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UPDATE:
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PREVIOUSLY: BetFair impose new “Premium Charges”… Do BetFair gag the critics, too?
UPDATE: They announce a Q&-A.
#1 -above The Guardian… and far above BetFair.
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Tag Archives: Google
CHIC TOILET: Bo Cowgill, like all the Google employees in California, has the option to wash his delicate rear area, wash his precious front area, dry, perform something called wand cleaning, and so much more.
Why the BetFair model is partially obsolete
I like BetFair and the BetFair people very much. I was the only blogger to talk up the BetFair starting price system and the BetFair brand-new bet-matching logic. But the other face of the coin is that 2 aspects of their model are rotten to the core.
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BetFair was created in 1999 and started off in 2000. Since that time, 2 major things arrived on the world scene. Number one, we have seen the emergence of the prediction market approach. Number two, the Web has taken our lives, and Google has become the dominant Internet search engine. Here are how these 2 major trends are affecting BetFair negatively.
- Decimal Odds (a.k.a. Digital Odds). – The prediction market approach means that we attack the public with the news and their associated probabilistic predictions, expressed in percentages, where high prices mean high probabilities of happening. BetFair, at the contrary, approach the public with a betting universe and an arcane vocabulary (”-backing”- and “-laying”-) where low prices mean high probabilities of happening. That is totally counter intuitive.
- Non-Indexable Prediction Market Webpages. – Like it or not, Google is now the world’-s #1 media. We “-google”- anything, first thing in the morning. None of the BetFair prediction market webpages can be indexed by Google and the other Internet search engines. That means that BetFair is missing out, in my estimation, on hundreds of thousands of Google visitors each year. Those Google visitors will favor other prediction exchanges (e.g., HubDub) whose prediction market webpages are indexed naturally by the Internet search engines.
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The British, who drive on the wrong side of the road, don’-t have the 2 most important keys of the future.
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Why the HubDub model is superior to the InTrade, TradeSports, BetFair, HSX and NewsFuturess ones
Because HubDub is the only prediction exchange whose prediction market webpages are indexed highly by Google.
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That query leads to that prediction market webpage.
That query leads to that prediction market webpage.
That query leads to that prediction market webpage.
That query leads to that prediction market webpage.
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In the 4 cases above, you can spot HubDub in the top 10 Google results.
I speculate that HubDub is going to harvest hundreds of thousands of Google visits in the next 12 months.
Which is probably higher that the BetFair blog will get from Google —-and there is a low conversion rate (from the BetFair blog to the BetFair prediction market webpages), probably. With the HubDub model, the conversion rate is always 100%.
Nigel Eccles, this time, I am impressed.
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
- Testing the new HubDub chart widgets
- Why InTrade CEO John Delaney, TradeSports acting CEO John Delaney, BetFair CEO David Yu, HubDub CEO Nigel Eccles and NewsFutures CEO Emile Servan-Schreiber should supplicate me to develop my prediction market journalism project
- The John Edwards Non-Affair: How on Earth did they get this photo, what does this photo prove, and which prediction markets should we trade on to profit from this alledged scandal?
- Nick Davis’ effort to clean up British horse racing
- Free Money On The Table At InTrade
- Google Web Search shows that I am the only blogger in the world to talk about “prediction market journalism”.
- Marginal Revolution vs. Freakonomics vs. Overcoming Bias vs. Midas Oracle
Subsidizing real-money prediction markets and real-money conditional prediction markets
Should Google subsidize the Lunar X Prize contract on InTrade?
Our good friend Bo Cowgill might have already re-created those prediction markets on Google’-s internal prediction exchange at a marginal cost of zero US dollar. No need for him to “-subsidize”- external prediction markets.
[As an appendix, I precise that I am in favor of opening the enterprise prediction markets to external traders, for some questions.]
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Subsidizing prediction markets is an old Robin Hanson idea that carries quite a heavy price tag.
Conditional prediction markets is a great idea on the paper. Many people (e.g., Mike Linksvayer) like the idea. However, here is what the uncritical Robin Hanson fanboys blogging on Overcoming Whatever won’-t tell you:
- The first problem is that nobody trades those things.
- The second problem is that subsidizing those conditional prediction markets costs an arm and a leg.
- The third problem is that no major news media outlet has ever quoted the prediction market prices / probabilities generated by those conditional prediction markets.
Peter McCluskey could have rent a French mistress (or a French gigolo) for a full year with all the money he is spending on Robin Hanson’-s idea. Or vaccinated the whole African continent against Malaria. See Peter’-s comment, at the middle of the webpage, here.
Philanthropy and prediction markets are not mixing well —-yet.
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How to optimize your prediction market blog (e.g., Midas Oracle, Caveat Bettor) or prediction exchange website (e.g., InTrade, TradeSports, BetFair, NewsFutures, HubDub) for Google Web Search -and all the other search engines out there.
