Chris F. Masse
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The Last 200 Midas Oracle Posts
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Rumor Mill — Wednesday morning
FINALLY, THE PREDICTION MARKETS ARRIVE IN GREAT BRITAIN.
Putting the prediction markets under the big “crowdsourcing” tent
If you want to increase the absolute accuracy of the outputs of the prediction markets, try (if you can) to increase the quality of the inputs.
Protecting Private Prediction Markets
Ubber finance blogger Barry Ritholtz believes in magic. He believes that, with more volumes on the event derivative markets, comes the Omniscience —capital “O”.
BetFair Malta outputs a simplistic prediction game (about the 2008 European soccer tournament). I’m not impressed at all.
HubDub’s Nigel Eccles is the man.
Yet another guy, writing about prediction markets in the mainstream media, who does not master what he is talking about.
Rorie Devine, BetFair’s CTO, leaves by “mutual consent” —whatever that could mean.
“Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.”
Robin Hanson made a career telling people he is “not a joiner”, but where the hell can you spot his true beliefs in Bob’s petitions?
Robin Hanson could have drafted a petition asking for totally free prediction markets, but he didn’t —alas.
Prediction markets = “the future of journalism” —said, from day one, Emile Servan-Schreiber of NewsFutures. Emile, if you have balls, let’s do it —all together.
The brand-new HubDub chart widgets —which InTrade, TradeSports, BetFair, TradeFair, Betdaq and NewsFutures could look into for ideas
John McCain’s grumpy old pal writes to Bo Cowgill’s boss.
Robin Hanson teaches Chris Masse how to make a bad CFTC compromise.
Building Exits into CFTC Regulation
Robin Hanson would be better off “lobbying for prediction markets” with the people who will be in power next November —that is, the Democrats, not the right-wing people of the American Enterprise Institute.
ROBIN HANSON’S PUBLIC ADMISSION: He signed Bob’s petitions, not because he heartfully endorsed them fully, but because he wanted to please Bob, didn’t want to be left out of the party, and was persuaded that his own blue-sky proposals wouldn’t make it —and other irrational excuses for not saying the truth to the US Congress.
Land-Ocean year-to-date temperatures 0.35 Celsius over baseline
Testing the new HubDub chart widgets
75,000 people turned out to hear Barack Obama at Waterfront Park, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
The BetFair–Fallon debacle cost British taxpayers £950,000.
The managing editor of CNBC.com asks readers whether they should report what the (play-money and real-money) prediction markets say. He is not that hot on the idea —to say the least. Which is why we should develop a blog network on prediction markets —to get rid of the journalists’ filter and report the prediction markets directly to people. Wanna in?
Robust, the prediction markets are the best mechanism for aggregating information. Thus, companies should use them for assessing strategy and hedging risks.
A historical Robin Hanson fanboy can’t believe his hero signed Bob’s ill-informed and unwise petition.
Bob can play the pipe.
Folks, you are reading this within Google Reader, AREN’T YOU??
The Most Original Website I Visited This Early Morning
In Favor Of Sports Betting
STEVE LEVITT’S FREAKONOMICS HIJACKED BY HACKER — FAMOUS ECONOMICS BLOG TEMPORARILY DEFACED — ANTI-SPORTS BETTING BILE VOICED
Midas Oracle keeps a list of 600+ external web links, and each of them is now automatically embedded into its text anchor.
The Midas Oracle Project
Is the promise of prediction markets in the United States best explored in limited, small stakes markets under a CFTC safe harbor declaration?
ABC 20/20 — A good (but servile) explainer on the wisdom of crowds and the prediction markets
Science magazine — ECONOMICS: The Promise of Prediction Markets
The UK’s Gambling Commission is after BetFair and Betdaq for in-running (in-play) betting
One thing, among plenty of others, that shows me that the big prediction exchanges (InTrade, TradeSports, BetFair, TradeFair) don’t take prediction market journalism seriously
Prediction Markets & Data Visualization
STRAIGHT FROM OUR U-TURN DEPARTMENT: Here are the VP prediction markets —all of them.
This Exchange Interface is no longer being developed but will remain available. Content, rules, and functionality may not be current on this interface. Our current interface is available at http://www.intrade.com/ .
Why I don’t believe in VP prediction markets
InTrade is not a “bookie”, and its traders are not “gamblers”.
Prediction market journalism can’t be practiced by the “mainstream media”. What we need is a revolution.
The CFTC has been awarded “Certificate Of Excellence In Accountability Reporting”.
Prediction market journalism should not be practiced by… the prediction market people… but by the vertical experts —with the help of the prediction market people.
