Polls Vs. Prediction Markets

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Asia Times:

[&#8230-] Outperforming Taiwan&#8217-s polls shouldn&#8217-t be hard. They&#8217-re notoriously bad as a forecast of election outcomes. In late 2006, for example, many media polls underrated the pro-independence party&#8217-s support – a recurring problem. Taiwan&#8217-s prediction markets did a much better job of estimating vote shares (the island&#8217-s two markets both called the Kaohsiung mayoral election wrong, but that contest was a statistical dead heat). &#8220-Most opinion polls usually have 20 to 30% &#8216-no answer&#8217-,&#8221- said Lin Jih-wen, director of the Center for Prediction Markets. &#8220-We don&#8217-t have missing data or a sampling bias, that&#8217-s our strength.&#8221-

The market has now picked the strong likelihood of victory by the China-friendly candidate Ma Ying-jeou. Time will tell if it&#8217-s got the right guy. But even if it doesn&#8217-t, the markets&#8217- enthusiastic reception shows how Asia – like the US and Europe – has embraced such markets as a powerful fortune-telling tool.

A &#8220-powerful fortune-telling tool&#8221-? Jesus. :-D

&#8220-Outperforming&#8221- the Taiwanese advanced indicators which they are feeding on? Humm&#8230- :-D

[Mike Giberson will write a comment, below, reminding me of Prof Koleman Strumpf&#8217-s work (PDF file) showing that the historical prediction markets were accurate enough, even though the scientific polls were not invented yet. Yes, I know of that, Mike, but I still don&#8217-t get whether it&#8217-s a puzzle or a mystery. :-D &#8230- Do you?]

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Business Risks & Prediction Markets
  • Brand-new BetFair bet-matching logic proves to be very controversial with some event derivative traders.
  • Jimmy Wales accused of editing Wikipedia for donations.
  • What the prediction market experts said on Predictify
  • Are you a MSR addict like Mike Giberson? Have nothing to do this week-end? Wanna trade on a play-money prediction exchange instead of watching cable TV? Wanna win an i-Phone?
  • The secret Google document that Bo Cowgill doesn’t want you to see
  • BetFair’s brand-new matching-bet logic is endorsed by the Chairman of the Midas Oracle Advisory Board.

The Dumb Agents page on prediction markets

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No GravatarGood idea, but they should put the most liquid prediction markets (InTrade, for North-America issues) ahead of the others &#8212-and they should publish BetFair&#8217-s charts, too.

See Midas Oracle&#8217-s page on prediction markets.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Jason Ruspini was an imprudent and cocky predictor, but, in the end, he is a honest man.
  • Polls Vs. Prediction Markets
  • Prediction exchanges let traders buy and sell contracts on the likelihood of future events. Contracts are structured so the prices can be read as a percent likelihood of an event occurring.
  • What Jed Christiansen did say about Predictify
  • Russell Andersson, Chief Operating Officer: Third Ave Beach
  • Based on the analysis of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents seized by US forces after the invasion and thousands of hours of interrogations of former officials in Saddam’s government now in US custody, there is no evidence Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda.
  • Robin Hanson is breaking the Internet.

Why blogs on prediction markets are lively and interesting to read, while conferences on prediction markets are as dull as German sausages and suck like GoldFish.

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No GravatarGoldFish

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Signal Vs. Noise:

Web Conferences: Where&#8217-s the outrage?

Over the past 7 years I’ve probably been to almost every major web industry conference at least once. I can’t remember the last time I saw a good honest disagreeable debate on stage. There’s too much “yeah, totally” and “I definitely agree” and “Absolutely” going around.

Panels of friends

Part of why this happens is that the web design industry as a whole is pretty chummy when it gets together. That’s not a bad thing, but it amplifies the echo chamber. Another reason why this happens is that when people put panels together they usually put their friends on them. Friends can disagree, but it doesn’t happen in public very often. Finally, most of the panels I’ve seen aren’t assembled to present three different points of view — they are assembled to present the same point of view in three different ways.