Interview of Google’-s Matt Cutts by USA Today.
The basic SEO tips.
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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).
VIDEO – Bo Cowgill on Googles enterprise prediction markets – OReilly Money:Tech
Using Prediction Markets to Track Information Flows: Evidence from Google – (PDF file – PDF file) – by Bo Cowgill, Justin Wolfers, and Eric Zitwewitz – 2008-01-06
Blip.TV
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I already published this video. The reason I do it again is that I found out a hidden function in WordPress to increase the dimensions of the embedded video player. I think it is useful in this particular case because Bo shows us some slides, in this video. So, my hope is that those slides will be more readable that way. Let’-s try that. I am pressing “-publish”-…- let’-s see.
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Our previous blog post on the Google paper
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
- The CFTC is going to close the comments in 9 days. We have 9 days left to convince the CFTC to accept FOR-PROFIT prediction exchanges (e.g., InTrade USA or BetFair USA), and counter the puritan and sterile petition organized by the American Enterprise Institute (which has on its payroll Paul Wolfowitz, the bright masterminder of the Iraq war).
- Forrest Nelson valids Emile Servan-Schreiber.
- Averaging One’s Guesses
- Americans love rankings, but Americans hate to be assessed subjectively.
- A libertarian view on the Internet betting and gambling industry in the United States of America
- The CFTC is going to close the comments in 10 days. We have 10 days left to convince the CFTC to accept FOR-PROFIT prediction exchanges (e.g., InTrade USA or BetFair USA), and counter the puritan and sterile petition organized by the American Enterprise Institute (which has on its payroll Paul Wolfowitz, the bright masterminder of the Iraq war).
- The Numbers Guy
The best presentations from the worlds best conference on enterprise prediction markets -ever
Awesome slides in bold.
Brought to you by Koleman Strumpf (circa November 2007):
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Henry Berg, Microsoft <-slides>-
Discussant: Robin Hanson (George Mason Department of Economics) <-slides>-
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Christina Ann LaComb, GE (The Imagination Market- abstract is free, text is gated) <-slides>-
Discussant: Marco Ottaviani (Kellogg School of Management, Management and Strategy) <-slides>-
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Dawn Keller, Best Buy (Best Buy’s TAGTRADE Market) <-slides>-
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Bo Cowgill, Google (Putting Crowd Wisdom to Work) <-slides>-
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Jim Lavoie, Co-Founder and CEO, Rite-Solutions <-slides>-
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David Perry, Co-Founder and President, Consensus Point <-slides>-
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Mat Fogarty, Founder and CEO, Xpree Inc <-slides>-
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Tom W. Bell, Chapman University School of Law <-slides>-
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Bo Cowgills boss = Hal Varian
UPDATE: Bo tells us: “-Actually, that’s my desk right behind him, in the top picture.”-
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Using Prediction Markets to Track Information Flows: Evidence from Google – (PDF file – PDF file) – by Bo Cowgill, Justin Wolfers, and Eric Zitwewitz – 2008-01-06
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Blip.TV –
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
- POLLS VERSUS PREDICTION MARKETS: Justin Wolfers retorts to Bob Erikson.
- Based on market data from a tiny prediction exchange (IEM, which is much smaller than InTrade-TradeSports or BetFair), a couple of researchers claim that prediction markets do not have superior predictive power. — And, adding salt to injury, they call our prediction market luminaries (Robin Hanson, Justin Wolfers, etc.)… “naive”.
- Do the media avoid reporting the bad omens that is sometimes reflected in the prediction markets?
- BetFair’s brand-new bet matching logic
- Quizz Of The Day — Monday Morning Edition
- BEWARE THE BLOGGING ACADEMICS: They are not blogging to inform us —they are blogging to promote themselves.
- Did Jason Ruspini and friends cash in on huge moves in prices of oil, natural gas, coal and other parts of the energy patch, this semester?
Google Search thinks that Midas Oracle has more value than the New York Times and Freakonomics when the topic is Googles enterprise prediction markets. How do you like that, Bo? Its cool, no?
Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
- Excellent article about enterprise prediction markets and Inkling Markets —with a good word for Robin Hanson, who invented MSR.
- HubDub limitations
- BetFair Developer Program use Joomla! as their blog software (and CMS).
- Lawsuit aiming at compelling the office of the United States trade representative to produce a copy of its compensation settlement with the European Union over the United States’ withdrawal of gambling services from the General Agreement on Trade in Services.
- Iraq War = “not necessary”, “a serious strategic blunder” — US News Media = “complicit enablers” in the manipulation of the public (“the propaganda campaign”) — George W. Bush turned away “from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”
- JASON RUSPINI’S CROCKERY: The Brain states forcefully that they are not “event futures”, but “binary options”. Still, as soon as he premieres prediction markets on tax rates at InTrade, he calls them “tax futures” —of course.
- Tasmania’s Prime Minister who licenced BetFair Australia departs “abruptly”.