To the good people who have registered by themselves on Midas Oracle
Hillary Clinton won West Virginia. — Nobody cares but her.
Felix Salmon rebuts Mark Gongloff.
Collecting bits and pieces of information, and aggregating it, so we can understand what people know.
WET BLANKET OR BUBBLE BUSTER? — Charles Plott (a big-shot economist) condemns all the hype surrounding the prediction markets and the wisdom of crowds.
Conference on Prediction Markets
Prediction Markets: A new Special Interest Group on forecastingprinciples.com
The secret feed that Jed Christiansen doesn’t want you to fetch
How BetFair did treat its customers on the day that the BetFair Starting Price system crashed down
How BetFair markets are settled in the situation where their integrity team are unhappy about some aspect of the betting on that event
Using enterprise prediction markets too early in the innovation process is BAD.
Spot the red line. The future of prediction market journalism is on blogs —not on dead-tree media. (((Well, all dead-tree media have blogs, now.)))
The HubDub blog does not practice prediction market journalism, alas.
The CFTC takes a necessary step toward sorting out its role with respect to prediction markets.
BetFair’s message to the UK’s Gambling Commission on betting and the integrity of sports
BetFair’s FaceBook app
James Lemieux, whom Koleman Strumpf plugged to us, is a marketing professor researching on, among others, “decision analysis”. Quite on target. Take a look at his website by right-clicking on the image posted below.
Australian billionaire James Packer, who owns 50% of BetFair Australia (thru PBL), has quit the Church of Scientology.
ABC 20/20 featuring InTrade on May 9, 2008 — 10:00 pm ET
Prediction Markets in the Classroom: Inkling Markets
Chris Masse’s pragmatism
HUBDUB PREDICTION MARKETS: the TWiT Twitter Derby
BetFair is experimenting a phenomenal revenue growth with sports prediction markets, as I am typing this post. Maybe our good friend the “pragmatist” could look into that, and report his research findings to the CFTC. I’m sure he’ll do. The delicious sound of a red-hot cash register, with the dollars (or here, pounds) pouring in like the Niagara falls —that’s “pragmatism” in its purest form, to me.
France’s Nicolas Sarkozy — One year later, the French economy is still in the mud.
WISDOM IN CROWD’S COMMENTS: Who cares about the accuracy of the prediction markets when the polls (or the exit polls) are giving us the primary information that is, a bit later, reflected in the prediction markets?
Barack Obama will finish off Hillary Clinton by June 15.
Insider Trading and Private Prediction Markets
Final InTrade v. Zogby Showdown Results
BetFair-TradeFair and the National Security Agency (among others) are giving away $260,000 in tournament prizes to attract the world’s best nerdy geeks (who can’t fry an egg, can’t get a Friday night date, but can decipher a computer algorithm).
Innovation Mechanism = Voting Mechanism + Prediction Market Mechanism
RIDDLE ME THIS, RIDDLE ME THAT: If someone understands what the hell Adam Siegel means with those fumes (the dot on the “i”), give me a ring. How can smokes, swirling up in the air, symbolize either the wisdom of crowds or the prediction markets? And why those dull and pale colors, perfectly suited for a funeral procession, only?
NEWS FROM DOWN UNDER: A political prediction exchange for New Zealand
Bet America = Web-based betting on US horse racing
eLab eXchange Web of Misery - Which Online Indicators of Distress Will Grow Most?
Third Workshop on Prediction Markets, July 9 in Chicago
Problem with WordPress
INTERNET USABILITY: The longer your blog post (see the x axis), the less of it they will read (see the y axis) —20% on average.
The wisdom of crowds is accurate. —(citation needed)
I completely forgot to tell you that Pikum is still in beta. You will not be able to access the site without the magic password: “Midas Oracle”.
Right-click on the moving picture, open the link in another browser tab, and do observe the circumvolutions of the CFTC vortex. This is a Web exclusive. Please, do credit “Midas Oracle” for the scoop.
Pikum is a new kind of betting game that can be played for bragging rights. In each Pikum, you compete with other players to see who can best predict the results of sports or other events. Pikums can be created by anyone, and easily shared online with friends.
Google Reader now lets you jot down a note about any feed item that you’ve just read, before you share it with your acquaintances and friends (so they can sense how you feel about the news of the day). So, now, we know what Google’s Bo Cowgill thinks of the CFTC announcement: IT’S “COOL”.
“Don’t ask the experts. Ask the prediction markets. They know better.”
When Chris Masse (with typo) pinches Henry Blodget’s nose
How VC blogger Paul Kedrosky pumped up HedgeStreet to his gullible readers in 2006, and later failed to update them with the hard fact of its (de facto) bankruptcy. Why telling the truth to readers when it’s easier to tell them fairy tales?
