Midas Oracle .ORG

Paddy Hedges July 3rd, 2008

1). For the form guide in this two-horse race, please see:

a). THE PRESENT (SHAN OAKES, GREEN):
http://shanoakes.blogspot.com
http://shanoakes.typepad.com
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=33635377720

b).. THE PAST (DAVID DAVIS):
http://www.daviddavisforfreedom.com

2). Mainstream bookmakers such as Paddy Power are not currently putting prices on the Haltemprice and Howden by-election on their website.

Yesterday, however, I emailed support@paddypower.com to ask them what price they would offer for the Green Party to win, and I was given the price of 14-1.
Therefore step one is to email Paddy Power at support@paddypower.com , or call them on
UK - 08000 565 275
Ireland - 1800 238 888
International - +353 1 4040120,

or pop into one of their shops, and ask them to offer you price on Green Party to win.

You can of course also try other mainstream bookmakers.

Paddy Power Politics Website:
http://www.paddypower.com/bet?action=go_disp_cat&disp_cat_id=31

3). If you have been quoted a price, and you wish to (POSSIBLY) make a million pounds (to be used for ethical purposes), divide £1,000,000 by the price quoted, and lay a bet of that amount. For example, at 14-1, you need to place £71,428.57. If you do not have such a large amount of money, and are unwilling to risk such a large amount, you can of course bet a smaller amount, depending on the minimum bet rules of the bookmakers you visit. For example, £10 at 14-1 might make you £140 back, should Shan Oakes (Green) get elected on 10th July 2008, which looks increasingly likely. Of course, you can maximise your winnings by creating syndicates where you pool your resources with friends, family, and other activists.

4). If you cannot get a price from the mainstream bookmakers, you may be able to put on smaller bets at Betfair. Betfair uses a system whereby you bet against others who bet in the opposite direction, so there are tight limits on how much you can bet based on the liquidity in the opposite direction. Post-credit crunch, liquidity is at a bit of a premium, so you may only be able to put on tiny amounts. However, as an example, £2 at 40-1 might reap you £78 (after Betfair have removed their commission) or £11 at 15-1 might reap back £154.00.

Betfair’s matched bets are constantly in flux, so it is worth monitoring it if you wish to use it.

Betfair Politics Zone:
http://politicszone.betfair.com/zone

Betfair Haltemprice and Howden:
http://www.betfair.com/Index.do?mi=21056183&ex=1&rfr=3925suid=3925&bspi=3925

5). Please also use InTrade. I haven’t worked out how to use this yet.

6). Obviously, it is possible for you to lose your money. If you are not willing to accept that risk, please do not bet. Furthermore, if you believe all gambling to be wrong, or gambling on politics to be wrong, please ignore this advice entirely.

7). If you do bet and Shan Oakes is elected, please consider sending a proportion of your earnings (eg half) to the Green Party. If not, please at least consider sending a proportion to a social or environmental organisation. Please also consider sending me 1% of your earnings at paddyhedges@gmail.com, as a reward for having come up with the idea. Of course, copyleft ideas cannot be copyrighted, and you are under no obligation whatsoever to send me the 1%, though I would appreciate it enormously.

8). If Shan Oakes is not elected (which looks increasingly unlikely), please do not come after me (at paddyhedges@gmail.com) with malice aforethought. Any risks taken are taken on by those betting, and candidates can be unelected as much as elected, just as house prices can (and are) coming down. The housing bubble has burst. So has David Davis’s so-called ‘freedom’ bandwagon, whose wheels didn’t work after all. Davis supported 28 days without trial and voted for ID cards in 2004, so his ‘crusade for liberty’ is, very obviously, naked leadership positioning. Verily the Emperor weareth no clothes. That doesn’t mean, however, that the voters of H&H are incapable of returning him to rob us off our taxation on his salary, expenses, and second home allowances all over again, and take us into another ill-judged and illegal colonial misadventure such as an invasion of Iran. Hopefully, however, they will see sense and choose not to, and instead reward Shan Oakes’s positivity by returning her to Westminster with a landslide.

9). To help the flow, please donate as much as you can to the Shan Oakes campaign. You can donate using the online button at http://shanoakes.blogspot.com.

It’s the ecolonomy, stupid!

ECOLONOMICS INSTITUTE:
http://www.instituteofecolonomics.org/

RAOUL VANEIGEM: CORPSES IN THEIR MOUTHS
http://www.scenewash.org/lobbies/chainthinker/situationist/vaneigem/rel/rel08.html

IAN BROWN: CORPSES IN THEIR MOUTHS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4jQf-BeaMA

IAN BROWN: ILLEGAL ATTACKS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqfBH1IJkWo

Love from Paddy Hedges
Anti-Hedge Fund Manager (AHFM)

Tags: BetFair, InTrade, UK politics

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Chris F. Masse June 30th, 2008

… says that guy.

