TRAFIGURA: The Guardian was served with a gagging order forbidding it from reporting parliamentary business.

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&#8220-The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found. The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament.&#8221-

&#8220-The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.&#8221-

UPDATE:

The Trafigura fiasco tears up the textbook.

Gordon Brown calls for reform of super-injunctions.

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One un-hired job candidate and one HammerSmith employee tell all about BetFair Maltas combo market maker (trading algorithm + human market makers) operating on the multiples.

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Graham “Sharp” Minds, in a comment on Midas Oracle:

I am one of the people who Ed Murray has referred to in this blog. I was interviewed at Hammersmith by Betfair during the summer. For the time being I am going to concentrate on what Betfair has finally admitted from the past, present and future plans that betfair outlined to me.

&#8220-Loki Lab Rat 18 Mar 08:20 I can answer this one quickly. There is a trading team based in Malta which manages the risk around the multiples product. They have software which tells them what the risk is associated with a potential result is and suggests what hedge bets can be placed to mitigate that risk at current exchange prices. They then place the hedge bets to manage the risk. They place the bets using the same software as everyone else using the site and respecting any in-play delays.&#8220-

There is 3 objectives for the &#8220-Maltese&#8221- trading team, &#8220-Maltese&#8221- is in quotation marks because betfair were unclear to me about who and what parts of the trading team were still going to be based in London and those who were going to be in Malta.


i) Hedging
ii) Trading
iii) Arbing

All 3 amount to the same thing, Betfair playing their own markets.

On each of the 3 points

i) Hedging, this is what Betfair has admitted to and has been doing to from day 1 of the multiples. Betfair admit to taking the other side of the bet for the mutiples, so I guess like any other bookmaker it is only natural they &#8220-hedge&#8221- their bets to reduce potential liabilites.

However unlike traditional bookmakers, who will lay off a multiple when one runs up, the bets taken by Betfair multiples are placed directly back into the exchanges before they &#8220-run-up&#8221-.

This is one of the reasons behind the mutliple groups, they look at the back/lays placed on the mutiples for the first match and then the bets are placed into the exchange to reduce the liabilites and to cream off the difference between the price they have offered and that offered on the exchanges.

ii) Trading, this is what betfair are attempting at the moment, albeit unsuccessfully from what I last heard. Betfair have admitted they change their hedging positions, this by definition is trading. however the most serious aspect of their trading, is the in-running trading.

If betfair have accepted liabilities X &amp- Y for events A and B being the outcome of a match, then why would liability X for A or Y for B be no longer acceptable during a match unless there was an advantage to be gained by trading betfair’s position in-running?

Afterall, on betfair’s exchange with a 100% book, whether that 100% book was an efficient or inefficient, the net expectation of betfairs position would remain the same if they were trading hedging positions blindly to &#8220-balance&#8221- the liabilities.

In the instance of an inefficient market, if betfair were blindly trading (i.e. not using odds compilers, traders or other means to form an opinion on the market) in-running then there would be no net gain as betfair would be equally likely to be on the efficient and inefficient prices and the differences would average out.

iii) Arbing, this is betfairs ultimate goal for the multiples. If this new cross-matching bot is being called a superbot, then this will be the hyperbot. A bot which will perfectly arb the mutiple bets into the exchange so betfair can make money from it’s mutiples operation risk free.

But if betfair are denying that they never form an opinion to a market and place bets accordingly and they have no plans to do this in the future either. Then why are they covertly recruiting academics from universities, odds compilers from the bookmakers and recognised traders from their own customer base?

If betfair are playing their own markets, then what is to stop them abusing the position they have by owning the exchange. Having worked for several bookmakers in the past, I have yet to know one who would voluntarily wait 5 secs to place their &#8220-hedges&#8221-, wait in the queue like everyone else, make trading decisions according to the flow of money or not use their &#8220-warm sources&#8221- wisely.

Via Dave, Loki Lab Rat:

I can answer this one quickly. There is a trading team based in Malta which manages the risk around the multiples product. They have software which tells them what the risk is associated with a potential result is and suggests what hedge bets can be placed to mitigate that risk at current exchange prices. They then place the hedge bets to manage the risk. They place the bets using the same software as everyone else using the site and respecting any in-play delays. The line about &#8216-opportunities in-play&#8217- refers to the match situation and is nothing to do with beating the delay.