Hey, mister the “pragmatist”, how come you never informed the readers of your (otherwise, very smart) blog that CFTC-regulated HedgeStreet bellied after 3 years, burning in vain $24.9 million?
Who is behind the CFTC’s request?
Hey, mister the “pragmatist”, how would a for-profit, retail, real-money prediction exchange survive with such illiquid (socially valuable) prediction markets?
Opening one’s mouth to say nothing
Inkling Markets’ GodFather Speaks Out.
People I come in agreement with about the need to free the prediction markets as much as possible —a short list, which will grow, I hope.
CFTC Oversight May Not be a Boon.
THE CFTC FUN IS REALLY STARTING NOW: The “S” word has just been uttered on David “Pragmatic” Pennock’s blog, in the comment area.
InTrade’s Software Glitch? - [See Jason Ruspini's comment, at the bottom of the post.]
The “pragmatic” David Pennock has read the CFTC’s “concept release” (how snobbish), and he’s all wet and excited about it.
Zocalo, open-source software for enterprise prediction markets
Maybe the self-defined “pragmatists” in America could look into how the Britons view the issue. Spot the 3 occurences of the phrase “gambling and prediction markets”. Those 2 seem to go hand in hand. Will the US “pragmatists” acknowledge that?
Zocalo News
NEWSPAPERS ARE DOOMED: CraigList is killing BOTH the offline Washington Post AND the online Washington Post.
“Ask anybody who suffered the recent bloodletting at HedgeStreet: CFTC regulation can impose crushing burdens. It has nearly driven that innovative business into the ground.”
Folks, yesterday, I forgot to link to the PDF file posted by the CFTC (their “concept release”, how snobbish). Download it, and read it —we’ll discuss it later, here. No need to rush an opinion, we have about 2 months to make up our collective mind. Let’s have it open.
“I try to only follow electoral races in highly digested form” —that is, thru the lens of the political prediction markets.
Will Adam Siegel of Inkling Markets fork over 7,500 bucks to Red Herring for a video interview? (Knowing a little bit the guy, I’d venture a “no”.)
Yesterday, May 1st, was “RSS day”. Experienced bloggers (like ‘moi’) were supposed to practice RSS evangelism —to convince small people (like ‘you’) to use Google Reader and subscribe to blog feeds.
Mike Smithson says that one “impersonator” (that is, someone pretending to be Mike Smithson) published comments on the PoliticalBetting.com thread about the London political elections, giving false exit poll information, in order to influence the “betting prices” (which I understand, partially, at least, if not fully, as the BetFair and Betdaq prices).
I’m in the main bracket you see on the chart, and I’ll announce soon the start of a Grand Initiative regarding prediction markets (what else?). Stay tuned. (”Entrepreneur” is a French word, as you all know.)
Will Inkling Markets Abandon Ruby On Rails, One Day?
“What public purpose is served in the oversight of these [event derivative] markets and what differentiates these [event derivative] markets from pure gambling outside the CFTC’s jurisdiction?”
Intense, passionate, consumed with his subject, opinionated, sleep-deprived, forward-thinking, easy to irritate, and apt to air his grudges in public
CFTC Requests Public Input on Possible Regulation of “Event Contracts” —a.k.a. event derivative markets, event futures markets, betting markets, bet markets, prediction markets
Journalists and bloggers have difficulty discovering the full URLs (the “deep links”) of the BetFair prediction markets.
If you’re a UK-based trader with BetFair, your ass is covered by the highly regarded Gambling Commission. — If you’re a non-UK-based trader with BetFair, well, try your luck with Malta’s Lotteries and Gaming Authority.
Robin Hanson @ MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence
Justin Wolfers et al. showed us evidence last year that NBA referees tend to call less fouls on players of their own ethnicity –and that this could influence the outcome of games. They have now turned their attention to the ability of the betting markets to exploit this inefficiency.
OLYMPICS BETTING: BetFair is fun, while InTrade is boring like hell —and TradeSports, inexistent.
Londoners (among them many faithful Midas Oracle readers) go voting today. Spot, in the first chart, that British political betting expert Mike Smithson serves some (IMPLIED) PROBABILITIES EXPRESSED IN PERCENTAGES to his readers —and not those fu***ng fractional odds, or those equally fu***ng digital / decimal odds.
