Global warming due to human-produced CO2 is the biggest scientific imposture of all times.

These 3 political leaders are all wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2010

Gordon Brown’s gaffe (“bigoted woman”, Gillian Duffy):

Before the debate, the betting market on Betfair regarding who if anybody would secure an overall majority was as follows; Conservative Majority 1.75; No Overall Majority 2.68; Labour Majority 17.0.

After the debate, the market was betting as follows: Conservative Majority 1.83; No Overall Majority 2.54; Labour Majority 17.5.

Consensus opinion held that the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg had performed best, and, there is little doubt that this debate represented a significant turning points as regards the publics perception of him.   If he performs as well in the next two debates, this will have serious implications as regards the probability of a hung parliament.  Accordingly, one would anticipate that the odds on No Overall Majority are likely to shorten further ahead of the actual election.

Will Air France Flight 447′s black box be recovered?

Sport
The most anticipated sporting event this week is still the ongoing NBA playoffs. Last week the Lakers had only a even chance of wining compared to the Orlando Magic, this week though Hubdubbers make it a surefire bet it’s the Lakers for the win.

NBA Finals, LA Lakers – Orlando Magic, series outcome?

Politics

For anyone who thought British politics was boring and mundane, the recent expenses scandal in the UK is certainly creating a right fuss… Will it bring down Gordon Brown though? Well the expenses scandal and Brown’s staggering loss in recent elections in the UK, has his chances of being forced out in 2009 as high as 62% as of now.

Will Gordon Brown resign or be forced from office by the end of 2009?

Entertainment
David Carradine’s tragic death last week under ‘mysterious’ circumstances was shocking. His odd demise whether it was suicide or accidental, perhaps was caused by drugs? Hubdubber’s seem to think drugs a quite likely cause. There’s a 72% chance a autopsy shows drugs were in Carradine’s system.

Will autopsy show drugs be found in David Carradine system?

This weekend three main movies are vying for contention at the box office, Up, The Hangover and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. Up has already received critical acclaim, but the comedy The Hangover is gaining ground this week. As of now Up though still seems to the be the likely winner at the box office.

Which will be the No. 2 film at the U.S. box office the weekend of June 12-14, 2009?

Trading percentages given are at time of posting and may not match up with markets after the fact due to Hubdub users forecasting on said markets. Posted from newspundits blog.

Addendum: To the despair of both Prof Panos and Wiser Than The Crowd, here is a link back to the recent “failures” of the prediction markets.

It’s not clear why you believe that the majority of those customers who use Betfair’s forum are unhappy about the introduction of the improved matching logic. The sport this will most significantly benefit is football [soccer], and there’s nothing we’ve heard from our football customers that would suggest they’re unhappy, nor would we expect there to be. Even the thread you refer to has a mix of opinion. We don’t prevent customers posting negative opinions about Betfair (as long as they stay within the forum rules) as you can clearly see from reading the forum, even when the criticism is unfounded. But that does mean that the overall sentiment expressed on the forum is frequently unrepresentative: only a tiny minority of Betfair’s customers post on the forum, and it’s unrealistic to expect that customers would feel motivated to post to say that they’re very happy.

We expect no deterioration in site performance and the consequences of placing a bet in error are the same as if we had more customers placing more bets on a market – you’d be more likely to get a bet matched than to be unmatched, and you’d expect a better price overall. If you were right then that would imply that more customers active in a market is a bad thing (because if you place a bet in error you’re more likely to get matched than to have a chance to cancel). That’s clearly equally incorrect. We expect this to be a benefit to customers overall, even if that’s not obvious to all now. If we get things wrong customers vote with their feet, so we always question whether we can do things better, and if we conclude any change isn’t having the desired effect we’re never too proud to reconsider.

About payments made to the U.K. horse racing industry:

Betfair pays the exact same percentage of our gross profits in levy all other UK betting operators – 10% of gross profits on British horseracing. For the levy year just ended we paid just over £6.9m in levy. So, we agree that we pay our fair share! We don’t believe there is any rational justification to impose an extra charge on Betfair or on our customers. The Treasury conducted an 18 month review (announced by Gordon Brown in the 2004 Budget) into ‘the tax treatment of exchanges and their customers’. The conclusion to that review was ‘no change’. Had there been a justification for imposing a betting duty charge (which the levy traditionally follows) over and above what other betting operators are required to pay, I think we can assume the Treasury would not have passed up the opportunity to increase their tax take.

We don’t believe there is a realistic prospect of Betfair being obliged to pay more because we don’t think we (or our customers) will be singled out for discriminatory treatment, despite what some people would like to happen. On the basis that we won’t be hit by an increased charge, we will have no need to pass on something to customers and/or go off-shore.

One of the risks of political betting is that at times you can be gambling against those who are “in the know”. There’s nothing illegal about it but if price movements on the scale recorded on that afternoon had happened on the stock market ahead of a big announcement then an inquiry would have surely followed.

Yeah, but we would like our prediction markets to be the best forecasting tool ever (besides being a fun game and a profitable money machine). So we all favor insider trading on event derivative markets, don’t we, Mike Giberson? [Trick to make this economist write for Midas Oracle, for free. ]

Cabinet Exit Dates

• Chancellor
• Foreign Secretary
• Home Secretary

Cabinet Specials

• Next Chancellor
• Next Foreign Secretary
• Next Home Secretary
• Next Prime Minister

Leader Exit Dates

• David Cameron
• Gordon Brown

Next General Election

• Election Date
• Most Seats
• Overall Majority
• Party Leaders

Next Lib Dem Leader

The prediction exchanges (betting exchanges) that organize the most socially valuable prediction markets are InTrade and PopSci PPX, I would say.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown ruled out calling an early election Saturday, ending weeks of speculation that he would soon seek a stronger mandate from the electorate.

Mike Smithson of PolitcalBetting.com will have to be patient.

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BetFair – December 2007 or Earlier

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UPDADE: For Mike Smithson, Gordon Brown lacks sincerity…