Is John Delaney the greatest psychic of all times (past, present, and future)?
Deep Throat is very impressed by how accurate the InTrade-TradeSports CEO’-s 2005 prediction turned out to be. According to Deep Throat, the great Irish oracle “-accurately predicted back in early 2005 in a PM conference in NY that someday the markets will make a horribly wrong prediction and that the [prediction market] industry will take a lot of s**t for it.”-
Hummm…-.
Deep Throat is easily impressed. What about the prediction below, then:
- One of these days, a powerful hurricane will land in one of the southern states, and make billions of dollars in damage.
Vague and obvious predictions are of little help, here. An interesting thought to have, collectively, is how to prepare well in advance to counter such a backlash —-as it is sure to happen again in the coming years. Due to the readers’- new behavior (using the Web to get their info), the conversational aspect of the Web (comments, bloggers responding to their peers), and the velocity of the bloggers (tempests in tea cups spread over one or two days, and then the bloggers move on), the answer is quality, impartial, exchange-independent, science-based, diligent, pro-PM blogging.
You will note that InTrade-TradeSports, BetFair, NewsFutures, and the other PM firms, are completely absent from the dialogue between anti and pro PMs. The BetFair blog has not published anything about the New Hampshire fiasco, and the InTrade bulletin has only put in writing, on a post, the post-NH market-generated probabilities —-without adding any bit of analysis. Totally pointless and useless corporate publications.
As for me, I have worked hard to put our group blog, Midas Oracle, on the blogging scene. I will further this endeavor and announce new initiatives in the future —-if I am able to do so.
Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
- NUCLEAR SCANDAL: HubDub allow their traders to bet on celebrities’ death.
- APRIL FOOL’S DAY: This year, again, CNET makes fun of the wisdom of crowds.
- Play-money prediction exchange HubDub is a phenomenal success.
- BetFair Australia’s spin doctor tells all about their payments to the horse race industry.
- Meet Jeffrey Ma (at right on the photo), the ProTrade co-founder, and whose gambling life is the basis of the upcoming movie, 21.
Cass Sunstein has a fairly succinct, well written defense up on the University of Chicago Law School’s faculty blog:
His conclusion:
“There is a broader point. Some people are now doubting not only the prediction markets but also the polls, saying that no one knows anything, and that anything is as likely as anything else. Don’t believe it. To be sure, we are continuing to obtain information about how prediction markets perform and when they do well and poorly. Perhaps they will turn out to be less reliable than they seem — and in all likelihood, we will obtain a better understanding of when they work. And of course no one has a crystal ball. But the polls are generally pretty good — and if you want to have a sense of the probabilities, you’d probably do best to consult Intrade.”