Mathematically speaking, as the saying goes, no one wins the lottery. Sports betting, by contrast, involves skill, and it is possible, although very difficult, to consistently win money on it. Sports bettors are closer to stock or commodities buyers than to people who buy lottery tickets. How much difference is there, after all, between betting on the future price of wheat (an activity banned in some states in the nineteenth century) and betting on the performance of a baseball team?
2020’s PREDICTION MARKET JOURNALISM = Polls + Experts + Prediction Markets
THE PLUNGE — “A prediction market, by essence, can’t predict an upset.” —dixit Koleman Strumpf. — Well, that upset is a nice one. I want more like that one.
Great WordPress Plugin Of The Day
Can a one-person company harness internally the wisdom of crowds?
The Experts versus The Wisdom Of Crowds
Where is Tom W. Bell when we need him?
JUSTIN WOLFERS’ EXTATIC “2020″ VISION BECOMING REALITY? Spot, number one, that they chronicle the horse race thru the lens of the real-markets prediction markets (and not thru the polls), and, number two, that they link to InTrade —(a root link, not a deep link, though). If that journalistic trend proves to be steady, that means that my pessimism was wrong, and that I risk being viewed as an imbécile, now.
The Rise of Crowdsourcing: Creative Wisdom of the Crowd — Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 6:00pm — @ Bo Cowgill’s Alma Mater
BetFair Education has now a sub-site within the BetFair blog.
Blah, blah, blog. My blog, blah, blah, blah. Blog, blah, blah, blah, blog.
Starting May 26, 2008, any British company using a brand ambassador “falsely representing oneself as a consumer”, or any British blogger failing to disclose he/she has accepted money to write about a product, will face a fine or prison sentence. No kidding.
The Funniest Thing I Read This Morning
HubDub’s Nigel Eccles pinches Henry Blodget’s nose (like trumpetist Miles Davies did for one of his musicians, on stage, one day), and the damn result of that, believe or not, is that the valuation of The Sporting Exchange (BetFair-TradeFair) drops from $5 billion to $3 billion. So, either Nigel should be celebrated for telling the truth, or his ass should be kicked for ruining the party.
Right-click on Mike Linksvayer’s mugshot to open, in another browser tab, the discussion thread on baseball decision-aid markets, with Mike Giberson, and an elliptic comment from Robin Hanson.
If the British legal betting companies offer bets on the sport, it is because there is demand for bets on the sport —and if that demand were not offered in a regulated environment, it would be filled in an unregulated one (like what we see with TradeSports-InTrade and MatchBook in the US market).
Are prediction markets all hat and no cattle?
Keith Anderson’s got some good DATA VISUALIZATION links for you.
This could be the election cycle that legitimizes Web-based prediction markets.
“I’ll make a $500 donation to the first think thank that makes an interesting, non-bogus use of real-money prediction markets before the end of 2007. I’ll be the judge of bogosity and interestingness, but I can say that a paper about prediction markets counts as uninteresting.”
The Most Hilarious Thing I Read This Morning –SECOND EDITION
PREDICTION MARKETS HAVE ARRIVED: The Sporting Exchange (BetFair-TradeFair) ranks #4 in the Silicon Alley Insider’s list of the top 25 digital startups, and is valued at 5 billion US dollars. (Yes, billions.)
The Most Hilarious Thing I Read This Morning
Think tanks that talk about prediction markets should walk the walk, as should institutions that laud the rigors of the market generally.
Not a single Google Reader user has subscribed to the politics section of the 9-month-old BetFair blog (which features Mike Robb and the self-infatuated “BetFair Prof”, commenting on the political prediction markets). NOT A SINGLE ONE.
Reporting prediction market probabilities
Deep Throat on the journalists’ fatigue for reporting on prediction markets
BAD KARMA FOR PREDICTION MARKET JOURNALISM: Almost nodoby has linked to Justin Wolfers’ articles at the Wall Street Journal.
BetFair Extras Chat is a Firefox add-on which combines the popular Betfair Extras project with instant messaging technology to give users the ability to communicate with each other all from within Firefox.
BetFair would be better off getting inspiration from Google.
Google’s Bo Cowgill at DIG on enterprise prediction markets
DROUGHT ALMOST KILLED OFF THE HUMAN SPECIES (AND THUS THE POSSIBILITY OF PREDICTION MARKETS) SOME 70,000 YEARS AGO.
Ecominds is a specialist financial markets consulting company focused on wholesale markets and automated trading systems.
Section 2.3 (k) of the BetFair API agreement says you can’t make a product which promotes any other prediction exchange. That’s evil, because it means we will never have any multi-exchange, order-entry and analysis software package for (real-money and play-money) prediction markets.
BAD KARMA FOR BETFAIR: Bookmakers Review feature our “Don’t Do Evil” story on their frontpage. (See link #2.)
