- This is a dynamic electoral map from InTrade, which updates itself each time you refresh this webpage. Click on the image, and open the website (ElectoralMarkets.com) in another browser tab to get the bigger version. - [Feed readers: Download this webpage to visualize this InTrade widget, since it doesn't display within feed readers.]
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- This is a dynamic electoral map from InTrade, which updates itself each time you refresh this webpage. - [Feed readers: Download this webpage to visualize this InTrade widget, since it doesn't display within feed readers.]
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- This is a dynamic electoral map from HubDub, which updates itself each time you refresh this webpage. - [The HubDub dynamic charts listed below go into feeds.]
- The US stock markets have (probably, temporarily) stopped spiraling into the abyss. (John McCain became more unpopular each time the stocks went down, these last weeks. So, when Wall Street is doing OK, it won’t help Barack Obama, additionally.)
- Beware the exit polls, they have proved to be somewhat unreliable, in the past. They have a Democratic bias.
A prediction market is a market for a contract that yields payments based on the outcome of a partially uncertain future event, such as an election. A contract pays $100 only if candidate X wins the election, and $0 otherwise. When the market price of an X contract is $60, the prediction market believes that candidate X has a 60% chance of winning the election. The price of this event derivative represents the imputed perceived likelihood of the partially uncertain event (i.e., its aggregated expected probability). A 60% probability means that, in a series of events each with a 60% probability, the favored outcome is expected to occur 60 times out of 100, and the unfavored outcome is expected to occur 40 times out of 100.
Each prediction exchange organizes its own set of real-money and/or play-money markets, using either a CDA or a MSR mechanism —with or without an automated market maker.
Prediction markets enable us to attain collective intelligence. Prediction markets produce dynamic, objective probabilistic predictions on the outcomes of future events by aggregating disparate pieces of information that the traders bring when they agree on prices. The event derivative traders are informed by the primary indicators (i.e., the primary sources of information), like the polls, for instance. These informed speculators then execute their transactions based on their anticipations about the future —anticipations that will be either confirmed or infirmed.
The value of a set of prediction markets consists in the added accuracy that these prediction markets provide relative to the other forecasting mechanisms, times the value of accuracy in improved decisions, minus the cost of maintaining these prediction markets, relative to the cost of the other forecasting mechanisms. According to Robin Hanson, a highly accurate prediction market has little value if some other forecasting mechanism(s) can provide similar accuracy at a lower cost, or if very few substantial decisions are influenced by accurate forecasts on its topic.
#2. Objective Probabilistic Predictions = Charts Of Prediction Markets
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- Listed below are the odds produced by the prediction exchanges. If you are interested in the predictions, we advise you to have a close look, first, at the real-money prediction markets (InTrade, TradeSports, BetFair and the Iowa Electronic Markets). Now, if you want to have real fun interacting with the news, we recommend that you trade on the play-money prediction markets (HubDub and NewsFutures).
- If you want to visit one of those prediction exchanges, put your mouse on the selected dynamic chart, right-click, and open the link in another browser tab.
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2008 US Elections
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InTrade
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2008 US Electoral College
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- This is a dynamic electoral map from InTrade, which updates itself each time you refresh this webpage. Click on the image, and open the website (ElectoralMarkets.com) in another browser tab to get the bigger version. - [Feed readers: Download this webpage to visualize this InTrade widget, since it doesn't display within feed readers.]
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- This is a dynamic electoral map from InTrade, which updates itself each time you refresh this webpage. - [Feed readers: Download this webpage to visualize this InTrade widget, since it doesn't display within feed readers.]
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2008 US Presidential Elections - By State
- To get to the InTrade prediction market webpage for a specific state, right-click the state link, and open it in another browser tab.
- All the charts below are also dynamic —they update themselves each time you open this webpage. - [The InTrade dynamic charts listed below go into feeds.]
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2008 US Presidential Election Winner - Individual
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2008 US Presidential Election Winner - Political Party
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2008 US Congressional Elections Winner - Political Party
- This is a dynamic compound chart from BetFair, which updates itself each time you refresh this webpage. - [Feed readers: Download this webpage to visualize this BetFair widget, since it doesn't display within feed readers.]
