Who needs pundits track records when we have prediction markets?

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Emile Servan-Schreiber:

Mr. Kristof, if you want to keep yourself accountable and track the success of your predictions in the long run and in real-time, why not simply participate in a prediction market such as NewsFutures?

You could suggest that particular stocks be listed in relation to particular new stories and their possible outcomes. Then, as you invest in particular outcomes, your prediction portfolio would either grow or shrink, providing us all with an objective measure of your foresight. You could feature on your blog a widget displaying in real-time the &#8220-net worth&#8221- of your various predictions.

Other advantages of this approach would include:

Forcing a detailed specification of possible outcomes-
Having you compete directly (bet against) the general public-
Measuring how much your columns can influence price movements for various predictions-
Leading by example to show other pundits how it&#8217-s done.

There are various types of prediction markets out there, so you can pick the venue where you&#8217-d feel most comfortable:

– Play-money only, like NewsFutures– [or HubDub :-D ]
– Real betting (illegal) like Intrade-
– Charity-driven, like Bet2give.

If the idea intrigues you, please contact me at [email protected] and we can get you started right away!

Emile Servan-Schreiber
CEO, NewsFutures

Excellent.

Readers, do click on the link (which will bring you to the New York Times), and do click on &#8220-Recommended&#8221- under Emile&#8217-s comment &#8212-so that his pitch for the prediction markets will be more visible to all the people reading the comments there. Thanks. Appreciated.

??? charity-driven prediction markets OR social issue prediction markets ???

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BOTH.

But, contrary to what Lucy Berholtz thinks, the former will go further than the latter &#8212-in my view.

My thoughts about the Financial Times article on Bet2Give:

  1. I have said from day one that it&#8217-s a great idea.
  2. This is a &#8220-unique&#8221- concept&#8230- until InTrade-TradeSports, Betdaq and BetFair-TradeSports decide to create a charity wallet for their traders. Complex, sure, but that might come, one day.
  3. I have the highest esteem for Lucy Berholtz, generally, but I&#8217-m with Emile Servan-Schreiber on the idea that Bet2Give is not a simple marketing trick. All the money but a small percentage goes to the traders&#8217- selected foundations. If all US betting were organized that way, that would mean a huge windfall for US foundations.
  4. Tyler Cowen makes sense.
  5. As for LongBets, it&#8217-s a failed experiment in my judgment. Too many one-sided &#8220-predictions&#8221- for only a fistful of agreed &#8220-bets&#8221-.

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Bet2Give on CNBC: High impacting media infiltration

No GravatarCNBC – The Closing Bell – Maria Bartiromo interviewed NewsFutures&#8217- Norris Clark about Bet2Give and about NewsFutures&#8217- enterprise prediction markets. It was great. Great.

The VideoThe Video

If Emile Servan-Schreiber or Norris Clark put the video on YouTube, I will embed it in a blog post on Midas Oracle. And if they send me the transcript, I will publish it. It was great. The visuals were great &#8212-like slides. Very good. We&#8217-re making progress, folks.

Some remarks: I didn&#8217-t like that Norris Clark defined Bet2Give as a &#8220-prediction market&#8220-, as opposed to a prediction exchange. And I object about talking about a &#8220-stock market of future events&#8221-. It&#8217-s a derivative exchange for future events, rather.

Bet2Give on CNBC

UPDATE: NewsFutures CEO Emile Servan-Schreiber comments&#8230-

This &#8220-Sinning &amp- Winning&#8221- tag line below the screen is very strange, since Bet2Give is explicitly about neither. It goes to show how deeply the association between betting and sinning is rooted in the American psyche. By that measure, we&#8217-ve got a looooong way to go still before widespread acceptance of PMs [= prediction markets], not to mention legalization.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Michael Gerber – The E-Myth Revisited
  • Changes to TradeFair prediction markets
  • Eric Zitzewitz, laughing all the way to the bank
  • Michael Bloomberg: I’m not running… but, beware, I am a King maker.
  • Meet the 3 Iowa Electronic Markets co-founders: George Neumann, Forrest Nelson and Robert Forsythe.
  • When Markets Beat The Polls – Scientific American Magazine
  • GLOBAL COOLING