For example, when just about every favourite won their international Euro 2008 qualifiers in early June last year (known as &#8216-Black Wednesday&#8217- in some quarters), Moldova scored late-ish against Greece to square the match. The multiples team heavily laid the draw as the match drew to a close as it was a much better potential result than a Greek win. That meant that when Greece did score with the last kick of the game, our losses were mitigated to some extent by the hedge bets placed in-running.

The multiples product is run under Betfair&#8217-s Maltese bookmaking license and is regulated by the LGA there. Therefore the team has to be based in Malta. The operation is an arms-length operation &#8211- there is no special access to any functionality or data from the exchange.

Loki Lab Rat:

frog2, It is best I leave questions on cross matching for the Q &amp- A. I am not really that close to the project. I just thought I would answer the one on the multiples team to prevent any speculation getting out of hand.

Rab Bibater in a comment on Midas Oracle:

It is also pertinent that this team operates under Maltese jurisdiction- which of course puts it outside the scrutiny of the UK’s Gambling Commission!

However, I think there is also another issue that needs to be explored, and that is the general efficacy of a policy that allows Betfair’s own employees to trade on their exchange. Many people within Betfair have access to historical trading data unavailable to the broader betting public- such as what stables are backed and when- the significance of early money for particular horses etc- some are also able to access the betting records of individual persons. I specifically remember a comment made on Betfair radio concerning the boys in the office and how they had mopped up all the value regarding a particular horse from a gambling yard. The problem for Betfair, and one that is not likely to go away, is that nobody is sure any longer as to who it is they are actually trading against.

Is WeatherBill doing well, really??

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WeatherBill does so well that TechCrunch has just published two &#8211-yes, two&#8211- blog posts on it, today (Wednesday, October 17, 2007). Here&#8217-s the first one, which basically says that two VCs have just poured $12,5 million dollars in it. Good for them. The second blog post, written by another TechCrunch writer, and which has been quickly taken off their website, basically said the same, but with this twist:

CEO David Friedberg says that WeatherBill has hundreds of customers and faces such high demand that it needs to bring more people aboard to increase capacity. The site has launched not only in the US but Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and Norway as well.

So, should we believe the content of this now-deleted blog post? Or was it deleted because this information is not accurate? Mystery. ValleyWag should investigate. :-D

APPENDIX: Here&#8217-s the deleted TechCrunch blog post on WeatherBill. (The second item that follows is the first blog post that was published by TechCrunch.)

Deleted TechCrunch WeatherBill

&#8212-

UPDATE: VentureBeat on WeatherBill&#8230-

VentureBeat on WeatherBill

UPDATE: Mark Hendrickson of TechCrunch&#8230-

Our apologies for misleading everyone into thinking Weatherbill enables people to gamble the weather as if it were a casino game. The service is meant rather to provide insurance for companies that could be aversely affected by fluctuations in the weather.

Weatherbill’s CEO informs us that only companies with a net worth of at least $1 million can participate due to regulations of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He also says that Weatherbill is the first service to ever provide access to hedges on the weather (online or otherwise).

Also, for anyone wondering why we had two posts up about this story, that’s because Duncan and I reported on it independently by accident. I guess you could say we both find the weather very interesting.

HISTORY: Prediction Markets Timeline

For an updated version of this document, see the &#8220-paged&#8221- Prediction Markets Timeline.

CHRONOLOGY &amp- HISTORY: Prediction Markets Timeline

Feel free to post a comment or contact me, and I&#8217-ll correct or add a factoid. Thanks.

#1. Historical Prediction Markets

According to Paul Rhode and Koleman Strumpf, prediction markets almost never got it wrong forecasting the 19 presidential elections that took place from 1868 to 1940. (PDF)

#2. The three Iowa Electronic Markets founders (Robert Forsythe, Forrest Nelson and George Neumann)

&#8220-We ran our first market in 1988. We didn’t have regulatory approval at that point so we were restricted solely to the University of Iowa community. We had under 200 traders and under $5,000.&#8221- &#8211- [Robert Forsythe – PDF file]

– [CFTC’s no-action letter to the IEM – 1992 – PDF file]

– [CFTC’s no-action letter to the IEM – 1993 – PDF file]

#3. Robin Hanson

a) Robin Hanson set up and ran a rudimentary prediction exchange (a market board, PPT file) in January 24, 1989. The outcome to predict was the name of the winner of a Poker party.

b) Until evidence of the contrary, it seems that Robin Hanson was the first to set up and run a corporate prediction exchange &#8212-at Xanadu, Inc., in April 1989. See: A 1990 Corporate Prediction Market + Anonymity is important for employees trading on internal prediction markets.

