that the Nadex application is subject to 90-day review.
Olga Gorstenko, Editor of ZE Data Watch, commented that, "If successful, the contracts will have a very high chance of becoming a rival alternative to public opinion polls."
This article was reprinted with permission from ZE Data Watch (http://www.ze.com /). The full publication is available at this location: http://www.ze.com/datawatch/DataWatch_January.pdf