Patent ID: 8244388

Claim:
A method for operating a computerized contest using a central processing machine in communication with a data feed to a source of data concerning temporal sequences, with the participation of users who operate terminals connected to the central processing machine via a network, the method comprising: communicating to the users a list of participants and a winning formula, sending respective users' choices of a possible outcome to the central processing machine via the users' terminals, and determining an actual outcome according to the winning formula by processing data obtained via the data feed, wherein the data is related to the participants; wherein participants are temporal sequences in a given time period, and wherein the winning formula is a formula applied to participants; wherein the winning formula comprises sequence normalization according to: F(t)=[f(t)−f 0 ]/f 0 wherein t is the time index, f(t) is an non- normalized temporal sequence, f 0 is the non-zero initial value of f(t), and F(t) is the normalized sequence; or F(t)=[f(t)−m]/s wherein t is the time index, f(t) is an non-normalized temporal sequence, m is the mean value of f(t), s is the standard deviation of f(t), and F(t) is the normalized sequence.