Robin Hanson: &#8220-I started a market at Xanadu on cold fusion in April 1989. In May 1990, I started a market there on whether their product would be delivered before Deng died.&#8221-

c) Until evidence of the contrary, it seems that Robin Hanson was the first to set up and run a bunch of imagination-based prediction markets. See the Murder Mystery Evening described by Barney Pell &#8212-circa June 8, 1989.

d) Until evidence of the contrary, it seems that Robin Hanson was the first to write a paper on prediction markets created and existing primarily because of the information in their prices (as opposed to markets created primarily for speculation and hedging).

Could Gambling Save Science? &#8211- (Reply to Comments) &#8211- by Robin Hanson &#8211- 1990-07-00
Market-Based Foresight: a Proposal &#8211- by Robin Hanson &#8211- 1990-10-30
Idea Futures: Encouraging an Honest Consensus &#8211- (PDF) &#8211- by Robin Hanson &#8211- 1992-11-00

e) Robin Hanson godfathered the Foresight Exchange (created in 1994) and NewsFutures (created in 2000).

f) Robin Hanson invented the concepts of decision markets (PDF) and decision-aid markets.

g) Robin Hanson invented a new market design (for the 2000-2003&#8242-s Policy Analysis Market), the Market Scoring Rules, a mix between CDA and Scoring Rules &#8212-now in use for most enterprise prediction markets and public, play-money prediction exchanges. Note that MSR is mainly used in a one-dimension version, but many researchers are interested in its combinatorial version.

#4. Other Pioneering Public Prediction Exchanges (Betting Exchanges, Event Derivative Exchanges) and Inventors/Innovators/Entrepreneurs

a) The Foresight Exchange was founded on September 22, 1994 by Ken Kittlitz, Sean Morgan, Mark James, Greg James, David McFadzean and Duane Hewitt. The Foresight Exchange is a play-money prediction exchange (betting exchange) managed by an open group of volunteers. It pioneered user-created and user-managed, play-money prediction markets. Any person can join the Foresight Exchange and interact with the rest of the Web-based organization. An independent judge (independent from the owner of the claim) should be appointed among the volunteers. [Thus, it’s not “DYI prediction markets”.]

b) The Hollywood Stock Exchange was founded on April 12, 1996, by Max Keiser and Michael Burns. See the patent for the Virtual Specialist. For more info, see: Is HSX the “longest continuously operating prediction market”??? &#8211- REDUX

c) BetFair was founded in 1999 by Andrew Black and Edward Wray, and was launched in England in June 2000. As of today, BetFair is the world&#8217-s biggest prediction exchange (betting exchange, event derivative exchange).

d) NewsFutures was founded in March 2000 and launched in September 2000 in France and in April 2001 in the US by Emile Servan-Shreiber and Maurice Balick. See: NewsFutures Timeline. NewsFutures was the first exchange to let people buy or sell contracts for each side of a binary-outcome event. The advantage of this design is that it avoids the need for &#8220-shorting&#8221-, a notion that tends to confuse novice traders. NewsFutures later extend that approach to deal with n-ary outcome events while implementing automatic arbitrage.

e) TradeSports was launched in Ireland in 2002 by John Delaney. InTrade was later purchased and became a non-sports prediction exchange (betting exchange). As of today, InTrade is the biggest betting exchange on the North-American market &#8212-where betting exchanges are still illegal. As for TradeSports, it closed at the end of 2008, alas.

