Link to the InTrade prediction market.
Below, I try to hot-link to the chart, I’-m not sure at this point it will work. We will see.
Tim Pawlenty
Tim… Who?
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Tag Archives: HubDub
InTrade DOT NET – www.intrade.net
This post is a very short review of their new website. I might publish a deeper review, later on.
The log line is that InTrade CEO John Delaney has ingested all the innovations that HubDub has brought to the prediction market scene since January 2007 (e.g., long and rich prediction market webpages that are indexed by the search engines, and use of social networking to boost trading) and has asked his technological team to clone those innovations for InTrade. This is great. I also appreciate that their charting system is satisfying. (The advanced charts seem to be of the right size, I have noticed. Neither too small, nor too big.)
On the negative side, the execution is not as good as it should be —-and I’-m polite. But to be fair with them, they say their website is still in “-beta”- —-so let’-s give them time to improve their work.
Overall, it’-s a good move, and it shows, as I have said for months, that Nigel Eccles of HubDub is having a profound impact on the prediction market industry.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that InTrade.net presents probabilities expressed in percentage, not prices, which they also took from HubDub.
The vetting of the many potential Democratic vice president nominees was not as secretive as I thought. – Bo Cowgill was right, in hindsight.
The New York Times has a recount on how Barack Obama reached his decision on Joe Biden. The final decision was probably made 10 days ago, while Barack Obama was vacationing in Hawaii.
[…] Mr. Obama’s decision had as much to do with Mr. Biden’s appeal among white working-class voters and compelling personal story, and his conclusion that the Delaware senator was “-a worker.”-
The important information in the NYT piece is that Barack Obama personally called governor Bill Richardson “-late last week”- to announce him that he was not considered anymore. That’-s around the time the Joe Biden rumor began to have more weight in the media circles —-see the InTrade chart below.
Bo Cowgill, back in May 2008 (when I started to act as a prophet of doom):
This is dumb. Cover them if something interesting happens. Maybe your theory will turn out to be wrong. Anyhow: Although the decision is made in secrecy, the Presidential nominees have a number incentives which we have plenty of information about. Specifically:
* They want someone who will balance their tickets in terms of geography, race and class.
* They want someone who will help with weak areas of their campaigns.
* They want someone who will be a good campaign surrogate — giving good speeches and attacking the opponents effectively.
* They want to avoid a VP who will de-motivate or offend the base.
* They want to avoid someone with a bunch of skeletons in the closet such as angry ex-wives, out-of-wedlock kids, etc.
* Etc etc.
Anyhow, I don’t see any reason to ignore these markets in case something interesting happens. I read Midas Oracle so that I don’t *have* to read a whole bunch of other websites!
Bo Cowgill was on the right track, now that I think of it —-in a society where everything leaks out.
On the opposite of the spectrum, Tom Snee was too much extreme in his view:
According to Tom Snee of the Iowa Electronic Market, at Iowa University, futures markets need more hard information than they get in the veepstakes, to reliably predict a result.
Markets are very good at predicting elections, he says – but not choices being made inside Barack Obama’-s or John McCain’-s head.
Justin Wolfers was more measured.
So, Bo Cowgill and Justin Wolfers are the winners, on that one.
I was partially wrong. I am a bit too extreme, sometimes. (Did someone else notice that? 
) I need to learn more about…- granularity.
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PS: On the Republican side, now…-
Who will be the Republican Vice Presidential Nominee?
Barack Obama + Joe Biden – THE PREDICTION MARKETS NAILED IT… triple alas (for my reputation as a world-wide prediction market pundit, and for the debate on the different quality of the various primary indicators out there).
“Friend —- I have some important news that I want to make official. I’ve chosen Joe Biden to be my running mate.”
Some blogger says his wife is fantastic.
New York Times portrait of Joe Biden.
UPDATE: Barack Obama’-s speech + Joe Biden’-s speech
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I think it is the worst pick ever. What a blunder. Joe Biden (a D.C. insider) is unpopular and gaffe prone. Plus, that choice shows that Barack Obama is insecure when it comes to foreign policy. An emphasis on the economy and, thus, on a successful gubernatorial experience would have been better.
Kathleen Sebelius was the one to pick. She is my vice president. (And Ron Paul is my president. )
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I have over-estimated the secretiveness of Barack Obama’-s decision process. The chart above obviously shows that the Joe Biden narrative leaked out to reporters was beamed out for a purpose: testing the Obama-needs-a-VP-who-is-strong-in-foreign-policy argument, and letting the Press do the final vetting on gaffe-prone Joe Biden.
InTrade CEO John Delaney (along with the HubDub and BetFair people) will now brag on his marketing material that his prediction exchange did forecast Joe Biden as the Democratic vice president nominee.
What’-s bad in all that (other than I have an egg on my face [*] ) is that we won’-t have a public debate on the different quality of the various primary indicators, and how that conditions the accuracy of the prediction markets.
[*] I have an egg on my face, but Caveat Bettor has a whole omelet on his.
ENDLESS VEEPSTAKES: Why you should never trade on VP prediction markets, and why their probabilistic predictions are as stochastic as Paris Hiltons daily dress picks.