- This is a dynamic electoral map from HubDub, which updates itself each time you refresh this webpage. - [The HubDub dynamic charts listed below go into feeds.]
- This is a dynamic compound chart from HubDub, which updates itself each time you refresh this webpage. - [The HubDub dynamic chart listed below go into feeds.]
- NewsFutures and Bet2Give used to have chart widgets on the US primaries, which didn’t go into feed readers. We are waiting for their next chart widgets.
It looks like each order of n contracts that gets placed on intrade.com is echoed by an order of 100+n contracts on play.intrade.com. This breaks down for very high or very low orders (there is no bid for 120@26.0, for example). I’m pretty sure that when these bids get canceled, their mirror-bids are also canceled.
I’m not sure what happens when someone takes a price, though. My guess is that the order is broken up into its separately-matched parts, and each part is mirrored in just the same way, which usually results in an automatic price-match at play.intrade.com. For example, if someone entered an order to sell 10@33.0, which would result in selling 1@34.1, 3@34.0 and the remaining 6@33.0, play.intrade.com would match 101@34.1, 103@34.0, and put 106@33.0 on the order book.
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RELATED NOTE: As you have seen, Justin Wolfers at the Wall Street Journal has stopped promoting InTrade’s play-money prediction markets, and now links directly to InTrade’s real-money prediction markets.
Change is one thing, breaking the whole site and acting like its nothing happened is another. The whole concept of trading movie stocks, movie bonds and options have taken a backseat to making sure you can blog, add friends, and “Schmooze”.
The old portfolio page was color coded and extremely easy to understand, you instantly knew if you were making H$ or losing your shirt. Now the current portfolio page is a small box, one colour, light grey on a white backround and the type is half the size of the font here, also you can only see 12 stocks at any given moment. Whoever OK’d this part of the site has to have never traded any shares online before.
From what I can gather, there was a beta version of this 3rd generation of the game, but no one paid any attention to the any of the feedback, two days after this new rollout, HSX.com started calling this new version a beta game, and what HSX staff there is say that portfolios are now their priority. However the only things that really work right now are the blogs, which pay H$10,000 a posting, adding friends pays traders H$1000, Online Polls, and Schmoozing. which paid initially H$1000, but now pays H$100 per reply. The only reason I see for paying traders to blog is to bring more eyeballs to the garish 728×90 and 300×225 ads on each page to pump the number of advertising views on HSX. But if this is part of the grand scheme here, I can’t see Gold coin or Forex advertisers closing sales from a bunch of 13 years because all the veteran traders have left in disgust.
I welcome Jed [*] to read the HSX Support page: http://www.hsx.com/cms/forums/support and look around, I shudder to think this all is going to be a B-School case study on how to kill a successful site in under a week.
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[*] Jed Christiansen, who put up a comment in defense of HSX (Jed systematically defends the people I slam on Midas Oracle) —and who has just begun an MBA education.
The root of the problem is Alex Costakis —the director of HSX. My assessment of him is that he doesn’t get the Web. He is as clueless as a maggot trying to play Jazz. He is not an open person, and the Web is all about openness. This guy is a drag on HSX. I predict he will lead to HSX’s death.
The only 2 persons that could lead to a revival of HSX are Max Keiser or Nigel Eccles. Let’s hope that Cantor Fitzgerald will call them for help.
- Till Election Day, this present blog (Midas Oracle .ORG) is going to update you once in a while about the horse race thru the lens of the prediction markets.
- Additionally, the other blog (Midas Oracle .COM) is going to publish many posts per day about the US elections (scheduled for Tuesday November 4, 2008), as seen by the prediction markets —starting tomorrow morning. We will also cover many other prediction markets on non-political topics —when we think that they bring an interesting éclairage ( ).
- Pssttt… If you don’t want to subscribe to the other blog, and want to stay with this present blog, don’t worry, that’s OK, we will continue to update you here with everything you should know about the prediction markets (including the US elections). The other blog is meant to bring much more to the news junkies, without bothering the readership of this present blog. So, if you choose to limit yourself to this present blog, that’s fine with us, and we will make sure you don’t miss anything important.
