To do so, when you type your comment, you need to click on the “HTML” button, and insert the code here.

It’s yet another functionality (in a long list) that Midas Oracle offers to the members of the field of prediction markets.

Overcoming Whatever, Freakonomics, and the InTrade e-mailing list, look so pale, now.

I have read it quickly, and he made very good points —though not in a legalese way, so to speak.

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I have made the same points to the CFTC. You’ll see that soon.

I’m off for a couple of hours, and will come back later to provide some commentary —and maybe I’ll republish his text as HTML.

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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)

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Software Vendor Special Terms: [e.g. waivers of prohibitions, consents, rights to use trade marks subject to guidelines, added warranties and/or indemnities and variations to the standard terms generally]

(1) Subject to the due performance of his/her/its obligations under this Agreement the definition of “Commercialise” is hereby amended so that it means “sell, rent, lease, or license all or any part of the Betfair API”, the restrictions set out in clauses 2.3 (e), (f), and (g) and the words “disclose or otherwise provide” in 2.3 (b) shall be deemed to be deleted SUBJECT ALWAYS to the User’s compliance with one of the following conditions (the “Waiver”)

CONDITION 1: The User agrees that any usage of the Betfair API shall be solely in connection with bets that use the systems and servers of Betfair; OR

CONDITION 2: The User has all necessary licences as may be required to make use of any third party data that may be incorporated into the Betfair API from the relevant third parties.

AND the User hereby indemnifies and holds Betfair harmless in relation to any liability Betfair may incur as a result of the User’s non compliance with the above conditions.

(2) The User shall, solely in connection with and pursuant to the Waiver, be empowered to grant users of its freeware, shareware or commercial software applications with the right to use the same notwithstanding clause 2.3(i).

(3) The User will ensure that any freeware, shareware or commercial software applications that it provides to third parties for use in connection with the API shall, as well as general exclusions of liability, incorporate a specific disclaimer that must be accepted as part of the terms of installation as follows:

DISCLAIMER

[INSERT NAME OF RELEVANT SOFTWARE] and our organisation is in no way connected to, warranted or endorsed by The Sporting Exchange Limited (“Betfair”) and by installing the [INSERT NAME OF RELEVANT SOFTWARE] you acknowledge and agree that Betfair can in no way be liable nor owe you any duty to support or otherwise take any steps whatsoever in relation to [INSERT NAME OF RELEVANT SOFTWARE]

(4) The User shall not provide any freeware, shareware or commercial software applications to any third party without first ensuring that such third party has entered into a licence for the use of the API with Betfair.

(5) The User will ensure that it includes a Vendor ID Code (as defined in the Terms and Conditions) in all software that it provides to third parties that will be identifiable to Betfair when such third parties use the relevant software to access the Betfair API.

(6) The User will not make its software available to third parties until it has the Vendor ID Code and once it does it will ensure that it is used at all times in conjunction with each individual software application.

(7) The User shall not provide software for on-course Bookmakers without prior consent from Betfair.

(8) Any User with products being used by Betfair customers shall not provide those products to any other betting exchange or betting company on an exclusive basis such that Betfair customers can no longer access those products. For the purposes of the restriction set out in this clause functionality such as unmatched bets, lay bets, or any sort of person to person betting platform are included in the definition of “betting exchange”, and functionality allowing someone to place a bet is included in the definition of “betting company”.

(9) If you are publishing Betfair prices, or data derived from Betfair prices, you need to clearly state that the prices are Betfair.com prices. You also need to clearly link to the Betfair.com homepage or if you are publishing prices relating to a specific market to that particular market on Betfair.com. It should be as easy as possible for anyone interested in betting at that price to click through to Betfair.com, open an account if wish to, and place that bet on Betfair.com. There will of course be circumstances where this Term does not apply, such as a bookmaker deriving prices from Betfair and publish prices under his own brand. However, in order for us to waive this term, you need specific consent in writing from Betfair. In any event, you shall not build any system that allows anybody to publish aggregated data from both Betfair and any other bookmaker, betting exchange or counterparty of any sort, or place bets on an aggregated price or amount of money derived from both Betfair and any other bookmaker, betting exchange or counterparty of any sort.

(10) Advertising:

a. The only Betfair reference permitted in publicising applications is ‘for use in connection with Betfair, working through their API’. Use of Betfair logos or other references is not permitted without consent.

b. Advertising must not leave the prospective buyer with the impression that the Betfair API somehow provides faster access to Betfair data than www.betfair.com. This is not the case. If the vendor wishes to talk about the speed of his service, it must be explicit that speed differences are as a result of the usability of the application.

c. Advertising must be in a form that is not prejudicial to Betfair in Betfair’s reasonable opinion.

