Free-range bettor site, Intrade, closes

Intrade, an online service that lets people bet with one another on events such as elections and the weather, ceased trading activity, saying it is investigating possible financial irregularities.

Intrade allowed customers to bet with one another on binary outcomes of future events such as the possibility of Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana becoming the next pope. Just as stock exchanges find the price of shares, the so-called prediction market found the probability of an event happening, according to Intrade's website. The marketplace accurately predicted the results of the U.S. presidential elections in 2008 and 2012 and was used by central banks and Wall Street firms, it said.

The firm, owned by Dublin-based Trade Exchange Network Ltd., will not make payments to customers from their online accounts while the investigation is in progress, it said in a statement on its website. The service provider has closed and settled all open contracts at fair market value as of the end of March 10, it said.

"During the upcoming weeks, we will investigate these circumstances further and determine the necessary course of action," Intrade said in the statement. The company's auditors last month expressed concern over payments to the accounts of the firm's late founder, John Delaney.

In November, Intrade asked U.S. clients to close their accounts after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued the website for allegedly offering improper options trading. Trade Exchange in 2005 agreed to pay $150,000 to settle allegations it illegally offered contracts in the U.S., including some based on the price of gold, crude oil, the euro and the yen.

The market's most active trades before bidding ceased were over the papal succession and whether the Democratic Party would win the 2016 U.S. presidential election.