Why would anyone invest in stocks while Intrade provides so much free money?

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

The real money is not to be made in "sure things," because of the startling amount of risk in some of those investments when related to return.  (In some cases, you're risking over $90 to win $5.)

The best way to play Intrade, I've found, is to come up with clearly undervalued/overvalued contracts, and play them.  (Especially good if there's an unusually attractive bid/ask with low volume.)  I've made tons of money already on NH-Sen by setting up competing buy (@25) and sell (@50) orders.  Thanks, wild poll fluctuations!

I'm expecting that race to pay a lot more dividends come September and October, because Sununu seems to have a post-Labor Day strategy while Shaheen is putting up ads now.  (Shaheen has already spent more than half of what she's raised; Sununu hasn't even spent a quarter yet, resulting in a $3,000,000 CoH lead.)

Once Sununu unleashes, polls will tighten, Sununu's contract will rebound, and I'll start selling off closer to 50.

I've also got some money invested in Zimmer (purchased pre-primary, when Lautenberg was essentially at his peak), some on McCain to win the Presidency (purchased way back during the early part of the primary season).

I started with $100 just to play around with.  It's up near $270 now.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

By the way, a great strategy I used last cycle (2006) was to make bets on select GOP Senate candidates, but to hedge using a longshot bet on Democrats to win the Senate.  Even though the GOP candidates I bet on lost, the longshot paid off, and I still made plenty of money.