#5. The Policy Analysis Market Brouhaha

a) Robin Hanson was the main economist behind the 2000–2003 US DoD&#8217-s DARPA&#8217-s IAO&#8217-s FutureMAP–Policy Analysis Market project. (For this project, Robin Hanson invented a new market design, the Market Scoring Rules.) On July 28, 2003, two Democratic US Senators called for the termination of PAM, the the big media gave airtime to their arguments, and the US DOD quickly ended the IAO&#8217-s FutureMAP program.

b) The second branch of the 2000–2003 US DoD&#8217-s DARPA&#8217-s IAO&#8217-s FutureMAP program was handled by the Iowa Electronic Markets and was intended to predict the SARS pandemic. (This project later gave birth to IEM&#8217-s Influenza Prediction Market.)

#6. James Surowiecki&#8217-s The Wisdom Of Crowds

a) James Surowiecki&#8217-s book, The Wisdom Of Crowds, was published in 2004.

b) Impact of The Wisdom Of Crowds.

#7. Recent Public Prediction Exchanges (Betting Exchanges, Event Derivative Exchanges) and Inventors/Innovators/Entrepreneurs

a) US-based and US-regulated HedgeStreet was launched in 2004 by John Nafeh, Russell Andersson, and Ursula Burger. A designated contract market (DCM) and a registered derivatives clearing organization (DCO), HedgeStreet is subject to regulatory oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In November 2006, IG Group bought HedgeStreet for $6 million.

b) Inkling Markets was launched in March 2006 and co-pioneered (with CrowdIQ, which later bellied up) the concept of DIY, play-money prediction markets.

c) In September 2006, TradeSports-InTrade was the first prediction exchange (betting exchange, event futures exchange) to apply Chris Masse&#8217-s concept of X Groups. See: TradeSports-InTrade prediction markets on Bush approval ratings.

d) HubDub was launched in early 2008 and is the second most popular play-money prediction exchange, behind HSX.

#8. Enterprise Prediction Markets

a) Until evidence of the contrary, it seems that Robin Hanson was the first to set up and run a corporate prediction exchange &#8212-at Xanadu, Inc., in April 1989. See: A 1990 Corporate Prediction Market + Anonymity is important for employees trading on internal prediction markets.

b) In the 1996&#8211-1999 period, HP ran a series of internal prediction markets to forecast the sales of its printers.

c) Eli Lilly sponsored 10 public, industry-level prediction markets in April 2003 (on the NewsFutures prediction exchange).

d) Eli Lilly began using internal prediction markets in February 2004 (powered by NewsFutures).

e) Google&#8216-s Bo Cowgill published about their use of internal prediction markets in October 2005.

f) Since then, many companies selling software services for enterprise prediction markets have been created.

#9. Disputes Between Traders And Exchanges

a) The scandal of the North Korean Missile prediction market that erupted in July 2006 is, as of today, the biggest scandal that rocked the field of prediction markets.

UKs super casino: Manchester rejoices; Blackpool is disapointed.

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Blackpool Today:

&#8220-Blackpool had the best case, proved it and still lost&#8221- is a sentiment shared by a town in shock at the decision to award the lucrative prize to Manchester. Our North West neighbours were, said the CAP, the best bet on all counts &#8211- for helping assist regeneration of a poor district and as the social impact test bed for Las Vegas-style glitz and gambling. Not so, say MPs, council leaders and Gazette readers who today made an 11th hour appeal to Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell to think again ahead of the crucial Parliamentary vote on the matter.

The City of Paris, too, had the best case in bidding for hosting the 2012 Olympics &#8212-it lost to London. The error (or &#8220-bias&#8221-?) is to think that small, secretive committees only judge on merits.

Previous: 17 New British Casinos &#8211- BetFair predicted Blackpool (62,5%).

&#8211-&gt- Beware event derivatives whose expiry is based on the decision of a group of people&#8230- you know close to nothing about. (((Psstt&#8230- I will talk to you, later on, about&#8230- event derivatives whose expiry is based on the decision of a group of people&#8230- you know everything about. Ha! ha! ha! I&#8217-m serious. It&#8217-s the high end of my concept of X Groups.)))

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Email Interview: Ken Kittlitz

My responses to a set of questions Chris Masse recently emailed to me:

Chris. F. Masse: Ken Kittlitz, you co-founded the Foresight Exchange (it went by the name &#8220-Idea Futures&#8221- at the time) in 1994. Would you mind telling me two words on your co-founders? Which ones brought the most into the project? Are you still in touch with them? Do you know what they have become?

