Tag Archives: prediction market journalism

Question to Caveat Bettor

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Cav,

In light of Robin Hanson&#8217-s latest blah blah blah&#8230-

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Do you really think that a prediction market journalist (or blogger) should disclose his/her event derivative holdings (as you do systematically)?&#8230-

Just a question that crossed my mind.

I was in favor of it before I read Hanson. Now, I have doubts&#8230- (Hanson, be damned. :-D )

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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • POLLS VERSUS PREDICTION MARKETS: Justin Wolfers retorts to Bob Erikson.
  • Based on market data from a tiny prediction exchange (IEM, which is much smaller than InTrade-TradeSports or BetFair), a couple of researchers claim that prediction markets do not have superior predictive power. — And, adding salt to injury, they call our prediction market luminaries (Robin Hanson, Justin Wolfers, etc.)… “naive”.
  • Do the media avoid reporting the bad omens that is sometimes reflected in the prediction markets?
  • BetFair’s brand-new bet matching logic
  • Quizz Of The Day — Monday Morning Edition
  • BEWARE THE BLOGGING ACADEMICS: They are not blogging to inform us —they are blogging to promote themselves.
  • Did Jason Ruspini and friends cash in on huge moves in prices of oil, natural gas, coal and other parts of the energy patch, this semester?

Prediction markets = the future of journalism -said, from day one, Emile Servan-Schreiber of NewsFutures. Emile, if you have balls, lets do it -all together.

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My yesterday&#8217-s post about the Obama&#8211-Clinton prediction markets was the most popular Midas Oracle story of that Monday. Hummmm&#8230- No idea why&#8230- I was not helped by Google Search or by an external blogger. Sounds like our Midas Oracle web readers and feed subscribers liked it &#8230- for some reasons I have yet to discover fully.

Anyway.

  1. I&#8217-m minding a grand &#8220-Midas Oracle Project&#8220-, and you can join it.
  2. Emile believes that prediction markets represent &#8220-the future of journalism&#8220-. I am trying to mind, specifically, what form could take the &#8220-prediction market journalism&#8220-.
  3. The idea is this: We need to put the charts of prediction markets inside news stories, and those stories should incorporate the meaning of the probability fluctuations (a la Justin Wolfers).
  4. If we stay in our armchairs, nothing will happen, because most of the old-school journalists and bloggers don&#8217-t think much of the prediction markets. The prediction market infiltration in the Mediasphere and the Blogosphere is like a weak stream, right now. I don&#8217-t have the patience to wait until &#8220-2020&#8243-.
  5. I don&#8217-t think that much will come out of the prediction exchanges. The BetFair blog and the InTrade newsletter are 2 pieces of crap &#8212-they compete in content quality with the Mongolian edition of the News Of The World.
  6. If you look at the evolution of the media, you see that the old-school, dead-tree publications are slowly dying, and are replaced by professional blog networks &#8212-look especially in the IT industry, with TechCrunch, etc. What you have is writers who publish only for the Web, and who fill a vertical niche. (And, the Washington Post is now publishing content from&#8230- guess who.)
  7. Needless to say, prediction market journalism is costly. Now, go directly to point #8, because that&#8217-s where the beef is.
  8. Yes, I have &#8220-heard of Christmas&#8221- :-D , and I understand Robin Hanson&#8217-s reasoning. [*] That&#8217-s where my funding idea lays. The idea is to think hard about who &#8220-might actually be willing to pay&#8221-. I am thinking of a class or organizations that &#8220-might actually be willing to pay&#8221-, provided 2 things. Number one, that I operate a certain twist on my form of prediction market journalism. Number two, that this project becomes the project of many prediction market people, or, better, of the whole prediction market industry &#8212-not just Chris Masse&#8217-s one. Those 2 things are essential.
  9. So, Emile, wanna join the &#8220-Midas Oracle Project&#8220-?

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[*] APPENDIX:

The &#8220-high IQ&#8221- Robin Hanson:

Chris, you’ve heard of Christmas I presume. Many people circulate lists of items they might like for Christmas. If you did, would you circulate a list of million franc/dollar gift ideas for people to give you? Would you consider that list more honest/logical than a list of gifts of roughly the price you think others might actually be willing to pay?

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HubDubs Nigel Eccles is the man.