Conferences are meek, Blogs are strong

There’s plenty of debates going on over the web. Take the recent Calcanis vs. Hansson round. And then the recent Norman vs. 37signals exchange. And then there are the savvy provocateurs such as Michael Arrington that suggested 37signals drove a company to the deadpool because we encourage people charge for their products. We didn’t respond on the web, but it would be fun in person. These back and forths are wonderful. They are passionate, interesting, and heated. People are forced to sharpen their position and everyone learns a thing or two. They expose important discussions and spawn new ones. They also generate a lot of traffic for those involved. So why does the web have all the good debates? Where are the web conferences pitting two opposing viewpoints on stage? Hearing two passionate points is a great way to reevaluate what you believe. Where’s the web conference called Web Fight Night? I see a big market opportunity. [&#8230-]

Conference speakers should be more bombastic. :-D

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GoldFishes

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Eliot Spitzer has simply demonstrated once again that those who rise to the top of organizations are very often the most demented, conflicted individuals in any group.
  • Business Risks & Prediction Markets
  • Brand-new BetFair bet-matching logic proves to be very controversial with some event derivative traders.
  • Jimmy Wales accused of editing Wikipedia for donations.
  • What the prediction market experts said on Predictify
  • Are you a MSR addict like Mike Giberson? Have nothing to do this week-end? Wanna trade on a play-money prediction exchange instead of watching cable TV? Wanna win an i-Phone?
  • The secret Google document that Bo Cowgill doesn’t want you to see

Why the BetFair blog shoud move from MovableType to WordPress – Edition #3,961

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Matt Mullenweg has a post out comparing the 2 platforms and touting WordPress.

[&#8230-] WordPress is 100% open source, GPL. All plugins in the official directory are GPL or compatible, 100% open source. [&#8230-] WordPress MU is 100% open source, GPL, and if you wanted you could take it and build your own hosted platform like WordPress.com, like edublogs.org has with over 100,000 blogs. [&#8230-]

I have read with fascination all the comments there, on the original MT blog post, and else. I have spotted many webmasters explaining why and how they moved from MovableType to WordPress &#8212-but I have spotted none explaining why and how they moved from WordPress to MovableType.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Jason Ruspini was an imprudent and cocky predictor, but, in the end, he is a honest man.
  • Polls Vs. Prediction Markets
  • Prediction exchanges let traders buy and sell contracts on the likelihood of future events. Contracts are structured so the prices can be read as a percent likelihood of an event occurring.
  • What Jed Christiansen did say about Predictify
  • Russell Andersson, Chief Operating Officer: Third Ave Beach
  • Based on the analysis of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents seized by US forces after the invasion and thousands of hours of interrogations of former officials in Saddam’s government now in US custody, there is no evidence Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda.
  • Robin Hanson is breaking the Internet.

Prostitution is inevitable, so we might as well legalize and regulate it.

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That&#8217-s what many libertarians think, right? But Nicholas Kristof has a piece in the New York Times that is well informed and balanced&#8230- and that could change the mind of some libertarians&#8230-

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&#8220-Kristen&#8221- (outed in today&#8217-s NYT), photographed in a French port&#8230- (Saint Tropez, it is said, but I&#8217-m not so sure&#8230- St-Trop, as I know it, is a fishermen&#8217-s village&#8230-)

Kristen

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Kristen

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More on the Eliot Spitzer scandal from Slate&#8230-

Inside the Emperors Club V.I.P.

Suspicious Activity Report filed by Mr. Spitzer’s bank

Eliot Spitzer&#8217-s bio

BetFair changes the logic of its bet matching.

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Starting Prices aside, trading at BetFair becomes a little more complicated.

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BetFair:

Changes to Betfair&#8217-s bet matching logic

Betfair Customer Services 11 Mar 17:32

Betfair is trialling an improved bet matching process. This work is ongoing and will affect a limited but growing number of markets, although horse racing markets are at present not affected. As there has been speculation about what this change involves we wanted to explain what is happening.