Ken Kittlitz: David McFadzean got the ball rolling by bringing one of Robin Hanson&#8217-s early prediction market papers to our weekly discussion group. Sean Morgan realized that the WWW, then still in its infancy, would be a great way to create such a market. Mark James, along with Sean, did most of the coding of the initial prototype. Duane Hewitt and myself did most of the work on a paper and presentation that our group presented at a conference the following year.

I&#8217-m still in touch only with David- he&#8217-s currently a software architect at QuIC, a company that creates financial risk analysis/mitigation products.

CFM: What was the spirit of your group at that time (in 1994). Did &#8220-entrepreneurship&#8221- mean something for you, guys? Did you envision a commercial venture, or was it just collegians&#8217- play?

KK: Our weekly discussion group was known as the &#8220-BS Group&#8221- (Biological Simulation, in case you&#8217-re wondering), so I&#8217-d have to admit that &#8220-collegians&#8217- play&#8221- is a fair summary. In 1995, we did try to turn it into a commercial venture, which quickly revealed our lack of business experience. We were all techies of one sort or another, and techies often struggle in the business realm.

CFM: Would you mind telling me two words on GMU professor Robin Hanson? How would you introduce him to some of our readers (I pity them) who have never heard of him?

KK: Robin&#8217-s one of the smartest people I&#8217-ve ever met and, unlike many smart people, not over-specialized. He has deep understanding of a number of fields: artificial intelligence, physics, economics and likely a few others I&#8217-m not aware of. He has a habit of coming up with fascinating, controversial ideas, prediction markets being just one example.

CFM: You co-founded this play-money prediction exchange (Foresight Exchange) in 1994. In 1999/2000, Andrew Black and Edward Wray created and launched BetFair in England. BetFair became one of the most successful British start-ups and its two co-founders are now sitting pretty on a small fortune. In hindsight, don&#8217-t you think that you should have moved to the U.K. and incorporated the Foresight Exchange there, using real money?

KK: In hindsight, I think that I should have done a massively-leveraged short sale of NASDAQ stocks in March, 2000. :-)

The best way forward is always hard to identify, even with tools like prediction markets&#8230-

When we tried to commercialize the original &#8220-Idea Futures&#8221-, starting a real-money market offshore was certainly something we considered &#8212- though at that point, somewhere in the Caribbean seemed the likely venue. Even back then, it seemed likely that prediction markets would be considered a form of gambling, and hence subject to draconian restrictions. The Caribbean can be a nice place to live, but the prospect of never being able to return to North America to visit family and friends was quite a disincentive.

CFM: One thing that strikes me when visiting the Foresight Exchange is that you forbid sports prediction markets, which are very popular on the betting exchanges. Even Bo Cowgill&#8217-s group of Googlers trade on sports, sometimes &#8212-I believe. Sports trading can be fun. Are you a jock hater?

KK: Not really, but the Foresight Exchange was created primarily to focus on science and technology claims. Having it cluttered with a couple of dozen &#8220-tonight&#8217-s game&#8221- claims per day wasn&#8217-t too appealing.

CFM: If I can count, you have more than 12 years of experience in the field of prediction markets. You&#8217-ve seen them all, in all colors and shapes. Do you agree with what Robin Hanson said at the Yahoo! Confab, namely that the DARPA&#8217-s PAM scandal ignited interest in corporate prediction markets? Was the PAM scandal a &#8220-tipping point&#8221-?

KK: No. I think the real tipping point was the publication of James Surowiecki&#8217-s &#8220-The Wisdom of Crowds&#8221-. Those of us interested in prediction markets tend to overestimate the PAM controversy&#8217-s importance- it was a big deal for us, but only an incremental step in the general public&#8217-s awareness of the topic. The interest generated by Surowiecki&#8217-s book showed that prediction markets had &#8220-arrived&#8221- &#8212- they weren&#8217-t just of academic interest, but instead had real-world applicability.

CFM: Note that the DARPA&#8217-s PAM prediction markets was to be public. Which leads to my next question. You and partner David Perry at Consensus Point help Fortune-500 companies setting up and running their own internal prediction markets. Have you ever had the case where one firm opened its corporate prediction markets to contractors and clients?

KK: Some of the firms we deal with are certainly interested in having a fairly wide audience, including customers and contractors, for their markets. I can&#8217-t go into specifics at the moment, however.