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Nigel Eccles
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  1. He didn&#8217-t sign Bob&#8217-s petitions. :-D
  2. He is experienced.
  3. He is well versed into prediction markets and journalism.
  4. Just after HubDub&#8217-s inception, he realized they fucked up their chart widgets. Five months later, they managed to correct that birth defect.
  5. He is a guy humble enough to ask for pointers and feedback &#8212-and he does listen up (see the point #4).
  6. He is quite friendly.
  7. HubDub is already a success.
  8. HubDub serves a purpose for people: it mixes news and prediction markets in a novel way, which should give ideas to InTrade, TradeSports, BetFair, TradeFair, NewsFutures, etc.
  9. In some kind of small ways, Nigel Eccles is pioneering &#8220-the future of journalism&#8220-.
  10. If newspaper and magazine websites were to be interested in prediction markets, HubDub should be in the short list.

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Three things that Scottish guy hasn&#8217-t computed yet, though:

  1. You have to look down into the small prints, towards the bottom of their frontpage, to get the info that they have a blog. (((They master well mass e-mailing, on the other hand.)))
  2. He hasn&#8217-t cracked open prediction market journalism (a la Justin Wolfers), yet &#8212-but I&#8217-m confident that is coming.
  3. He looks like a baby-face schmuck on that pic. :-D

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75,000 people turned out to hear Barack Obama at Waterfront Park, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.

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Record Obama Crowd, the Size of a City

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Oregon&#8217-s Democratic Primary

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InTrade

Price for Oregon Democratic Primary. May 20th at intrade.com

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BetFair

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Kentucky&#8217-s Democratic Primary

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InTrade

Price for Kentucky Democratic Primary. May 20th at intrade.com

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BetFair

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NewsFutures

Some delegates from FL or MI will be seated at the Democratic Convention.

© NewsFutures

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First look at individual states for the 2008 US presidential elections

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2008 US Presidential Election Winner – Individual

Price for 2008 Presidential Election Winner (Individual) at intrade.com

Price for 2008 Presidential Election Winner (Individual) at intrade.com

Price for 2008 Presidential Election Winner (Individual) at intrade.com

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2008 US Presidential Elections

Source: Dynamic, compound prediction market charts from InTrade

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Next US President

Next US President

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Winning Party

Winning Party

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Female President?

Female President?

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Democratic Candidate

Democratic Candidate

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Republican Candidate

Republican Candidate

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Source: BetFair Politics Zone

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Barack Obama to win the Democratic nomination


© NewsFutures

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Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination


© NewsFutures

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Next US President Will Be Democratic.


© NewsFutures

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Next US President Will Be Republican.


© NewsFutures

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Explainer On Prediction Markets

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Prediction markets produce dynamic, objective probabilistic predictions on the outcomes of future events by aggregating disparate pieces of information that traders bring when they agree on prices. Prediction markets are meta forecasting tools that feed on the advanced indicators (i.e., the primary sources of information). Garbage in, garbage out&#8230- Intelligence in, intelligence out&#8230-

A prediction market is a market for a contract that yields payments based on the outcome of a partially uncertain future event, such as an election. A contract pays $100 only if candidate X wins the election, and $0 otherwise. When the market price of an X contract is $60, the prediction market believes that candidate X has a 60% chance of winning the election. The price of this event derivative can be interpreted as the objective probability of the future outcome (i.e., its most statistically accurate forecast). A 60% probability means that, in a series of events each with a 60% probability, then 6 times out of 10, the favored outcome will occur- and 4 times out of 10, the unfavored outcome will occur.

Each prediction exchange organizes its own set of real-money and/or play-money markets, using either a CDA or a MSR mechanism.

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More Info:

– The Best Resources On Prediction Markets = The Best External Web Links + The Best Midas Oracle Posts

– Prediction Market Science

– The Midas Oracle Explainers On Prediction Markets

– All The Midas Oracle Explainers On Prediction Markets

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The managing editor of CNBC.com asks readers whether they should report what the (play-money and real-money) prediction markets say. He is not that hot on the idea -to say the least. Which is why we should develop a blog network on prediction markets -to get rid of the journalists filter and report

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But the &#8220-gambling&#8221- nature puts some journalists off.

Is it just providing information &#8230- or promoting betting action?

