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To explain you a little bit, please first spot Tom Bell’s post, as seen from within the WordPress system. You’ll spot that Prof Tom has not inserted any link into the “InTrade” trademark. (You’ll see an underlined red-wave line, but that’s not a link. That’s a spelling corrector marking.)

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And, now, surprise, surprise, on the actual published post, you see that the plugin has automatically inserted the link into “InTrade”.

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You might think that I’m just playing with a pointless new toy, here… Think again. Many people in the field of prediction markets are currently thinking about using this kind of technology to mash together news stories and prediction market data (chart links or prices/probabilities).

Anyway.

The purpose of this present test is to see whether the WordPress plugin interferes with link texts. [And the ultimate goal is to investigate whether deep links to prediction markets and market-generated probabilities could be inserted automatically into stories.]

• The test is a success if, below, you see the BetFair / InTrade image, only. [Put your mouse cursor 2 seconds on that image, and you should see the link and the link test. The link is to the BetFair site and the link text is "InTrade". (Yes, I know, it is twisted, but that's the purpose of this test. To see whether the plugin adds a link under the "InTrade" labelling of the image.)]
• The test is a failure if, just below the image, there is an additional, messy line, mixing text and link(s), in a way I didn’t intend.
• 3… 2… 1… PUBLISH!!!!

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UPDATE: Success. On a related note, see above that the WordPress plugin has automatically inserted links into BetFair and InTrade —but not when I wrote these two words surrounded with quotes, like this: “InTrade” and “BetFair”. Logical.

UPDATE #2: The hyperlinks are also visible when the post is read from within a web-based or PC-based feed reader. Pleasant surprise. Had I bet, I would have bet against it. I’m so pleasantly surprised. Now, I’m going to test a competitive plugin…

UPDATE #3. The competitive plugin I have tested on the other blog is a lemon. So I keep “Cross Linker”, for now.

Monday, November 19, 2007

HD Crash
Ack! After a wonderfully productive week of writing, and before I’d backed up everything, my computer’s harddrive crashed. I’m now logging on from an old laptop. Fortunately, I’d been uploading PDFs to this site as I go. At worst, then, I’ll have to resort to OCR or brute typing to recreate the Word docs I’ve lost. And if things work out very well, the pros on the Geek Squad will be able to recover my lost data. I’ve been slowed, but hardly stopped.

posted by Tom W. Bell at 8:44 PM 0 Comments

We need to have two twin hard drives on our PC. It’s about two hard drives —one mirroring the other one. So if one crashes, then you still have the other one. Probability that the two crash at the same time is as thin as the chance that Consensus Point’s David Perry will answer one of my e-mails —that is, one out of one billion.

RAID technology

RAID @ DELL Computers

I was thinking about the constitutionality of prediction markets when reading Gary McDowell’s “The War For the Constitution”:

Warren Burger summed it up for many when he described Mr. Bork as simply the best qualified nominee in the former chief justice’s own professional lifetime — a span of years that included the appointments of such judicial luminaries as Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter. Such praise was no empty exaggeration.

A former Yale law professor and U.S. Solicitor General, Mr. Bork was, at the time of his nomination, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. When he was a circuit court judge, Mr. Bork’s opinions not only were never overruled on appeal, but on several occasions his dissents were adopted by the Supreme Court as its majority view.

In an earlier day such an appointment would have been celebrated as adding breadth, depth and luster to the highest bench. Instead, the nominee faced a mauling by those who set out not only to destroy him personally but to discredit all that he stood for as a jurist.

It was immediately clear that the unprecedented vote of 58-42 against his confirmation reflected something far more historic and fundamental than an ordinary partisan standoff. The confrontation in fact had been one of the most cataclysmic and divisive events in American domestic politics during the second half of the 20th century. The reason was that Mr. Bork’s opponents succeeded in making the fight over his nomination into a contest over the future of the Constitution.

* * *

Time has shown that Mr. Bork’s theory of constitutional interpretation remains very much alive; he was defeated but his central idea was never discredited. That theory of interpretation and its implicit belief in restrained judging should continue to guide anyone who believes that the inherent arbitrariness of government by judiciary is not the same thing as the rule of law.

One thing that is more scary than irrational voters is whimsical judges. And I know a few, personally.

*Off the top of my head, free speech and peaceful assembly seem to enable our rights to prediction markets.

UPDATE: Chris Masse linked prediction markets to the right to privacy here last year. I’m not sure that is as relevant as speech and assembly–the whole point being prices from prediction markets is a public good (even as I concede that the anonymity of traders improves prices). But what do I know–I’m not an attorney or judge, just someone who knows a lot of them.

UPDATE: Tom Bell, on the Constitution’s call for progress in science and arts.

UPDATE: Alvin Roth, on the repugnance of markets (including prediction markets in terror). This reframes my point–constitutional repugnance is good, fleeting cultural repugnance is irrelevant. Just as slavery markets were not repugnant yesterday (but unconstitutional), so prediction markets are repugnant today (but constitutional)!

Cross posted from Caveat Bettor.

Founder Nicolas Jenkins has the latest update: Now We Know Why That Search Warrant Came So Easy:

We just found out yesterday that — surprise! — the Commission wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the judge when it applied for the warrant. In its answer to our complaint, the Commission admitted that, when it made its application to Judge Paula Casey, it did not mention that we had filed suit against it the day before. In the answer they referred to it as an “alleged suit,” but it’s hard to see what was “alleged” about it. I was at the Commission’s office when our counsel handed Deputy Commissioner Sharon Reese a copy of the complaint, and we notified her again later in the day by e-mail that we had filed it.