(11) Exchange Data

a. For the purpose of this clause 11(a) above:

“Exchange Data” means the publicly available pricing and volume data freely available on the Betfair Exchange or via the Betfair API; and

“Purpose” means making available the Exchange Data to users of the Betfair Exchange in whatever form and format is agreed in advance with Betfair;

Subject to prior written consent, Betfair hereby grants the User a non-exclusive, non-transferable, terminable licence to use the Exchange Data for the Purpose provided always that the User fulfils the conditions set out in clause 11(b) of these Variable Terms.

b. As a condition of it enjoying the benefit of the licence granted in clause 11(a) above (the “Licence”), the User must fulfil the following conditions and to the extent it does not, the Licence shall be automatically revoked:

(i) the Exchange Data may only be made available to users of the Betfair Exchange who have a registered and funded account. ‘Funded’ means that the user has made at least one deposit into his account. It shall be the User’s responsibility to verify the potential recipients of the Exchange Data are registered and funded users of the Betfair Exchange prior to making the Exchange Data available to them. The User can do this by validating the potential recipient’s Betfair account details using Betfair’s web services. The validation process will also enable Betfair to create a record that this user has access to the Exchange Data provided by the User. Betfair reserves the right to amend this condition such that additional requirements will need to be met by any proposed recipient of the Exchange Data. Any such amendments will be notified to the User and will take immediate effect.

(ii) the User will, when requested by Betfair, provide Betfair with a record of all recipients of the Exchange Data such that Betfair is able to readily identify which of its users are accessing Exchange Data via the User;

(iii) the User will, upon request, permit Betfair reasonable rights of access to its systems to enable Betfair to determine whether the User if fulfilling the conditions set out in clauses 11(b)(i) and 11(b)(ii) above.

d. The limitation and exclusions of liability contained in clause 9 of this Agreement shall be deemed to apply to Betfair’s provision and licence of the Exchange Data to the User.

e. The restrictions contained in clause 2.3 of this Agreement shall be amended but only insofar as to give effect to this clause 11 of these Variable Terms.

General API

1. DEFINITIONS AND INTERPRETATION

1.1 “Agreement” means the Term Sheet, these Terms and Conditions and any associated schedules;

“Betfair API” means the data and functionality (commonly referred to as the application programming interface or API) contained on the Betfair betting exchange platform together with access to the relevant Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) file where required;

“Betfair Terms and Conditions ” means the terms and conditions, rules and regulations and privacy policy governing the use of the www.betfair.com web site as available for inspection at that site;

“Business Day” means any day (excluding Saturdays and Sundays) on which banks generally are open in the City of London for the transaction of normal banking business;

“Code” means encrypted data that enables Betfair to identify circumstances in which a particular software application is in use;

“Commencement Date” means the date on which this Agreement is agreed to by both parties;

“Commercialise” means sell, rent, lease, license or publish all or any part of the Betfair API for profit or otherwise use in a commercial or business context that does not equate to personal use or enable others to do so;

“Confidential Information” means all information which is not publicly known and that is disclosed (by whatever means, directly or indirectly) by one party to the other, whether before or after the date of this Agreement including any information relating to the IPR, products, operations, processes, plans, intentions, product information, each party’s customer data the terms of this Agreement, market opportunities or business affairs of the disclosing party or any of its sub-contractors, suppliers, customers, clients or other contacts;

“Content” means all Confidential Information, data and/or functionality accessible from the Betfair API;

“Force Majeure” means any event outside the reasonable control of a party affecting its ability to perform any of its obligations (other than payment) under this Agreement;

“Good Industry Practice” means the exercise of that degree of skill, diligence, prudence and foresight which would reasonably and ordinarily be expected from a skilled and experienced contractor acting in good faith;

“Group” means, in relation to a company, any entity directly or indirectly controlling, controlled by or under common control of a party;

“IPR” means any and all patents, trade marks, service marks, rights in designs (including semi-conductor topography design rights and circuit layout rights), get-up, trade, business or domain names, goodwill associated with the foregoing, e-mail address names, copyright including rights in computer software (in both source and object code) and rights in databases (in each case whether registered or not and any applications to register and rights to apply for registration of any of the foregoing), rights in inventions and web-formatting scripts (including HTML and XML scripts), know-how, trade secrets and other intellectual property rights which may now or in the future subsist in any part of the world including all rights of reversion and the right to sue for and recover damages for past infringements;

“Read Only Access” means access to the Betfair API with all the functionality set out in Schedule 1;

“Transactional Access” means access to the Betfair API with all the functionality set out in Schedule 2; and

“UserID” means the confidential security keys specific to the User issued by Betfair to enable access to the Betfair API.