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See, that&#8217-s exactly why I want to develop my &#8220-Midas Oracle Project&#8221-.

Classic journalists and classic bloggers will never treat prediction markets with the maximum sophistication they deserve.

Only brand-new blog networks that will specialize in prediction markets will do a good job.

I&#8217-ll provide more details soon.

I hope that some of you will join this project. It should be a collective endeavor.

E-mail me to join.

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The Midas Oracle Project

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Einstein

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  1. the richer and most technically sophisticated form of prediction market journalism
  2. a very popular form of prediction market journalism

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Sounds like a too lofty dual goal- your feeling is right. My idea is to find an adequation between this (too) lofty dual goal and the class of organizations that could fund that. I have had a crazy idea, which I submitted to MG and some others, and it might not be that crazy after all. In the coming days, I&#8217-ll reach out to more Midas Oracle people.

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Besides informing you of my intention, the purpose of this post is to create the &#8220-Midas Oracle Project&#8221- category and tag. Stay tuned&#8230-

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Prediction market journalism cant be practiced by the mainstream media. What we need is a revolution.

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The eyes-wide-opened Alexis Perrier notes that many &#8220-mainstream media&#8221- do talk about political prediction markets, these days.

But that&#8217-s a superficial coverage &#8212-basically, explaining to morons (surfacing from their Afghan cave) what InTrade does. The real thing is prediction market journalism &#8212-and to this day, only Justin Wolfers does practice it (once a month).

To get real PMJ done, we will need brand-new digital publications and brand-new people &#8212-just like the newly created tech blogs (like TechCrunch) are employing a new batch of writers, using new tools and new methods.

If you look at the 87 feeds I subscribe to, I get my IT news from professional blogs &#8212-not from mainstream media.

Prediction market journalism has a future only if professional blogs adopting this approach are to be created.

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InTrade is not a bookie, and its traders are not gamblers.

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– Economic forecasters do pay attention to InTrade.

– Most InTrade traders are US citizens, or, at least, US residents &#8212-not &#8220-foreigners&#8221-.

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I could go on. This post is riddled with inaccuracies.

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It is the kind of stuff that explains InTrade to morons surfacing from their Afghan cave &#8212-as I told you 5 minutes ago. I&#8217-m fed up with that kind of superficial journalism. We all know what InTrade is. Let&#8217-s move on to real prediction market journalism.

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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Prediction Markets
  • Meet professor Justin Wolfers.
  • Become “friend” with me on Google E-Mail so as to share feed items with me within Google Reader.
  • Nigel Eccles’ flawed “vision” about HubDub shows that he hasn’t any.
  • How does InTrade deal with insider trading?
  • Modern Life
  • “The Beacon” is an excellent blog published by The Independent Institute.

Prediction market journalism should not be practiced by… the prediction market people… but by the vertical experts -with the help of the prediction market people.

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Last Wednesday, I published a post about the Obama-Clinton, with charts from the main prediction exchanges (InTrade, BetFair and NewsFutures). Today, I looked into the web stats reports. The post ranks #37 [*] in the list of the most popular pieces published since last Wednesday. In other words, it was an un-popular story. Nobody gives the first fig about Chris Masse writing on US politics.

Political prediction markets should be a tool used by trusted political experts reporting on the horse races and other issues. It&#8217-s in that perspective that I&#8217-m going to mind the future of Midas Oracle.

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[*] Surprisingly, Koleman Strumpf&#8217-s story ranks #5. Not that I&#8217-m jealous. :-D

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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • A second look at HedgeStreet’s comment to the CFTC about “event markets”
  • Since YooPick opened their door, Midas Oracle has been getting, daily, 2 or 3 dozens referrals from FaceBook.
  • US presidential hopeful John McCain hates the Midas Oracle bloggers.
  • If you have tried to contact Chris Masse thru the Midas Oracle Contact Form, I’m terribly sorry to inform you that your message was not delivered to the recipient.
  • THE CFTC’s SECRET AGENDA —UNVEILED.
  • “Over a ten-year period commencing on January 1, 2008, and ending on December 31, 2017, the S & P 500 will outperform a portfolio of funds of hedge funds, when performance is measured on a basis net of fees, costs and expenses.”
  • Meet professor Thomas W. Malone (on the right), from the MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence.