Well, obviously, the observers expect better accuracy from the prediction markets than from the polls or the pundits. And thus, their disappointment is big. James Surowiecki said, in the December 2006 Yahoo! conference, that that’s because the prediction markets are new.
So the lesson is that… the industry should not send out there spokespeople who over-sell the predictive power of the prediction markets. They are sightly better than the polls, but they are not magical. And they feed on polls, anyway. The prediction market mantra should be based strictly on science.