1.2 Headings to clauses are inserted for convenience only and shall not affect the interpretation or construction of this Agreement.

1.3 Words importing the singular shall include the plural and vice versa. Words importing a gender include every gender and references to persons include an individual, company, corporation, firm or partnership.

1.4 The words and phrases “other”, “including” and “in particular” shall not limit the generality of any preceding words or be construed as being limited to the same class as any preceding words where a wider construction is possible.

1.5 Any obligation to do or not to do something shall include an obligation to procure that it be done or not done.

1.6 References to a party include that party’s successors and permitted assignees.

1.7 In this Agreement, “control” shall have the meaning given to it in section 840 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988.

1.8 This Agreement may be executed in any number of counterparts which together shall constitute one agreement. Each party may enter into this Agreement by executing a counterpart and this Agreement shall not take effect until it has been executed by both parties.

1.9 Delivery of an executed counterpart of a signature page by facsimile transmission shall take effect as delivery of an executed counterpart of this Agreement provided that, if such method is adopted, each party shall provide the other with the original of such page as soon as reasonably practicable thereafter.

THE PARTIES AGREE AS FOLLOWS:

2. LICENCE

2.1 In consideration of the payment by the User of the Access Fee in accordance with clause 4 below and subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Betfair hereby grants to the User a non-exclusive, non-transferable, terminable licence to access the Betfair API solely for its own internal business purposes and for the purposes of developing software applications in each case in accordance with such other limitations and restrictions as set out in this Agreement.

2.2 Betfair agrees to enable the User’s User ID with access to the Betfair API during the term of this Agreement. The User ID shall remain the property of Betfair and may be disabled from access to the Betfair API upon termination of this Agreement or upon occurrence of any of the events described in clause 2.3 below.

2.3 It is a condition of this Agreement that the User shall not do any of the following:

(a) assign, transfer, sub-license or disclose the User ID to a third party;
(b) assign, transfer, sub-license, disclose or otherwise provide any of the Content to a third party;
(c) collect personally identifiable information of any other user of the Betfair API;
(d) Commercialise the Content or access to the Betfair Exchange Platform;
(e) use the API in a manner which might enable a third party to interact with the web site www.betfair.com or any other web site owned or operated by Betfair;
(f) use the Content to provide market information to a third party for business or commercial use including but not limited to any use of the Content to create prices or a guide to prices for any commercial purpose;
(g) display data from the Betfair API via any electronically accessible medium without the express written consent of Betfair;
(h) create freeware, shareware or commercial software applications for use in connection with the API without the express written consent of Betfair;
(i) utilise software applications made available by third parties and intended for use specifically in relation to betting exchange functionality and/or the API other than with the express written consent of Betfair;
(j) use the Betfair API in a way which proves or is likely to prove detrimental to Betfair and/or the performance of the web site www.betfair.com.;
(k) use the Betfair API to develop and make available to any third party products or services which are designed to enhance the appeal of any betting exchanges offered by anyone other than Betfair;
(l) breach the provisions of clause 7.2; or
(m) copy, reproduce, modify or use the API in any bureau, timeshare, or outsourcing arrangement or reproduce or on sell the whole or any part of the API whether aggregated with other data or otherwise;
(n) allow access to the Betfair API or Betfair data to anyone without first ensuring that the customer in question does not need a special purpose license such as the Commercial API License;
(o) provide products which aggregate or hide individual Betfair customer activity normally available to Betfair through individual use of the Betfair API or website without prior written consent from Betfair and without ensuring that they keep a record of that activity. An example would be where a User reads Betfair prices and pushes them out to its customers in such a way that Betfair can no longer see the individual price reading of customers via the API market refresh services;
(p) allow anyone who is not logged into their Betfair account access to Betfair data without prior written consent from Betfair

2.4 By entering into this Agreement the User hereby agrees to the Betfair Terms and Conditions.

3. WARRANTIES OF THE USER

3.1 The User, warrants and undertakes that:

(a) it has full capacity and authority and all necessary licences, permits, IPR rights and consents to enter into this Agreement and any other documents executed by it that may be associated with this Agreement;

(b) this Agreement constitutes valid, binding and enforceable obligations of the User in accordance with its terms;

(c) it shall at all times conduct itself with all due skill, care and diligence, including Good Industry Practice, and in accordance with its own established procedures and all applicable laws, enactments, orders, regulations and other similar instruments;

(d) it shall comply with Betfair’s security guidelines and requirements as may be issued by Betfair from time to time whether in writing or otherwise.