Previously we would only attempt to match customer bet requests against unmatched bets of the opposing bet type (backs vs. lays) on the same runner in the same market. That part of the bet matching process remains unchanged. Where there is no opposing bet to match on the same selection, rather than just leaving a customer&#8217-s bet request unmatched, we will now attempt to match the bet request against unmatched bets on other runners.

For example in addition to matching back bets against lay bets we can from time to time match customer back bet requests across all selections, or customer lay bet requests across all selections. The effect of this change is that customer bet requests will stand a greater chance of being matched.

There will be circumstances where a customer bet request could be matched by either process. In this case priority will always be given to matching in the traditional way, back vs. lay, and the process for matching those bets is identical to the way this was done previously. Where a market is turned in-play and bets are subject to an in-play delay this also remains unaltered. Bets will only become available to be matched once the in-play delay has expired: backs vs. lays first followed by matching across selections where no other match was possible.

Previously if a customer requested a bet that we could not match against an opposing bet (back vs. lay) then that bet could only be matched at the price requested. Because we have not changed the existing matching process of back bets vs. lay bets that remains the case, although we expect to introduce price improvement where possible across selections too in future.

For customers with questions on how this change will affect them we will run a Q&amp-A session on the forum [*] at a date to be announced shortly.

[*] Quite needed.

David Pennocks European bosses have a screw loose.

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Yahoo Relocating European HQ From UK To Switzerland.

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I can&#8217-t believe that this is happening.

Switzerland is the place to locate&#8230- a bank&#8230- &#8212-not an Internet startup/giant. This is crazy. Switzerland is a dull, bleak, and boring country. It&#8217-s not a vibrant working place for Internet firm executives. The idiot who took that decision will destroy Yahoo! Europe.

More info&#8230-

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Yahoo! UK &amp- Ireland

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Business Risks & Prediction Markets
  • Brand-new BetFair bet-matching logic proves to be very controversial with some event derivative traders.
  • Jimmy Wales accused of editing Wikipedia for donations.
  • What the prediction market experts said on Predictify
  • Are you a MSR addict like Mike Giberson? Have nothing to do this week-end? Wanna trade on a play-money prediction exchange instead of watching cable TV? Wanna win an i-Phone?
  • The secret Google document that Bo Cowgill doesn’t want you to see
  • BetFair’s brand-new matching-bet logic is endorsed by the Chairman of the Midas Oracle Advisory Board.

Justin Wolfers is a wise man.

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Zubin Jelveh highlights this piece of wisdom (which I didn&#8217-t quote in my previous post):

It seems to me that the truly important violations of the public trust are when the power we give our government officials is sold, rather than what government officials choose to buy. Yet our political scandals are too often dominated by private mistakes, rather than public misdeeds. This is why I&#8217-m more worried about what the SEC is selling than what Eliot Spitzer has been buying.

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Psstt&#8230- CNBC will have a special Eliot Spitzer piece starting at 8:00 PM EST, tonite (Wednesday, March 12), I&#8217-ve just heard.

Psstt&#8230- And &#8220-Page 6&#8243- has the pic of that woman, that &#8220-Kristen&#8221-&#8230-

Kristen

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Room 871:

Room 871

Why the BetFair blog should move from MovableType to WordPress

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No GravatarEvery reason in the world is listed here: Notes on a Massive WordPress Migration.

And take a look at the comments on this post, they almost all defend WordPress.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Bzzzzzzzzz…
  • Bzzzzzzzzz…
  • “No offense, but I think Radley Balko is the most valuable blogger in America right now.”
  • Are you a better predictor than John McCain?
  • What does climate scientist James Annan think of InTrade’s global warming prediction markets?
  • Inkling Markets, one year later
  • One trader’s view on BetFair’s new bet-matching logic