Bet on It! – (page two – page three) – by Spectrum’s Steven Cherry
[...] A commercial exchange such as Tradesports, however, is in the business of making money; the fact that it generates useful information is only an incidental benefit. [...]
Yes, but it is becoming more and more an interesting benefit, since the business media and bloggers are generating more and more ink on the predictive power of the prediction markets. In particular, the prediction exchange InTrade has a P.R. strategy that focuses on creating event derivatives that can potentially make headlines (like the long-term Lunar X Prize prediction market) —even though InTrade knows that some of them will be very thinly traded.
Which is good, in my view —as long as the traders (who, indeed, generate profits for the commercial exchanges) keep being satisfied by the high quality of the InTrade platform. (On the other hand, it should be noted that BetFair is a very successful betting exchange that focuses entirely on satisfying its traders. Some could make the case that it is the way to go.)