CFM: How is Consensus Point doing, so far? Can you draw for us the portrait of the firm that wants to use internal prediction markets? Is it always to forecast sales? Do you sense that the requests come from senior executives or from mid-level prediction markets-enthusiast managers?

KK: Consensus Point is doing very well so far. A lot of inquiries do indeed originate from mid-level managers and researchers, but a fair number also come from the executive level. Sales forecasting is a popular application of the market, but project completion times and commodity price forecasting have also proved to be frequent questions.

CFM: Sorry to ask you this question bluntly. Would TradeSports and Betfair make great competitors of Consensus Point if ever they decided one day to sell prediction market services to organizations?

KK: Quite possibly, but it&#8217-s certainly not a given. Both companies have great trading platforms, but their expertise is in running real-money, public markets. Corporations aren&#8217-t really looking for that sort of domain knowledge when considering how to implement and use a prediction market.

CFM: Would you mind describing in a few words the prediction market services you sell? I guess it&#8217-s web-hosted CDA, but are some firms interested in web-hosted MSR?

KK: We offer both hosted and on-site installations of our software, as well as training, analysis and consulting services. As for MSR versus CDA, see below.

CFM: Speaking of Market Scoring Rules, why did you decide to use this design as the engine for the Washington Stock Exchange? What is its main competitive advantage to CDA? How can MSR best be described: &#8220-betting&#8221- or &#8220-simplified trading&#8221-?

KK: The line between an MSR and a CDA is thinner than you might think! We have a market maker for each stock that provides liquidity by placing bid and ask orders- this is a convenient way of implementing an MSR within a CDA framework. An MSR really helps to start (and keep) the market going, because people always have a price they can buy or sell at. With an unadorned CDA, the bid/ask spread can be enormous, and trading volumes very thin. This alas, is often the case on the Foresight Exchange.

I&#8217-d describe an MSR as allowing for &#8220-simplified trading&#8221- rather than &#8220-betting&#8221-, though I suppose it depends on how much thought the person interacting with it puts in!

CFM: Just curious. When a prediction exchange decides to use MSR, does it have to pay fees or royalties to its inventor, Robin Hanson?

KK: I don&#8217-t believe so, but Robin is in a far better position to answer that question than I am&#8230-

CFM: What is the biggest mistake (if any) you have made since the grand opening of Consensus Point? What did you learn from this big mistake?

KK: No really big mistakes come to mind. Of course, such things are often only obvious in retrospect, so ask me again in a few years.

CFM: What are corporate prediction markets competing against (if any)? Internal polls? Groups of in-house experts? The firm&#8217-s executives? Something else?

KK: Generally, the firm&#8217-s executives. We haven&#8217-t encountered too many cases where firms have been trying to use internal polls as part of their forecasting efforts.

CFM: Are you positive that corporate prediction markets will show something for it? Will the economics literature soon be filled with business cases on how firms can clearly benefit from using internal prediction markets?

KK: Based on my experiences in the field thus far, I&#8217-m confident that prediction markets will prove to compare favorably with the other forecasting methods companies use. This isn&#8217-t to say that they&#8217-ll always yield good information, or be the best thing to use in all situations, but I think they will turn out to be valuable.

Am I positive of this? Not absolutely. But then, I try not to be absolutely positive of anything!

CFM: Now, the question that kills. Tell me frankly. Are corporate prediction markets a &#8220-fad&#8221- or are they just started?

KK: Great question! I think it largely depends on how the prediction market community presents the ideas. There&#8217-s a very real danger that the topic will be over-hyped and, consequently, ultimately dismissed, just as so many other trendy business ideas have been in the past. Today&#8217-s darling is often tomorrow&#8217-s pariah. That would be a shame, since (obviously) I think the markets have a lot of merit.

Note by &#8220-prediction market community&#8221-, I&#8217-m referring not only to those who create and sell prediction markets and associated services, but also people who blog about the topic, create vortals, etc. Not mentioning any names here --) .

CFM: Are prediction markets just one forecasting tool, or do they have a bigger function, in your view?

KK: The pragmatist in me says they&#8217-re just one tool, albeit a great one. The idealist finds something profoundly appealing in their ability to democratize how information is gathered and, ultimately, how decisions are made. The idealist thinks they&#8217-re something more.