4. ACCESS FEE

4.1 The User agrees to pay to Betfair an access fee in the sum and at the frequency stated in the Term Sheet (the relevant “Access Fee”). Unless otherwise specified prices shall be exclusive of VAT.

4.2 Nothing in this Agreement shall require Betfair to make any payment to the User with respect to this Agreement.

5. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

5.1 All IPR in the Betfair API shall belong to Betfair. All IPR in any third party materials shall belong to the third party owner thereof.

5.2 Nothing in this agreement purports to grant a license, provide any warranty or offer any indemnity in respect of any data that is not owned by Betfair. In the event that the User does require access to any such data, it agrees that it shall enable Betfair an opportunity to secure rights to the same and (if it becomes necessary to do so) the User will cover the costs of securing a licence to the same from the relevant third party data owner or either party may terminate this agreement immediately.

6. INDEMNITY

6.1 The User shall at its own expense indemnify Betfair against any claim against Betfair alleging an infringement by Betfair of the IPR of any third party arising through the User’s use of the Betfair API and pay any final judgement entered against Betfair in respect thereof except if and to the extent that any such claim arises from any breach by Betfair of its obligations under this Agreement.

6.2 Either party shall immediately notify the other party if any claim or demand is made or action brought against it for any infringement or alleged infringement of any IPR which may affect the supply or use of the Betfair API.

7. DATA PROTECTION, PERMISSIONING AND SECURITY

7.1 The User will duly observe all its obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998 and any amendments thereto which arise in connection with this Agreement. In particular the User shall ensure that it has adequate technical (and organisational) security procedures in place to prevent the unauthorised or unlawful disclosure of personal data.

7.2 In order for any person to be able to access the Betfair API in conjunction with a Betfair-related product supplied by the User (a “Product”), it is necessary for Betfair to verify to the User that the party in question is registered to use Betfair’s services (each such party being a “Customer”). For the purposes of such verification (a procedure known as “permissioning”), Betfair will make available to the User “API Permissioning Services” which will enable the User to verify that any party in relation to which personal information has been provided to the User is a Customer (“Verified Customer Data”). The User’s access to the API Permissioning Services is supplied in consideration of and conditional upon the User agreeing not to utilise that Verified Customer Data for any purpose other than making Products available to the Customer and for the purpose of providing related support to that Customer. If the User uses the Verified Customer Data for any other purpose, it shall be deemed to be in breach of this restriction and Betfair may immediately terminate this agreement in accordance with clause 12.1.

7.3 The User acknowledges that the security of Betfair’s data and its systems is fundamental to the business of Betfair and if the User becomes aware of a breach or potential breach of security relating to the Betfair API, it shall immediately notify Betfair of such breach or potential breach and use its best endeavours to ensure that any potential breach does not become an actual breach and/or remedy any actual breach and its consequences.

8. CONFIDENTIALITY AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

8.1 During the term of this Agreement and after termination or expiration of this Agreement, the parties shall not use any Confidential Information for any purpose other than in pursuance of its rights and obligations under this Agreement nor disclose any Confidential Information to any person except with the prior written consent of the other party and shall use the same standard of security to prevent the use or disclosure of the Confidential Information as it does for its own Confidential Information.

8.2 The parties may disclose any Confidential Information to their directors, other officers, employees, advisers and sub-contractors to the extent that such disclosure is reasonably necessary and in accordance with the requirements set out in clause 8.1.

8.3 On termination the parties shall (on request) deliver up to the other party or destroy all copies of Confidential Information in its possession, and (if so requested) shall use all reasonable endeavours to destroy all copies of Confidential Information stored electronically.

8.4 The parties shall together determine the content of any communications concerning the relationship between the parties. Such communications shall be issued at a time and in a manner agreed by the parties (acting reasonably).

9. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY AND EXCLUSIONS

9.1 Save as provided by statute and to the fullest extent permitted by law, the following provisions set out the entire liability of Betfair (including any liability for the acts and omissions of its employees, agents and sub-contractors) to the User whether in contract, tort, statute, equity or otherwise:

(a) The User acknowledges and agrees that (except as expressly provided in this Agreement) the Betfair API is provided “AS IS” without warranties of any kind (whether express or implied);

(b) All conditions, warranties, terms and undertakings (whether express or implied, statutory or otherwise relating to the delivery, performance, quality, uninterrupted use, fitness for purpose, occurrence or reliability of the Betfair API are hereby excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law;

The entire liability of Betfair in respect of any breach or default shall be limited to £1,000; and

(c) Betfair shall not be liable to the User for loss of profit (whether direct or indirect), loss of contracts or goodwill, lost advertising, loss of data or any type of special, indirect, consequential or economic loss (including loss or damage suffered by the User as a result of an action brought by a third party) even if such loss was reasonably foreseeable or Betfair had been advised of the possibility of the User incurring such loss.

9.2 No exclusion or limitation set out in this Agreement shall apply in the case of:

(a) fraud or fraudulent concealment;

(b) death or personal injury resulting from the negligence of either party or any of its employees, agents or sub-contractors; and/or

(c) any breach of the obligations implied by (as appropriate) section 12 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979, section 2 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 or section 8 of the Supply of Goods (Implied Terms) Act 1973.

9.3 The time limit within which the User must institute suit against Betfair to recover on any claim shall be 2 years from the date the User should reasonably have become aware or becomes aware of the relevant breach that would form the subject of the claim.

9.4 This clause 9 shall survive the termination of this Agreement for whatever reason.

10. FORCE MAJEURE

10.1 If either party is affected by Force Majeure it shall notify the other party in writing of the matters constituting the Force Majeure and shall keep that party informed of their continuance and of any relevant change of circumstances whilst such Force Majeure continues. Neither party shall have any liability to the other in respect of an event of Force Majeure provided it complies with clause 10.2.

10.2 The party affected by Force Majeure shall take all reasonable steps available to it to minimise the effects of Force Majeure on the performance of its obligations under this Agreement.

11. TERM

This Agreement shall commence on the Commencement Date and, unless terminated earlier in accordance with clause 12, shall continue until the User ceases to pay the Access Fee specified in clause 4.1 at which time the User will (provided it gives notice of an intention to renew) have 24 hours to secure continued access by payment of the next instalment of the Access Fee or the Agreement will terminate.

12. TERMINATION

12.1 A party (the “Initiating Party”) may terminate this Agreement with immediate effect by written notice to the other party (the “Breaching Party”) on the occurrence of an event specified in clause 12.2.

12.2 The events referred to in clause 12.1 are:

(a) the Breaching Party committing an irremediable material breach of a material obligation under this Agreement;

(b) the Breaching Party committing a remediable material breach of a material obligation under this Agreement and failing to remedy the breach within 10 Business Days of the Initiating Party giving reasonable details of the breach and requiring the Breaching Party to remedy such breach;

(c) the Breaching Party goes into liquidation, either compulsorily or voluntarily or administration or a receiver, administrative receiver, receiver, manager or similar officer is appointed in respect of the whole or any part of its assets, or if Sub-Licensee make an assignment for the benefit of, or a composition or arrangement with, its creditors;

(d) the Breaching Party failing to make a payment by such due date as may be specified in this Agreement provided always that in relation to any indebtedness of the Breaching Party, the failure to pay when due which shall be deemed a remediable material breach to be determined in accordance with clause 12.2(b) above;

(e) there is a change in control of the User without the written consent of Betfair;

(f) the User is in breach of any of the restrictions set out in clause 2.3 or clause 7.2.

12.3 For the purposes of clause 12.2 a “material breach” means a breach which is serious in the widest sense of having a serious effect on the benefit which the Initiating Party would otherwise derive from a substantial portion of this Agreement over the entire remaining period of this Agreement or a reasonable portion thereof and a breach is remediable if the Breaching Party can comply with the obligation within the 10 Business days period in sub-clause 12.2(b).

12.4 Betfair may terminate this Agreement on one month’s notice in writing at any time for any reason provided always that it returns any Access Fee payments already made by the User that relate to any period that follows such termination date.

12.5 The User may terminate on a month’s written notice at any time for any reason.

13. CONSEQUENCES OF TERMINATION

13.1 Termination of this Agreement shall be without prejudice to any rights or obligations which shall have accrued prior to termination.