Vador TV shoot the breeze and chat up NewsFutures.
To build their “Next Mayor of London” chart widget, the smart asses at BetFair-TradeFair chose to use the most hated web technology —Flash.
Consensus Point’s doing great.
Prediction Markets: Powerful enough to be dangerous?
How BetFair screw up the “Next Mayor Of London” embeddable, enriched, compound chart widget —BIG TIME
Dialogr is a service that uncovers your group’s top ideas.
Huge quality improvement (well, considering that they started from 1,000 meters below the sea level) in the BetFair blog, lead by their resident prediction market guy, Mike Robb
THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT: Ron Paul got 15% of the votes in the Republican primary in Pennsylvania.
Is BetFair (a de facto monopoly) playing evil with traders and developers?
The most significant thing in the Inkling Markets festival (past and future) is the Gartner imprimatur (”Cool Vendor in Emerging Technologies”). Tremendous impact in the business community, where CEOs are addicted to consultants. The Inkling Markets phone switchboard is red hot right now.
HubDub and Smarkets are creating what InTrade-TradeSports and BetFair-TradeFair never could: SOCIAL NETWORKING BETTING.
Prediction markets can be directly subsidized with a market maker, allowing all traders who provide info to improve the price to expect to profit. Also, the more fools the more informed traders should be attracted to profit from them, so the mix is endogenous.
Red Herring’s list of the top 100 North-American high-tech startups includes Inkling Markets —but not NewsFutures, Consensus Point, or Xpree.
Professor Koleman Strumpf explains the prediction markets to the countryland people.
Professor Koleman Strumpf tells CNN that a prediction market, by essence, can’t predict an upset.
Time magazine interview the 2 BetFair-Tradefair co-founders, and not a single time do they pronounce the magic words, “prediction markets”.
This VC firm might have been connected with the Irish prediction exchange, at inception.
BetFair Rapid = BetFair’s standalone, local, PC-based, order-entry software for prediction markets
Michael Moore tells the Democratic people to go Barack Obama in Pennsylvania (a two-tier state), but the polls and the prediction markets tell us that that won’t do the trick.
Who would you back, the market consensus or a book-writing pundit?
CALLING ALL DEEP THROATS: What is it that Smarkets want to do in Malta, E.U.? And what will Smarkets market anyway?
“Annette 15″, the once-hot female poker star sponsored by BetFair Poker, does blog only twice a month on the official BetFair blog… when she blogs at all… if you call that blogging.
Inkling Markets bring in awards, honors, advisors, and new clients —leaving competition in the dust.
No need of enterprise prediction markets to boost intra-corporation communication
Inkling Markets is included in the 2008 list of “Cool Vendors in Emerging Technologies” by Gartner.
BetFair-TradeFair has won its second Queen’s Award for Enterprise in its eight-year history.
Inkling Markets is one of the “Hot Companies To Watch In 2008″, according to Forrester.
Plenty of great news coming from Inkling Markets in the coming weeks
??? charity-driven prediction markets OR social issue prediction markets ???
That can’t be Nigel Eccles of HubDub.
The Marketing Of The Reading Of The Public Prediction Markets = What Robin Hanson has deep trouble with, and what the prediction exchanges (e.g., InTrade-TradeSports, BetFair-TradeFair) haven’t fully computed yet
In 2013, Enterprise 2.0 will be a $4.6 billion industry. Good. But they forgot to mind the enterprise prediction markets.
Just like the armchair generals (presented on television as “military analysts”) carry the Pentagon’s propaganda, are our economics professors (who need the exchange data to pursue their academic career) in fact John Delaney’s unofficial P.R. agents, hidden behind an appearance of objectivity, and whose agenda is to generate favorable news coverage for InTrade? Is the symbiotic relationship between the prediction exchanges and the economics researchers dangerous for the truth?
Can we still trust Betfair? Should we trust Betfair? Or indeed, any betting exchange?
Prediction Markets at Google — by Peter A. Coles, Karim R. Lakhani, Andrew McAfee
Is that HubDub’s Nigel Eccles on the bottom left of that UK WebMission pic?
Collective Error = Average Individual Error - Prediction Diversity
When gambling meets Wall Street — Proposal for a brand-new kind of finance-based lottery
The definitive proof that it’s presently impossible to practice prediction market journalism with BetFair.
The Absence of Teams In Production of Blog Journalism
Publish a comment on the BetFair forum, get arrested.
If I had to guess, I would say about 50 percent of the “name pros” you see on television on a regular basis have a negative net worth. Frightening, I know.
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