Monthly Archives: March 2008

The Mathematics of Gambling

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Ed Thorp - one of the pioneers of scientific betting

Here’s an interesting book: The Mathematics of Gambling (free download), written by the legendary mathematician and hedge fund manager Ed Thorp. The book is about mathematical systems and optimal betting, and encompasses various games, such as blackjack, baccarat, roulette, the wheel of fortune, horse racing and backgammon.

[ cross-posted from Reasonable Deviations ]

The Sporting Exchange, owner of BetFair and TradeFair, is being considered for inclusion in the 2008 list of The Worlds Most Valuable Digital Startups.

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No GravatarSAI 25

Wow. :-D

[I left a comment, there. Oh, and I see that WeatherBill made the list, too. :-D ]

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Is Justin Wolfers a libertarian? Probably not.
  • The information technology that caught Eliot Spitzer
  • Eric Zitzewitz’s 10 minutes of fame
  • Fun with conditional probabilities
  • Wrongly Crafted Headlines Of The Day
  • an American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds
  • Mississippi: Is it a primary or a caucus?

Chris Masse is a total and complete fake -thats what Niall OConnor seems to think.

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No GravatarNiall O’Connor

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Niall, my good Lord,

Firstly, thanks for your constant scrutiny of my web activities. I&#8217-m so honored &#8212-and you should be too, because I&#8217-m one of your feed subscribers.

As you point out, that post was not an instance of &#8220-prediction market journalism&#8221- &#8212-and was never branded as such. I have made a long-time policy on all the Midas Oracle blogs that their content is not about prediction markets only. That post was about US politics, and it consisted in a link to a story explaining why Oprah Winfrey is not able to help Barack Obama, because of demos and else. I thought my readers would like to read that story.

Niall, if you want an instance of &#8220-prediction market journalism&#8221- (not in its richest form, though, as we are just started experimenting and researching it), try that &#8212-and you&#8217-re welcome to criticize it and improve it on your own blog&#8230- if you can. (And if you want material for your next damning critique, try that.)

Your impulse to eviscerate the field of prediction markets (most of the times, with phony arguments, and at other times, with valid arguments) should be kept in check with both science and common sense &#8212-or you risk losing your credibility totally.

Best regards, my good Lord.

Chris Masse

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an e-mail because it’s death. You’re giving prosecutors all the evidence we need.
  • Is Justin Wolfers a libertarian? Probably not.
  • The information technology that caught Eliot Spitzer
  • Eric Zitzewitz’s 10 minutes of fame
  • Fun with conditional probabilities
  • Wrongly Crafted Headlines Of The Day
  • an American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds

2nd annual Tech Policy Summit

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No Gravatar2nd annual Tech Policy Summit – @ Hollywood, California, U.S.A. – 2008-03-26~28

Inkling Markets is a silver sponsor&#8230- if you can believe it.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Ratted by his bank, sex-addict New York governor Eliot Spitzer (alias “Client 9”) resigns.
  • BBC’s coverage of politics is dull like taxes, death and German sausages.
  • Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an e-mail because it’s death. You’re giving prosecutors all the evidence we need.
  • Is Justin Wolfers a libertarian? Probably not.
  • The information technology that caught Eliot Spitzer
  • Eric Zitzewitz’s 10 minutes of fame
  • Fun with conditional probabilities

I can be bombastic sometimes, but I can also be polite and respectful at other times.

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Caveat Bettor,

In my post, I said that I &#8220-respect&#8221- him &#8220-as a Wall Street professional and as a libertarian blogger.&#8221-

How more &#8220-agreeable&#8221- should I have been???&#8230-

On top of that, his name is listed here.

As for responding to him, I will do once he links back to that piece of mine &#8212-and not to an empty Blogger page.

Joyce Berg, director of the Iowa Electronic Markets, talks about how business schools are using the tool for research and teaching.

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No GravatarVideo

She says prediction markets are &#8220-substitute&#8221- for polls&#8230- or any forecasting tool.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an e-mail because it’s death. You’re giving prosecutors all the evidence we need.
  • Is Justin Wolfers a libertarian? Probably not.
  • The information technology that caught Eliot Spitzer
  • Eric Zitzewitz’s 10 minutes of fame
  • Fun with conditional probabilities
  • Wrongly Crafted Headlines Of The Day
  • an American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds

Doing The Delegate/SuperDelegate Math.

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No GravatarNew York Times – Talking Point Memo

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an e-mail because it’s death. You’re giving prosecutors all the evidence we need.
  • Is Justin Wolfers a libertarian? Probably not.
  • The information technology that caught Eliot Spitzer
  • Eric Zitzewitz’s 10 minutes of fame
  • Fun with conditional probabilities
  • Wrongly Crafted Headlines Of The Day
  • an American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds

So no matter how you cut it, Obama will almost certainly end the primaries with a pledged-delegate lead, courtesy of all those landslides in February.

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No GravatarJonathan Alter: &#8220-Hillary’s Math Problem – Forget tonight. She could win 16 straight and still lose.&#8221-

UPDATE

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Red Herring’s list of the top 100 North-American high-tech startups includes Inkling Markets —but not NewsFutures, Consensus Point, or Xpree.
  • Professor Koleman Strumpf explains the prediction markets to the countryland people.
  • Professor Koleman Strumpf tells CNN that a prediction market, by essence, can’t predict an upset.
  • Time magazine interview the 2 BetFair-Tradefair co-founders, and not a single time do they pronounce the magic words, “prediction markets”.
  • One Deep Throat told me that this VC firm might have been connected with the Irish prediction exchange, at inception.
  • BetFair Rapid = BetFair’s standalone, local, PC-based, order-entry software for prediction markets
  • Michael Moore tells the Democratic people to go Barack Obama in Pennsylvania (a two-tier state), but the polls and the prediction markets tell us that that won’t do the trick.

With 45,000 registered Irish customers, BetFair-TradeFair (not TradeSports-InTrade) is the dominant prediction exchange in Ireland.

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Link.

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.

If Warren Buffett cant figure out derivatives, can anybody?

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The $300 Trillion Time Bomb

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • The FaceBook profiles of the 2 most important men of the field of prediction markets
  • THE HUMAN GADFLY WHOSE OBJECTIONS ROBIN HANSON IS DUCKING…???…
  • Google now considers Midas Oracle as a major blog.
  • Horizon 2015: A long-term strategic perspective for the real-money prediction markets
  • Join our group at LinkedIn to have your “Prediction Markets” badge on your profile. It’s ‘chic’. (“Groups” info should be set as “visible”, in your profile options.) We are 63 this early Saturday morning —keeps growing.
  • If you have been using PayPal to fund your InTrade, TradeSports or BetFair account, please, check that horror story.
  • 48 hours after the launch of the “Prediction Markets” group at LinkedIn, we have already 52 members —both prediction market luminaries and simple people (trading the event derivatives or collecting the market-generated probabilities).