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#1. Explainer On Prediction Markets
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A prediction market is a market for a contract that yields payments based on the outcome of a partially uncertain future event, such as an election. A contract pays $100 only if candidate X wins the election, and $0 otherwise. When the market price of an X contract is $60, the prediction market believes that candidate X has a 60% chance of winning the election. The price of this event derivative represents the imputed perceived likelihood of this partially uncertain event (i.e., its aggregated expected probability). A 60% probability means that, in a series of events each with a 60% probability, the favored outcome is expected to occur 60 times out of 100, and the unfavored outcome is expected to occur 40 times out of 100.
Each prediction exchange organizes its own set of real-money and/or play-money markets, using either a CDA or a MSR mechanism —with or without an automated market maker.
Prediction markets enable us to attain collective intelligence. Prediction markets produce dynamic, objective probabilistic predictions on the outcomes of future events by aggregating disparate pieces of information that the traders bring when they agree on prices. The event derivative traders are informed by the primary indicators (i.e., the primary sources of information), like the polls, for instance. These informed speculators then execute their transactions based on their anticipations about the future —anticipations that will be either confirmed or infirmed.
The value of a set of prediction markets consists in the added accuracy that these prediction markets provide relative to the other forecasting mechanisms, times the value of accuracy in improved decisions, minus the cost of maintaining these prediction markets, relative to the cost of the other forecasting mechanisms. According to Robin Hanson, a highly accurate prediction market has little value if some other forecasting mechanism(s) can provide similar accuracy at a lower cost, or if very few substantial decisions are influenced by accurate forecasts on its topic.
- Listed below are the odds produced by the prediction exchanges. If you are interested in the predictions, we advise you to have a close look, first, at the real-money prediction markets (InTrade, BetFair and the Iowa Electronic Markets). Now, if you want to have real fun interacting with the news, we recommend that you trade on the play-money prediction markets (HubDub and NewsFutures).
- If you want to visit one of those prediction exchanges, put your mouse on the selected dynamic chart, right-click, and open the link in another browser tab.
-
-
2008 US Elections
-
-
InTrade
-
2008 US Electoral College
-
- This is a dynamic electoral map, which updates itself each time you refresh this webpage. Click on the image, and open the website (ElectoralMarkets.com) in another browser tab to get the bigger version. - [Feed readers: Download this webpage to visualize this InTrade widget, since it doesn't display within feed readers.]
-
- This is a dynamic electoral map, which updates itself each time you refresh this webpage. - [Feed readers: Download this webpage to visualize this InTrade widget, since it doesn't display within feed readers.]
-
2008 US Presidential Elections - By State
- To get to the InTrade prediction market webpage for a specific state, right-click the state link, and open it in another browser tab.
Change is one thing, breaking the whole site and acting like its nothing happened is another. The whole concept of trading movie stocks, movie bonds and options have taken a backseat to making sure you can blog, add friends, and “Schmooze”.
The old portfolio page was color coded and extremely easy to understand, you instantly knew if you were making H$ or losing your shirt. Now the current portfolio page is a small box, one colour, light grey on a white backround and the type is half the size of the font here, also you can only see 12 stocks at any given moment. Whoever OK’d this part of the site has to have never traded any shares online before.
From what I can gather, there was a beta version of this 3rd generation of the game, but no one paid any attention to the any of the feedback, two days after this new rollout, HSX.com started calling this new version a beta game, and what HSX staff there is say that portfolios are now their priority. However the only things that really work right now are the blogs, which pay H$10,000 a posting, adding friends pays traders H$1000, Online Polls, and Schmoozing. which paid initially H$1000, but now pays H$100 per reply. The only reason I see for paying traders to blog is to bring more eyeballs to the garish 728×90 and 300×225 ads on each page to pump the number of advertising views on HSX. But if this is part of the grand scheme here, I can’t see Gold coin or Forex advertisers closing sales from a bunch of 13 years because all the veteran traders have left in disgust.
I welcome Jed [*] to read the HSX Support page: http://www.hsx.com/cms/forums/support and look around, I shudder to think this all is going to be a B-School case study on how to kill a successful site in under a week.
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[*] Jed Christiansen, who put up a comment in defense of HSX (Jed systematically defends the people I slam on Midas Oracle) —and who has just begun an MBA education.
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