Patent ID: 8046292

Claim:
A method in a computer system for a user to speculate on a financial market, comprising: presenting via a user terminal a prompt to the user requesting one or more parameters from the user, the one or more parameters defining a custom contract on at least one future characteristic of the financial market; presenting to the user via the user terminal a calculated value for the custom contract that will be offered to the user so that the user can purchase the custom contract at the calculated value, the calculated value determined by a central processing machine based on the one or more parameters and data regarding the financial market; and presenting via the user terminal a prompt to the user requesting the user to purchase the custom contract based on the presented calculated value and the one or more parameters, thereby allowing the user to define the custom contract, a bookmaker to offer the custom contract to the user based on the calculated value, and the user to purchase the custom contract from the bookmaker so that the bookmaker has an obligation to pay a payout amount upon the occurrence of the at least one future characteristic of the financial market satisfying the one or more parameters.