Midas Oracle .ORG » John Delaney

Libertarian journalist John Stossel explained InTrade’s prediction markets, and forgot BetFair.

Chris F. Masse — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:30:43 +0000

ABC News, in 2008:

Midas Oracle = About + Archives + Authors + Best + Contact + Information Technology + Links + Probabilistic Predictions + Post-Mortem Predictions + Prediction Exchanges + Prediction Software + Publish Your Post + How To Publish

The health-care debacle on InTrade

Chris F. Masse — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:53:34 +0000

[The Intrade event derivative traders] “are getting more and more alienated by the actions and judgments of Intrade’s management.”

Is InTrade mis-managed? Many people are starting to think so, apparently. Still think that Chris Masse of Midas Oracle is too much critical of InTrade, my dear Chuck?

One hundred poll respondents lied to InTrade.

Chris F. Masse — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:28:41 +0000

3. What would you likely use as an alternative if InTrade.com were no longer available?

I probably wouldn’t use an alternative. –> 65%

It is a lie. They would use BetFair USA instead —or another service. Come on.

And Chris Masse of Midas Oracle is not a “symbiotic detractor”, John. Blame yourself for the occasional slamming in the world’s #1 prediction market blog. I am a fair guy. All the slams published here are deserved. Take it graciously —as the other ones do.

InTrade’s John Delaney did not ditch Wiser Than The Crowd.

Chris F. Masse — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:54:45 +0000

The InTrade CEO reads avidly Midas Oracle each early morning, and issued a correction to my previous post. He ditched “Wiser Than The Crowd”… temporarily, he insists. Nice to hear that. Midas Oracle will never be linked to by InTrade, of course. We are too independently minded for John Delaney’s taste —and we are proud of that. We have enough of prestigious sites that link to us —thank you very much. And a high PageRank that Ben Shannon can only dream of.

Why I unsubscribed to John Delaney (InTrade) and Jed Christiansen at Twitter

Chris F. Masse — Fri, 29 May 2009 09:19:25 +0000

I try to “follow” as many prediction market people on Twitter as I can (click on “following”), but I had to unfollow these 2 persons because:

- I like Jed a lot, but he often tweets about his private life. I wouldn’t mind, but the problem is that I follow 70 people, and if they all start tweeting about what they had for breakfast, then it becomes Hell on Earth to use Twitter.

- John Delaney is sometimes interesting, but he re-tweets the InTrade RSS feed, which I am already a subscriber to in Google Reader. That is infernal to see 2 times the same info. To add salt to injury, the InTrade RSS feed always re-publishes a second time their feed items. I don’t know why they do that. It is really annoying. So if you subscribe to John Delaney’s Twitter feed, who re-tweets the InTrade feed, then you get the same thing 4 times in a row. It is the craziest thing I have ever seen on the Web. Plus, John Delaney now uses a script to follow every person who follows him —a standard tactic used by the Twitter spammers. It is a bad thing to do.

Addendum:

- Felix Salmon and Tim O’Reilly make a good usage of Twitter. And Felix Salmon is smart enough to poll his people about his Twitter usage.

Scrutinizing InTrade’s financial statement for 2008 — Part II

Chris F. Masse — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:06:46 +0000

Jesse Livermore (a pseudo):

More Intrade Financials

I paid 7.50 euros to see Intrade’s full filings from 2008 at www.cro.ie. I’m not going to post them publicly, because they contain the names and addresses of everyone who owns shares in the company. (Fun fact: John Delaney’s address does not have a number, it has a name.)

A few new pieces of information:

-How can Intrade keep losing money? Like any other startup, by issuing new shares. Intrade issued $2 million in new stock last year. About 320,000 shares were issued, on a base of 1.2 million shares, which would value Intrade at about $10 million, the same as my ballpark estimate yesterday.

-I was correct about the valuation of the Tangible Fixed Assets. Intrade valued anything left over from Trade Exchange Network at $0, and depreciated computer and software equipment by 33% of the purchase price per year.

-The report does not break down expenses and revenues in great detail. It tells total employee compensation, and interest income, but does not spell out commission revenue or other expenses.

-Trade commissions are (properly) recognized only when they are paid. Trading fees are paid when trades are made; expiry fees are paid when contracts expire. Intrade likely recognized a good deal of revenue on election day, which at least mitigated their losses.

I don’t view this with the shock of some on the Intrade forums. These numbers seem entirely reasonable to me. Intrade has grown substantially comparing 2004 to 2008, and even in the absence of legislative change, will probably be profitable in 2012. I’m not going to short the contracts on whether Intrade will still be in business. Even in the unlikely event that Intrade were to close, there is no reason to worry about customer deposits.

Part I

The InTrade numbers

Next: Public prediction market operator InTrade raises US$3.5m.

Blame the messy CEO —don’t blame the media.

Chris F. Masse — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:55:40 +0000

Nothing is more untrue than that.

I do report things —bad things, and good things (like the NKM scandal, which “StrangeLove” alluded to).

I give my opinions —and I link to or re-publish other people’s opinions.

If the coverage of InTrade has not always been positive, it is due to the *illegal* nature of their business and the many marketing and P.R. *mistakes* that (former accountant) John Delaney made —you might remember that he acknowledged some of those.

As for BetFair, and you might remember that I criticized them in the harshest terms at times, the truth is that they are the most polite, correct, professional and ethical people in the worldwide prediction market industry.

InTrade CEO John Delaney: “Midas Oracle is welcome to publish our financials. I am glad that bombastic gadfly did it.”

Chris F. Masse — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:43:24 +0000

The InTrade documents:

I have obscured the personal addresses of these 2 persons:

InTrade recorded a loss after taxation of $799,253 in 2007–2008.

Chris F. Masse — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:07:37 +0000

What is the future of InTrade?

Comments are open.

I have obscured the personal addresses of these 2 persons:

InTrade’s financials: Where is the note #12?

Chris F. Masse — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:59:16 +0000

Our commenter:

We would need to see note 12 to understand what happened to the Share Premium account. It appears that the December 31, 2007 balance of the P & L Account was applied against the Share Premium account. However, at September 30, 2008, the Share Premium is 1,063,614 higher than it should be (6,651,502 – 5,715,540 = 935,962 vs. 1,999,576). Note 12 might explain why.

2007

2008

-
There might be a slight discrepancy between the accounts and the balance sheet.

I have obscured the personal addresses of these 2 persons:

Midas Oracle .ORG » John Delaney

Libertarian journalist John Stossel explained InTrade’s prediction markets, and forgot BetFair.

The health-care debacle on InTrade

One hundred poll respondents lied to InTrade.

InTrade’s John Delaney did *not* ditch Wiser Than The Crowd.

Why I unsubscribed to John Delaney (InTrade) and Jed Christiansen at Twitter

Scrutinizing InTrade’s financial statement for 2008 — Part II

Blame the messy CEO —don’t blame the media.

InTrade CEO John Delaney: “Midas Oracle is welcome to publish our financials. I am glad that bombastic gadfly did it.”

InTrade recorded a loss after taxation of $799,253 in 2007–2008.

InTrade’s financials: Where is the note #12?

InTrade’s John Delaney did not ditch Wiser Than The Crowd.