> The markets didn't take off, they withered. AFAIK they don't have them anymore.
Actually there is a new prediction market at Google now called Gleangen. It seems to be fairly active and flourishing despite not using real $$. Although there is a leaderboard, so perhaps the desire to want to rank in the top 10 is what motivates people to place bets.
Both. It could be something mundane like "Fed raises interest rates in 2020" or something company specific like "Nextgen pixel phone display size is > x inches". Generally the company stuff tends not to be the real sensitive stuff and tends to be more about fun/mundane topics.
Actually there is a new prediction market at Google now called Gleangen. It seems to be fairly active and flourishing despite not using real $$. Although there is a leaderboard, so perhaps the desire to want to rank in the top 10 is what motivates people to place bets.