13.2 On termination of this Agreement all licences granted by Betfair to the User pursuant to this Agreement shall immediately terminate and the User ID shall be disabled for use in connection with the Betfair API.

13.3 Within 10 days of the termination of this Agreement the User shall at Betfair’s sole option return or destroy all copies of the Content in its possession or control and a duly authorised officer of the User shall certify in writing to Betfair that the User has complied with this obligation.

13.4 The expiry or termination of this Agreement for whatever reason shall not affect:

(a) either party’s accrued rights and obligations at the date of expiry or termination;

(b) the coming into force or the continuance in force of any provision of this Agreement which expressly or by implication is intended to come into or continue in force on or after such expiry or termination.

14. ASSIGNMENT AND SUB-CONTRACTING

14.1 The User shall not assign, novate, declare a trust of or otherwise dispose of this Agreement, or any part thereof, without the prior written approval of Betfair.

14.2 The User shall be liable to Betfair for the performance of the User’s obligations under this Agreement and for the acts and omissions of its sub-contractors, and where the context requires, references to “the User” in this Agreement shall also include any relevant “sub-contractor”.

15. ENTIRE AGREEMENT

Subject to clauses 9.2 and 2.4, this Agreement constitutes the entire and only agreement between the parties with regards to its subject matter and each party confirms that it has not been induced to enter into this Agreement in reliance upon, nor has it been given, any warranty (including in particular any warranty as to merchantability, fitness for purpose or uninterrupted functionality), representation, statement, assurance, covenant, agreement, undertaking, indemnity or commitment of any nature whatsoever other than as are expressly set out in this Agreement and, to the extent that it has been, it unconditionally and irrevocably waives any claims, rights or remedies which it might otherwise have had in relation thereto.

16. CUMULATION OF REMEDIES

Subject to the specific limitations set out in this Agreement, no remedy conferred by any provision of this Agreement is intended to be exclusive of any other remedy except as expressly provided for in this Agreement and each and every remedy shall be cumulative and shall be in addition to every other remedy given thereunder or existing at law or in equity, by statute or otherwise.

17. NO PARTNERSHIP

Nothing in this Agreement and no action taken by the parties pursuant to this Agreement shall constitute, or be deemed to constitute, the parties as a partnership, association, joint venture or other co-operative entity.

18. WAIVER

18.1 No breach of any provision of this agreement shall be waived or discharged except with the express written consent of the parties.

18.2 No failure or delay by a party to exercise any of its rights under this agreement shall operate as a waiver thereof and no single or partial exercise of any such right shall prevent any other or further exercise of that or any other right.

19. INVALIDITY AND SEVERABILITY

19.1 If any provision of this Agreement is or becomes (whether or not pursuant to any judgment or otherwise) invalid, illegal or unenforceable in any respect under the law of any jurisdiction:

(a) the validity, legality and enforceability under the law of that jurisdiction of any other provision; and

(b) the validity, legality and enforceability under the law of any other jurisdiction of that or any other provision,

shall not be affected or impaired in any way thereby.

19.2 If any provision of this Agreement shall be held to be void or declared illegal, invalid or unenforceable for any reason whatsoever, such provision shall be divisible from this Agreement and shall be deemed to be deleted from this Agreement and the validity of the remaining provisions shall not be affected. In the event that any such deletion materially affects the interpretation of this Agreement then the parties shall negotiate in good faith with a view to agreeing a substitute provision which as closely as possible reflects the commercial intention of the parties.

20. NOTICES

20.1 Notices and communications shall be considered given or made:

(a) where personally delivered, upon delivery at the address of the relevant party;

(b) where sent by first class post, three Business Days after the date of posting;

(c) where sent by air mail, five Business Days after the date of posting;

where delivered by facsimile or email, at the time of transmission, provided that a confirming copy is sent by first class post to the other party within 24 hours after transmission.

21. THIRD PARTY RIGHTS

The Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 shall not apply to this Agreement and no rights or benefits expressly or impliedly conferred by it shall be enforceable under that Act against the parties to it by any other person.

22. FURTHER ASSURANCE

Each party shall, upon request from the other, do and execute, or procure that there shall be done and executed, all such documents, deeds, matters, acts or things as that other may at any time require to give it the full benefit of this Agreement.

