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The richer people and countries become, the happier they get.
Wow, that’-s what I call a discovery.
Freakonomics – #2 – #3
New York Times
CNBC video
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
He bases his brilliant reasoning on “-rumors”- and total ignorance of the participation inequality law.
Another academic fella who would be better off researching his topic before blogging on something he does not master.
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
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SalesForce
My Starbucks Idea
Dell’-s IdeaStorm
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No need of trading technology to get feedback and suggestions from employees. A simple voting mechanism is more than enough.
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Previously: Enterprise prediction markets give voice to serious, technology-minded professionals who really know their vertical (engineers, analysts and contractors) —and reveal how frivolous and unpertinent most horizontal managers are.
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McKinsey: The Promise Of Prediction Markets
James Surowiecki: The premise is that under the right circumstances, the collective judgment of a large group of people will generally provide a better picture of what the future might look like than anything one expert or even a small group of experts will come up with. […-]
James Surowiecki: The Wisdom of Crowds is not an argument against experts. It is saying that you shouldn’t rely wholly on the judgment of one person or even a very small group of people. But for a crowd to be smart, it needs to satisfy certain criteria. It needs to be diverse, so that people are bringing different pieces of information to the table. It needs to be decentralized, so that no one at the top is dictating the crowd’s answer. It needs to summarize people’s opinions into one collective verdict. And the people in the crowd need to be independent, so that they pay attention mostly to their own information and don’t worry about what everyone around them thinks.
James Surowiecki: […-] One shortcoming is that a lot of people inside organizations don’t find the market mechanism intuitive or easily understood. They find it very challenging to use, which limits the pool of people who participate.
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On James Surowiecki’-s last remark, I would say that Robin Hanson’-s MSR technology (which powers most enterprise prediction exchanges but Google’-s one) brought much needed simplification to trading.
Overall, a good roundup, but the conference speakers should have mentioned Robin Hanson’-s pioneering work, and McKinsey should have invited him. He would have towered anybody and given great insights.
See Jed Christiansen for other remarks.
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As an aside, I’-d say I prefer the sketch that is supposed to represent Bo rather than the real photo. The sketch makes him look like he is subtitle, charming, smiling, humble, and modest —-quite a quantum leap. 
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Bo Cowgill – Economics at Google
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Previously: Do Google’s enterprise prediction markets work?
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
Betfair Unleashed
A new betting blog by Julian Moors (a “-famous unknown”-, as my dad used to say, when we met any stranger).
Best wishes to…- whoever “-Julian Moors”- could be.
RSS feed (whose URL is messed with, on the site): http://www.betfairunleashed.com/feed/
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Please, send me the URLs of good blogs on TradeSports, InTrade, BetFair, Betdaq, MatchBook, HedgeStreet, TradeFair, NewsFutures, HubDub, Inkling Markets, Hollywood Stock Exchange, or else.
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
Robin Hanson:
[…-] We rarely seek out advice, and when we do it is usually on much smaller decisions. […-] One reason we avoid getting advice is that it lowers our status relative to those who give advice. Of course this is also makes asking for advice a good way to flatter and supplicate. Not sure if this explains the puzzle though. But all this doesn’-t seem to bode well for fielding decision markets on the biggest organizational decisions.
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It would not make sense for political experts to spend their work days reading the political prediction markets, only. They are paid to produce poll reports and analysis, which then inform the event derivative traders. The polls and the political memos are the primary sources of information, which determine the direction of the political futures markets.
In the same vein, it would not make sense for us to be seeking advice all the time. We will learn more in our lives by making mistakes and correcting them. Maybe that’-s the reason we don’-t like seeking advice: we know we get better by discovering ideas, making good and bad decisions, and learning from all that on our own.
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
InTrade:
New Market: Amendment to UIGEA
Monday, Apr 14, 2008
We have listed a contract on an amendment to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act being passed before the end of 2010, and that Rep. Barney Frank will be a sponser of the bill. This contract can be found under Legal —- Internet Gaming.
Contract Rules:
This contract will settle (expire) at 100 ($10.00) if a bill amending the provisions of the US code implementing UIGEA will pass by 11:59:59pm ET on the date specified in the contract, AND Rep. Barney Frank is among the bill’-s sponsors
The contract will settle (expire) at 0 ($0.00) if a bill amending the provisions of the US code implementing UIGEA DOES NOT pass by 11:59:59pm ET on the date specified in the contract, or it does pass and Rep. Barney Frank is NOT among the bill’-s sponsors
Expiry will be based on the official passage of any bill, as reported by three independent and reliable media sources. For expiry purposes the Library of Congress? Thomas system will be used as the definitive source of information.
A bill will be considered “-passed”- once it has been passed by congress (House and Senate) and sent to the President for signing. What the President does with the bill will not affect expiry.
The UIGEA is the “-Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act”-.
Due to the nature of this contract please also see Contract Rule 1.7 Unforeseen Circumstances.
The Exchange reserves the right to invoke Contract Rule 1.8 (Time Protection) if deemed appropriate.
Any changes to the result after the contract has expired will not be taken into account – Exchange Rule 1.4
Please contact the exchange by emailing [email protected] if you have any questions regarding this contract before you place a trade.
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Why is Barney Frank’-s footprint so important, in that contract? Makes no sense at all to personalize the issue. John Delaney is the most illogical man I have ever met.
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
I have created a lite plugin for WordPress. It displays the best one-line mottos and one-line quotes on prediction markets, in the top right corner of the admin panel. This plugin is based on a slight modification of the “-Never Gonna Give You Up”- plugin (based on the “-Hello, Dolly”- plugin).
Here’-s a screen shot:
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As of today, I have just put the BetFair slogan in the database. Overtime, I will add quotes from our prediction market luminaries (or so they think they are). I might e-mail them to ask them to provide quotes —-or I might scout the Web for tidbits.
After my harvesting and implementing, I’-ll put up this plugin in the WordPress directory of plugins, so everybody can download it for free and get illuminated by our prediction market wisdom.
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
Follow-Up: Google AppEngine – A Second Look
UPDATE: O’-Reilly Radar
UPDATE: Praxy
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Google App Engine
[Competitor: Amazon AWS]
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Previously: Launch a prediction market startup for free thanks to Google App Engine.
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