I'm a regular watcher of CNBC, and it is not just because of my crush on the Money Honey, Maria Bartiromo, but because I'm somebody who likes to follow business trends.

Anyway, for the last few months - and especially the last few weeks - I have been regularly perturbed as I watched CNBC's evening shows, starring Larry Kudlow and Jim Cramer.

What has been bothering me is their incessantly frequent references to the current market prices for Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama on Intrade.com.

I'm not sure why it gets me angry, but it does.

I think it is because these guys discuss the subject as if it is perfectly legal for Americans to bet these props, and yet for some reason, it isn't legal at all.

No, that's not what pisses me off.

Frankly, I've been trying to find a way to complain about this for a week now, but I just can't figure out exactly what it is about this situation that bothers me other than the fact that Americans should be allowed to bet on that stuff.

But after a couple of days of writing posts that were going nowhere (and how is this one any different, you ask?) and then deleting them, I ran into this article posted yesterday on MSNBC.com.

In it, Alan Boyle discusses another service, very similar to Intrade, that is actually operating in United States - at the University of Iowa, no less.

It is called the Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM) and it is "an on-line futures market where contract payoffs are based on real-world events such as political outcomes, companies' earnings per share (EPS), and stock price returns".

According to their website, "IEM is an experimental market operated for academic research and teaching purposes. The IEM is not regulated by, nor are its operators registered with, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or any other regulatory authority."

And because it is an experimental research project, it is apparently not going to get shut down any time soon. Not only that, but "All interested participants world-wide can trade in our political markets." Yup, they are taking bets from the rest of the world.

But is it legal?

Again, according to their website, "IEM has received two no-action-letters from the Division of Trading and Markets of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Without explicitly asserting jurisdiction over the IEM or any of its submarkets, these letters, dated February 5, 1992, and June 18, 1993, extended no-action relief to the IEM’s Political and Economic Indicator Markets."

What that means is that they have received notification from the government that they are not going to be charged any time soon... and since it has been 15 years since those letters were written, I think those letters spoke the truth.

In case you were wondering, now is the time you should ask the question...

How is this not online gambling?

The MSNBC article does a little to explain the situation and why IEM has been allowed to operate outside the law for the last 15-20 years. But I don't really understand the explanation, nor do I understand the resulting situation that seems to allow the University of Iowa to have a monopoly on online gambling in America.

I can't believe I only found out about this today. How come nobody pointed this out to me before?

Anyway, I hereby urge all American wannabe online gamblers to immediately sign up for accounts at IEM - and tell all of you friends too.

I want you all to trumpet to the world that online gambling IS legal in America, and show them how.

Maybe it's not the kind of gambling you like, but I have a plan.

I want IEM to become so completely and wildly successful that all of the other universities in America start clamoring for their own research projects.

Hey - who knows? - maybe one of the other universities can land a research project studying how people interact with online casino games. Or maybe a study on how online sportsbooks can affect television ratings. That would be a good one.

Anyway, let's turn this thing into a public mess so stinky that there has to be a government response.

Personally, I don't have any problem with what is going on at IEM. My problem is that they are allowed to do something that would get any other American thrown in jail.

It ain't right. So let's change it.