Ah, Kansas…- Barbecues, pickup trucks, rednecks, country music, and…- the local FOX News.
Despite that one blip on the radar [New Hampshire], Strumpf said futures are still the best way to predict the way things will go from here.
Spot the SIDEBAR (which is not located on the sidebar, actually), and click on the little square, just below “-video”-, to watch the report.
–
–
Edward Wray:
We’-re one of the very, very few Internet betting companies that have never taken a bet out of the U.S., and that’-s because our view has always been it is illegal, which it clearly is now, and so long as it’-s illegal, we’-re not going to do it. That’-s a long-term strategy. Clearly some people made good money out of taking bets out of the U.S. in the short term, [and] have now found themselves in trouble with the authorities. Gambling should be regulated, we’-re very comfortable with that. There are things that need to be safeguarded — how you look after vulnerable people, how you make sure it’-s a clean, above board business, etc. — you don’-t achieve that by prohibiting business. You achieve it by regulating it. The U.S. has tried prohibition once before and it wasn’-t a roaring success. And I think they’-ll find the same thing here. I don’-t know how long it will take, but I’-m more confident than ever that the U.S. market will open up, and when it does, we will be right at the hub of it. It’-s frustrating to us that people in the U.S. can’-t access Betfair. But we go out of our way to make sure they can’-t because the law is the law and we will always respect that.
Tyler Cowen picks the market consensus over book-writing pundits:
Either the current market estimate of inflation is the best estimate available, or you know that it is wrong and you will be a very rich man. I find the former scenario more plausible.
Cowen is commenting on the Kevin Phillips book, Bad Money, recently out.
Of course book authors may be wary of going directly into the financial markets to wager their hard earned cash, which is why I have advocated prediction markets for pundits in which authors would have a chance to back their book-selling punditry with real money.
In Separating cheap talk from truly held beliefs, I wrote of political pundits with books:
Maybe they believe what they write, and would be willing to subsidize a prediction market out of their book royalties to demonstrate the strength of their convictions. Or how about the books from the current crop of U.S. presidential candidates—I wonder if these books contain any claims that are specific and substantive enough to be either true or false.
If such punditry-based prediction markets were common, mistaken-but-honest demagogues (those pundits who actually believe what they write, and are willing to stand behind it) would end up subsidizing more thoughtful analysts participating in the markets- correct honest demagogues would end up taking home larger financial rewards- and dishonest demagogues would dissemble, seek to avoid being pinned down on specific claims, and when pressed for actionable claims they would run and hide.
[Cross posted from Knowledge Problem]