23. GOVERNING LAW AND JURISDICTION

23.1 This Agreement (and any dispute, controversy, proceedings or claim of whatever nature arising out of or in any way relating to this Agreement or its formation) shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law and the parties hereby irrevocably submit to the jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

24. EXECUTION AND CHANGES TO AGREEMENT

24.1 In order to be binding the pricing terms must be agreed as between the parties and inserted into the Term Sheet and then the Agreement must be printed by the user, signed by the user and sent to Betfair for final sign off at Waterfront, Hammersmith Embankment, Chancellors Road, Hammersmith, London W6 9HP. Any changes to the terms of this Agreement must be in writing.

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Previously:Is BetFair (a de facto monopoly) playing evil with traders and developers?

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UPDATE: Here’s the way to promote innovation for entry-order and analysis software packages —separate the 2 functions.

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So if you read Midas Oracle within Google Reader, here’s what you didn’t see:

• The Best Blogging Software (WordPress) + The Top 60 WordPress Plugins

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UPDATE: I have found a workaround. I have captured the HTML output of my post, and then input it in that post.

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Company: Xpree – prediction market software
Job Title: Senior Software Engineer
Description: Xpree is a leader [*] in providing software to enable corporations to tap their collective intelligence.  Using prediction market based technology , Xpree’s solution is a fun game enabling the players to bet on future events and metrics.

We are looking for an experienced Software Engineer to join our Engineering team. In this role, you will serve as our primary engineer for our core suite of products. You will be responsible for leading the development effort on our core technology platform, and working closely with our sales and business development groups to architect new products. Our core technologies include a sophisticated Prediction Market engine. This role provides a great opportunity to develop engineering and leadership skills in a fast-growing startup, in a quick-changing new market.

Responsibilities include:

- Design, develop, test and deploy core technologies, in PHP/MySQL/Java/Flash
- Work directly  with customers, leads and our sales team to design new solutions
- Manage the delivery and integration of customer projects
- Ensure the efficient and smooth running of the service
- Write tools to measure and improve the service performance

Requirements:

Personal skills:
- Self-managed, proactive, problem solving work style and the ability to work independently and in a team environment.
- Able to evaluate and learn new technologies, applications and skills quickly.
- Education: BS, MS or PhD in computer science, information systems engineering or other strongly related field (or equivalent experience).
- Good communication and team skills – must be able to articulate points clearly to team members and customers
- Experience with stock-market application development highly desired
- Must be eligible to work in the U.S.

Engineering Skills:
- 6+ years software engineering experience
- Experience in all phases of product development life cycle, including requirements definitions , development, testing, maintenance
- Strong knowledge of Object-Oriented analysis and design concepts
- Significant background in the following: application servers, web servers and distributed or load balanced systems.
- Experience with database application development (MySQL): Schema design, performance tuning – a plus.
- Languages required: PHP/Perl/Python/Ruby. Good understanding of C/C++
- Strong  knowledge of Web services, HTML/JavaScript/CSS, XML/DOM/XSLT and parsers. Flash knowledge a plus.
- Strong Unix system administration skills, ability to write shell scripts, cron jobs, etc
- Experience with tools such as CVS, Eclipse, and testing tools.

Xpree

Don’t be obsessed by defining what a blog is —it can be so many things (modern writings, or formal writings). Instead, focus your attention on the blogging software, which is more and more the premier kind of web publishing tools —as opposed to the old-fashioned HTML editors, which produce classic websites.

Matt Mullenweg points to the website of a British newspaper (Express & Star), which is entirely powered by blogging software WordPress —the same software that powers Midas Oracle.

[...] Blogs and columns are quite different, and The Marginal Revolution illustrates what can make blogs exciting. Mr. Cowen and his collaborators post to the website with astonishing regularity. Their blog posts are often brief introductions to some external source of information. The best bloggers use an informal style that make the readers feel as if they are old friends. If you read the Freakonomics blog, you will be let into the private life of one of this age’s great economists. The chatty conversational style of blogs works well with the discussions that they facilitate among readers who react to an initial blog post and then to each other.

By contrast, an op-ed column is a somewhat formal 750 word art form that usually contains some sort of clear policy punch line. I am thinking of imitating Cato’s constant repetition of Delenda Est Carthago by ending each column with the mantra “Manhattan needs more construction and rent control must end.” Good columns are self-contained, since they should be accessible to readers who have never previously heard of the author. [...]