Also recently recently posted: Now Louisiana Wants Us — For Seventy Cents.

Jenkins said that he has heard that the state of Louisiana has filed arrest warrants for him and two of his employees, and is seeking extradition to Louisiana. As of the posting the specific charges were unknown, but he speculates the allegations concern the state’s law against “gambling by computer.” Jenkins comments in response that the Louisiana law won’t apply to Betcha for the same reason that the Washington law doesn’t: the Betcha service doesn’t meet the legal requirements for gambling.

As it turns out, Jenkins reports that in the 30 days the betting platform was in operation, it took exactly 4 bets from a single Louisiana resident. Revenue after Betcha’s promotional credits? 70 cents.

The Louisiana Gambling by Computer law is available from the website of the state legislature.

UPDATES from the Betcha blog:

• The Betcha Three Is Out of Jail — Barely
• More Reason to Think the WSGC Is Behind Louisiana’s Push For the Betcha Three

PREVIOUSLY on Midas Oracle:

• Nick Jenkins welcomes you to Betcha.com, America’s first person-to-person betting site posted by Chris F. Masse.
• Meet the cocky Nick Jenkins of Betcha by Chris F. Masse.
• Betcha.com’s Hack of Anti-Internet Gaming Laws by Tom Bell.
• The BetZip/Betcha plot thickens by Chris F. Masse.
• IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG. NICK JENKINS’ BETCHA.COM GETS BUSTED THREE WEEKS AFTER LAUNCH by Chris F. Masse.
• Betcha.com: On Steamroller Justice and Reports of our Demise by Nick Jenkins.
• REPORTS OF THE BETCHA.COM DEMISE HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED cross posted from the Betcha blog.
• Justice, Washington State Gambling Commission Style by Nick Jenkins.

Question to Jason Ruspini: Should some US-based prediction exchange(s) adopt the Betcha legal trick?

UPDATE: Tom W. Bell…

David: I spoke of “the” chink in Becha.com’s legal armor–not “the only” one. Perhaps it suffers from many potential liabilities. I suppose we all do, alas. Regardless, I was sticking to one particular issue.

Via David Pennock, who is both fascinated and skeptical.

Click here to get all the previous Midas Oracle blog posts on Betcha, including Tom Bell’s one. Heu, sorry, I meant, Tom W. Bell.

Previous: Nick Jenkins welcomes you to Betcha.com, America’s first person-to-person betting site.

[...] BetZip claims to have a patent on its business method. I’ve not looked into that claim, nor the patent itself, but it remains possible that BetZip would win an injunction on anyone [including a prediction exchange] trying to mimic its legal hack.

- Jason Ruspini has a comment:

That general idea has been around for years and many have passed on it, not least because the subscription fee can be characterized as “consideration”. The Betcha idea is more original, but both ways will have trouble scaling… not to deny the possibility of a profitable niche.

Great idea! A PM should do this, right now, taking care to create real money incentives and not encourage risky bets. I’ve thought of the possibility of a no-downside-risk PM that only shared advertising revenue with players proportionately to their performance, but the money involved would be too little to be meaningful, or so I guessed. However, if BetZip is right[,] the money could be made “real” by permitting arbitrarily large subscription fees.

On the Betcha.com front, just a follow-up note. Its founders (Nick Jenkins) has 4 or 5 counter-arguments to Tom Bell’s take, but won’t share them publicly (i.e., with his competitors). “He’ll share them with the judge”, replied the ironic Deep Throat. We wish Nick Jenkins the very best.

At the BetZip Player’s Club, one low monthly fee of $19.99* is all you will ever spend to compete for thousands of dollars every day – up to $20,000 daily and over $100,000 every month – with no other costs, wagers, deposits or hidden fees of any kind!

[...] the only legal U.S. poker site that pays cash daily.

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Previous: Betcha.com’s Hack of Anti-Internet Gaming Laws – by Tom Bell

The chink in Betcha.com’s legal armor thus lies in how authorities regard the Honor Rating. If they think it constitutes an intangible asset, one lost by customers who don’t pay off their bets, then Betcha.com might lose its gamble against the law. I’d regret that, naturally; we all lose when the law prevents us from peacefully disposing of our property as we alone see fit. But I have to say that, were I betting on legal hacks, I’d favor BetZip.com’s over Betcha.com’s.

ABOUT BETCHA: I wish Nick Jenkins the very best.

BetBug (which billed itself as the “Kazaa of betting”, and thus thought that it was above the law):

Dear BetBug User,
It is with deep regret that BetBug has voluntarily chosen to stop publishing its peer-to-peer software and will stop populating the software’s wagering menu with events. The effect will be that users will no longer be able to use the software to find others with whom they can make personal and direct bets. As always, to process a withdrawal or other financial transaction, please login to your account at www.payp2p.com click on “Pay Out Money” and select the withdrawal method of your choice. Alternatively you can login to your BetBug application, click on “My Wallet” and select “Withdraw”. While we continue to believe that BetBug’s true peer-to-peer software does abide by all major Federal gaming laws in the United States, the current legal environment seriously deters our chances of success. We hope to be able to reintroduce the software to the public at a later date.
BetBug Management

Previous: Nick Jenkins welcomes you to Betcha.com, America’s first person-to-person betting site.

UPDATE: Betcha.com’s Hack of Anti-Internet Gaming Laws – by law professor Tom Bell