I’m surprised and disappointed.

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Chris F. Masse June 28th, 2008

Writes the “Hundred Percent Gambling” blogger.

Let’s hope that his/her grievances will find their resolution.

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Jay Graziani June 26th, 2008

[This article is cross-posted from Major Wager.]

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A recent article in the prestigious academic journal Science (May 16, 2008, Vol 320, p. 877-8) once again makes the case for regulated prediction markets, more commonly known as “betting exchanges” to online gamblers. The authors make the case that such markets are useful in forecasting future events with less error than traditional measures such as polling. This argument is hard to ignore, with the authors including 21 top economists from such esteemed institutions as Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, and the University of Pennsylvania. Notable among the authors is Justin Wolfers from the Wharton School of business at UPenn, an economist who has gained notoriety in gambling circles due to his work on such topics as NBA referee bias (highlighted in a May 2008 article from MajorWager: http://www.majorwager.com/index.cfm?page=27&show_column=660).

The concept behind using prediction markets as a decision-making tool is simple. “Shares” are made available on an open market, and the participants use their capital (and the promise of profits) to make predictions on future events, which is incorporated into the share price. In general, information tends to be widely dispersed, and a market allows wide-ranging opinions to be gathered and consolidated into a market-wide prediction. In other words, an infinite amount of opinions can be aggregated, and an open market with potential for profit provides an incentive for individuals to make their opinions publicly known.

Prediction markets always get more than their fair share of press near the end of the 4-year U.S. Presidential election cycle. The Iowa Electronics Market, housed at the University of Iowa, is perhaps the most well-known. The authors of the Science paper show that, in the week immediately preceding the Presidential elections from 1988 through 2000, the Iowa Electronic Markets erred by an average of only 1.5 percentage points from the actual vote results, while the traditional Gallup poll was off by 2.1%. Numerous other studies have shown the superiority of markets compared to other forecasting tools.

Of course, there have been some dust-ups regarding prediction markets in the past, most notably the “terrorist strike market”, unveiled a little too close to 9/11 to be palatable to the general public. The official name was the “Policy Analysis Market“, and it was established by the Pentagon to act as a prediction market for Middle East political events. It was quickly scuttled after heated comments from U.S. Senators, calling it “grotesque” and “stupid”, due to the perception of using catastrophic events such as assassinations as profit-making tools. Regardless of its political correctness (and the misinformed opinions of a few politicians), such a prediction market still holds value as a glimpse into the collective mindset of everyone with an understanding of political currents in the region. Utilizing such a prediction market as a component of foreign policy decisions may have ultimately spared the U.S. much grief in Iraq.

In recent years, prediction markets have grown beyond academic and government roles. Dublin-based InTrade is rapidly growing and provides many more options than the Iowa Electronic Markets. Others such as MatchBook have focused more on sporting contests, but provide coverage of other events as demand calls. Of course, those outside the U.S. have access to the largest betting exchange of them all, the massive European markets of BetFair. The success of these exchanges speaks to the public interest and feasibility of prediction markets.

One factor holding back the growth of online prediction markets is their close association with the quasi-legal world of sports betting and internet casinos. InTrade has been fairly proactive in this regard, spinning off from Tradesports to clean up its corporate slate, but it is still knee-deep in the legal sludge surrounding offshore “gambling”. All have to deal with the legal and financial hurdles of operating offshore.

The authors of the Science paper propose that clarification of internet gambling laws is needed to exploit the benefits of prediction markets within the United States. Clearly, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006 is one such mechanism restricting the widespread use of prediction markets. Another is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the regulatory agency which oversees futures markets in the U.S. The CFTC has provided a “no-action letter” to the Iowa Electronic Markets, an assurance that they will not seek any enforcement action against the exchange. However, this protection is not absolute and may not trump state and federal law if challenged. The Science authors propose a number of legal reforms which will allow prediction markets to begin to gain acceptance within the U.S. financial regulatory structure.

By no means does the Science article condone large-scale public markets, at least not initially. They take a (typically academic) conservative approach, recommending new legal framework to allow for the establishment of small markets with limited scope so as to evaluate the promise and use of prediction markets. But baby steps are going to be a necessity in the growth and acceptance of regulated public markets.

Clearly, there are negative aspects to financial markets, and regulation certainly has its place. Bear Sterns, Enron, the S&L scandal of the 80s, and the current housing bubble all caused tremendous loss of wealth resulting from missteps in the financial markets. The current oil crisis is due at least in part to speculation, leading to the introduction of no less than 9 separate bills in the U.S. Congress seeking tougher regulation over the trading of commodities. However, the existence of problems in the financial markets does not necessitate their dissolution. Likewise, prediction markets are sure to encounter bumps in the road, but their utility should far outweigh the risks.

Should prediction markets be legalized in the U.S.? Almost certainly. They would have benefit across numerous industries, from business decisions to political policies to financial forecasting. Unfortunately, this would require building an unlikely bridge over the Puritanical moral moat placed around gambling in the U.S. But there is no inherent difference in betting on who will win in an election than what the price of oil will be in 6 months, or what the S&P 500 will close at on a particular date. Distancing prediction markets from “illegal” gambling, and instead likening them to regulated financial markets, will be a necessary first step towards broader acceptance.

The academic groundwork on prediction markets has already been laid, and offshore exchanges have begun to turn these concepts into functioning businesses. As these markets grow and begin incorporating more diverse opinions, we can expect their success rate at predicting the future to only grow. To restrict such a promising tool simply due to its perception that it is a gambling outlet is silly indeed.

6-25-08
Jay Graziani
MajorWager.com
graziani@majorwager.com

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[This article is cross-posted from Major Wager.]

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Tags: BetFair, CFTC, event derivative markets, event markets, InTrade, laws, MATCHBOOK, prediction exchanges, prediction markets, real-money prediction exchanges, real-money prediction markets, Regulations, TradeSports

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Eric Zitzewitz June 26th, 2008

BetFair is running markets on both who will be the next vice president and who will be nominated by the two parties.

As we’ve discussed before in other contexts, one can divide two probabilities like these to obtain a conditional probability: e.g., if the Democrats put X on the ticket, they will win the general election Y% of the time (where Y = odds of X becoming VP/odds of X being nominated).

These markets are thin, so the conditional probabilities should be taken with a grain of salt. But they are interesting nonetheless:

The pattern I see here is that conditional probabilities are higher for fresh faces (Webb, Sebelius; and arguably Bayh and Richardson despite their longer tenure) than for the old guard (Clinton, Nunn, Biden).

Of course, these should be viewed as correlations, not necessarily causal effects. For example, two possible explanations are: 1) putting a fresh face on the ticket helps Obama, either because there is less baggage or less of a contrast in national-politics resume length, or 2) Obama will only pick an old guard candidate in the state of the world in which he needs to shore up a weakness (i.e., picking Clinton to end a civil war, or Nunn to add foreign policy experience).
On the GOP side:

Huckabee has the highest conditional probability, and Pawlenty and Jindal are noticeably lower. Interpreting this one is harder: it depends on what aspect of Huckabee one thinks the market is expecting to be appealing (religion, likeability, Southernness, selective economic populism).

Technical note: the bids and asks reported above are actual quotes scrapped this AM; the mids are (bid+ask)/2, rescaled to add to 100 across all candidates.

Tags: 2008 US presidential elections, BetFair, conditional probabilities, odds, prediction markets, probabilities, US presidential elections, vice president, vice presidents, VP, VP conditional probabilities

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Chris F. Masse June 25th, 2008

Last year, I said that the BetFair prediction markets on global warming would fail.

I said:

My prediction is that the first two BetFair Global Warming prediction markets (HSBC Investable Climate Change Index and ECX CFI Futures Contract) will fail miserably.

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They failed, indeed. Remain only those two prediction markets, with ultra light volumes: Highest and Lowest UK Temperature.

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As for the InTrade prediction markets on climate change (USA agrees before end of 2009 to reduce CO2 emissions by 10% or more by year 2025), liquidity is more than thin.

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Now, ask yourself:

• If BetFair and InTrade (which are for-profit prediction exchanges) encounter difficulties with those “socially valuable prediction markets”, why would not-for-profit prediction exchanges (like the Iowa Electronic Markets) be more successful at it?
• Don’t you think that the American Enterprise Institute’s proposals (which would outlaw the for-profit prediction exchanges) are out of whack? I do. Let’s do something.

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Tags: BetFair, CFTC, climate change, global warming, InTrade, laws, prediction markets, Regulations

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Chris F. Masse June 23rd, 2008

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BETFAIR.COM - EURO 2008 BILLBOARD
Copyright Bildagentur Zolles / Robert Zolles

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Thanks to Michael Robb for sending me this aerial pic.

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Video

(I embedded the video in a post, yesterday.)

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BetFair

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PS: Soccer = world football

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Chris F. Masse June 23rd, 2008

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Bet 2 Give

BetFair Wallets

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Chris F. Masse June 22nd, 2008

Video

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BetFair

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UPDATE: I have just posted an aerial picture of the BetFair billboard.

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Chris F. Masse June 20th, 2008

Richard Dunwoody:

The truth is that in pre-exchange times, [British] bookmakers profited by laying horses they knew were not going to win. They had paid informants in almost every stable. No arrests. No prosecution. Nothing said.

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I recommend you go reading the whole piece.

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Tags: BetFair, bookmakers, cheating

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