Absurd:

1. A blog post can be structured like a formal Op-Ed column —among other possibilities.
2. It’s untrue to say that Marginal Revolution does only news aggregation. As Felix Salmon noted, their coverage of the 2007 Nobel Prize in economics was outstanding. It’s also untrue to say that Freakonomics only publishes about “the private life” of today’s economists.
3. As newspaper and magazine readers move to the Internet, there will be a convergence between old media and new media.
4. Don’t be obsessed by defining what a blog is —it can be so many things (modern writings, or formal writings). Instead, focus your attention on the blogging software, which is more and more the premier kind of web publishing tools —as opposed to the old-fashioned HTML editors, which produce classic websites. The New York Times uses WordPress to power its blogs, and so do plenty of other mainstream media companies. The reason for that is that the blogging software packages are the most advanced web publishing tools and fit very smoothly within the Web’s architecture.

I won’t read the column of mister Edward Glaeser in the New York Sun. He looks like an old schmuck to me.

Previously: Another way to measure the popularity of blogs: their number of feed subscribers

• BetFair – Markets — BetFair Lite — Betfair Mobile —
• BetFair RSS feeds - (a.k.a. BetFair Results Service) —
• BetFair Historical Data —
• BetFair Calendar —
• BetFair Extras —
• BetFair Forum —
• BetFair Radio — BetFair Live Video — BetFair TV – TV Listings —
• BetFair – Site Map – (HTML) —
• Entry point for traders: BetFair Member — My BetFair — Betfair – Know Your Customer (KYC) — Betfair Payments —
• Sub-websites: BetFair dot Info — BetFair Promo — BetFair Demo — Betfair – About Us – (including BetFair Charges) — BetFair FAQs — BetFair Help & BetFair – Help —
• BetFair Service — BetFair Content — BetFair Content Cache — BetFair Cache —
• BetFair Live Odds — BetFair Live Odds Comparison — BetFair Live Odds Comparison disclosure —
• Betfair Solutions Directory — Betfair Developers Program — Betfair Developers – Find-A-Developer —
• BetFair – Refer & Earn —
• BetFair Labs — BetFair Preview —
• BetFair by TimeForm — BetFair Racing – (Time Form) — TimeForm —
• Greyhound Racing Guide —
• BetFair Soccer Zone — BetFair American Football Zone — BetFair Basketball Zone — BetFair Baseball Zone — BetFair Tennis Zone — BetFair Rugby Zone — BetFair Cricket Zone —
• BetFair’s partner: Stats on Sport —
• The Official BetFair News Site — BetFair InPlay – (montly magazine) —
• BetFair – Australia – (Technopark, Glenorchy, Hobard, Tasmania, Australia) — 50% owned by Australia-based Packer family’s Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL). — Traders should use the Australian wallet.
• BetFair – Germany – (Germany, E.U.) — Deutsche Sportwett GmbH of Dresden (DSG) acts an intermediary between customers and Betfair in respect of the transmission of betting data and other personal data.
• Licensed in Austria and Malta. — South Africa, next.
• Inactive websites: BetFair USA — BetFair Europe — BetFair Ireland — BetFair France — BetFair Italy — BetFair Spain — BetFair .NET (unclaimed) —
• Memorandums of understanding with European, U.K. and Australian sporting bodies —
• Betfair Corporate — BetFair is owned by The Sporting Exchange Ltd. — Founded in 1999 by Andrew Black and Edward Wray, and launched in 2000. —
• BetFair is regulated by U.K.’s Gambling Commission. —
• BetFair is a member of the Independent Betting Arbitration Service. —
• BetFair — SportsBook Review rating: A+  (Scale: A+ to F-) — Bookmakers Review rating: 4.5+ / 5 —
• BetFair prediction markets: chart file extension & deep links = Chris Masse’s tips

The question is, are the currently available prediction markets web services compliant with the era of attention economics? Are we able to attract a critical mass of users, thereby surpassing the tipping point needed to turn the mechanism of markets to a typical decision support and forecasting tool?

If a picture is worth a thousand words and assuming that a website’s source code is an unbiased descriptor of its complexity, I attempted to take a look at the homepages of some popular prediction markets web services, using this ‘websites as graphs‘ tool. In the results that follow, each cycle represents an html tag.

• intrade

• hsx

• newsfutures

• thewsx.com (by consensus point)

• buzz game of yahoo, a source of inspiration to me

• my beloved inkling markets

• our approach at askmarkets.com (yet in alpha version)

P.S.: I didn’t include betfair because the graph occurred wasn’t descriptive of the true complexity of their homepage.

Cross-posted by gtziralis.com.