Tag Archives: match-fixing scandals

Did Patri Friedman misread BetFair?

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About the latest New York Times story on BetFair fighting sports corruption&#8230-

Patri Friedman:

Prediction markets not only make fixing easier to profit from, by creating a liquid market for insider betting, but they also make it easier to detect, by creating a centralized database of betting for analysis: […]

So. the effects are mixed, and in the end we are left with the Homer Simpson-esque paradox that prediction markets are both the cause of, and the solution to, insider trading.

Hell, no.

My remarks about his 2 statements:

#2. Sports betting (thru bookmakers and sportsbooks) existed well before the apparition of the prediction exchanges (betting exchanges) &#8212-BetFair was created in 1999 and was launched in 2000, and TradeSports, in 2002.

#1. More money is bet on sports with bookmakers than with prediction exchanges (betting exchanges).

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  1. Match fixing existed before betting.
  2. Profiting from match fixing existed before BetFair and TradeSports.
  3. BetFair is the only betting company in the world that has systematized a cooperation program with sports bodies in order to detect and fight sports corruption.

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BetFair makes the frontpage of the New York Times -as the White Knight of sports. – Note that the term prediction markets is never pronounced. – TradeSports is not mentioned, but the last paragraph of the article suggests that all Internet sports betting should be legal and regulated.

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Previously: BetFair&#8217-s Mark Davies on sports betting and the fight against corruption

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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Excellent article about enterprise prediction markets and Inkling Markets —with a good word for Robin Hanson, who invented MSR.
  • HubDub limitations
  • BetFair Developer Program use Joomla! as their blog software (and CMS).
  • Lawsuit aiming at compelling the office of the United States trade representative to produce a copy of its compensation settlement with the European Union over the United States’ withdrawal of gambling services from the General Agreement on Trade in Services.
  • Iraq War = “not necessary”, “a serious strategic blunder” — US News Media = “complicit enablers” in the manipulation of the public (“the propaganda campaign”) — George W. Bush turned away “from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”
  • JASON RUSPINI’S CROCKERY: The Brain states forcefully that they are not “event futures”, but “binary options”. Still, as soon as he premieres prediction markets on tax rates at InTrade, he calls them “tax futures” —of course.
  • Tasmania’s Prime Minister who licenced BetFair Australia departs “abruptly”.