Does anybody else here play the Hollywood Stock Exchange? It is a free stock market simulation where players buy and sell shares of movies, actors, directors and so on. Like with the real stock market you can buy funds that are already put together.
You can also buy into derivative funds that guess a movie's box office outcome. If you thin k a movie will do well on its opening weekend you can buy a special stock that cashes out above a pre-set value. For example if you buy a "call" option for a film and the value is 50 million you make a $1 per share for everything over 50 million for the opening weekend. They also have "put" options which are the opposite of "calls."
Special event stocks like the Academy Awards also can be bought. Every year they have nominee stocks and then actual Academy Award stocks. You basically predict the films/actors to get nominated and also which ones will win awards in various categories.
The game is fairly deep and various real life events effect the stocks and funds.
I've been playing on an off since 1998. I've had my current account since 2003. You don't make real money but it is still a lot of fun. You start off with 2 million dollars. I'm currently at 45 million but there are some players who have hit the billion dollar range.
Check it out if you're interested in playing:
http://hsx.com/