As I explained in early June 2008, the VP speculations that appear in the Press should never be taken seriously. Most of them (and you don’-t know which ones) are a big orchestration of pure lies aimed at creating publicity, or wicked lies in the form of trial balloons. The aims of the political campaigns are to:
- creating suspense (sometimes false) so as to generate free publicity-
- sending a positive message to the supporters of each VP candidate-
- letting the Press do the vetting of the VP candidates-
- flattering the political journalists by leaking to them-
- sending out false leaks so as to preserve the surprise for the scheduled announcement day-
- sometimes, buying time to impose the head of the VP search committee as the most serious VP candidate (remember Dick Cheney in 2000). [Psstt… Funny enough, in the 2008 election, Michael Moore is pulling for Caroline Kennedy. ]
All that means that there are no good primary indicators for the prediction markets on the Democratic and Republican VP-candidate selections.
I want to offer 6 remarks:
- Not all prediction markets are created equal. Some have good primary indicators (e.g., the prediction markets on the presidential elections, thanks to polls), while some other prediction markets have unreliable primary indicators (e.g., the prediction markets on who will be on the ticket).
- The prediction exchange executives (like InTrade-TradeSports CEO John Delaney) will never tell you that, because their job is to sell their wares, of course.
- The public needs prediction market analysts, who can judge the quality of the primary indicators of one particular prediction market, so as to separate the grains from the shaft —-reliable prediction markets from unreliable prediction markets. (A prediction market analyst has also other functions, which I will blog about later on.)
- A prediction market analyst should have a dual competency —-in a vertical (in our example, US politics), and in prediction markets.
- The expertise in the vertical (here, politics) should be a major, and the expertise in prediction markets should be a minor. Take a look at these 2 mainstream media news stories: the one written Jack Shafer in Slate (which I linked to at the top of this post), and the one written by Justin Wolfers in the Wall Street Journal. Obviously, the one that shows the most mastering is the one written by Jack Shafer, an American professional journalist who follows US politics for a living.
- The consequence of that for prediction market journalism is that the writer should be an expert in a vertical, and the editor should be an expert in prediction markets —-and not the other way around.
That said, I wish the very best of luck to our good friends Caveat Bettor (who is betting on Tim Kaine) and Nigel Eccles (who is predicting Joe Biden).
UPDATE: My (informal) Democratic VP-candidate bet is on Kathleen Sebelius. Hint, hint.
UPDATE: Gawker says that Joe Biden would be a horrible choice. I agree. Plus, he has denied to be the pick. He could have lied to reporters, though.
UPDATE: New York Times publishes portraits of all VP candidates.
DEVELOPING…-
Share:
OLYMPIC MEDALS: The Los Angeles Times cites HubDub -but not BetFair, TradeSports, NewsFutures, or YooPick.
Los Angeles Times
Could it be because the journalist had googled “-Olympics”- for his/her research?
HubDub is the only prediction exchange whose prediction market webpages are indexed well by Google.
SEO is key for marketing and P.R., folks —-you see the evidence under your very nose with HubDub and the Olympics.
HubDubs Nigel Eccles (pictured below, smiling widely like if he had just performed a good prank) explains to his fellow citizens (well, sorry, the Britons call themselves subjects) in great details what he did to surpass Emile Servan-Schreibers NewsFutures in less than 9 months.
Presumptuous
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Jed Christiansen will never be a cheerleader for the prediction market industry as long as he holds those wrong views about betting on sports.
InTrade-TradeSports CEO John Delaney and HubDub CEO Nigel Eccles might be seen as “-prediction market gurus”-, at least by some —-I doubt very strongly that many industry people will add Jed in the list, after they have read the conformist bullshit that he sent to the CFTC.
We are still waiting Jed’-s reaction on Sean Park’-s comment. Cat got your tongue, Jed? At other times, we couldn’-t stop you.
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On top of the $114,000 given to her by John Edwards political action committee, $15,000 a month has been paid to Rielle Hunter (Lisa Druck) by Fred Baron, who was John Edwards national finance chair -so that the mistress (a de facto deluxe prostitute) shuts up her face about the affair and the baby.
So, John Edwards’- friend would pay about $180,000 each year for her —-if I understand well.
What kind of R.O.I. did Fred Baron expect on that investment? That’-s what the “-free”- Press should be asking.
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Google’-s cached webpages of the National Enquirer about John Edwards – Click on “-Cached”-.
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John Edwards is a liar and a hypocrite. Video
Edwards infidelity
envoye par dollarsandsense123
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John Edwards’- statement
Dallas Morning News + New York Times + Robert Scoble + CBS News
Elisabeth Edwards + Huff Post
CNN + ABC News + VIDEO + LA Times
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Emile Servan-Schreiber was so right. I feel better now that I made a killing at HubDub shorting that f*****g bastard of John Edwards.
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UPDATE: API + NewsWeek
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UPDATE: The ex mistress rules out a paternity test. So, now we know what the big money is buying: her silence on the fact that the child is John Edwards’- one.
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UPDATE: American Spectator + Huff Post + Huff Post
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UPDATE: ABC News
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UPDATE: Radar + Radar
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UPDATE: CNN
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UPDATE: Cleveland Leader
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Video
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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:
- SocialPredictor is a piece of crap.
- I met with Alan Greenspan. He reads Midas Oracle on a daily basis. I have the photo to prove it. Take a look.
- You know what I thought I first saw that picture (little Fogarty planted next to Master Of Credit Alan Greenspan)?… I thought, well, it’s about time that the prediction market industry does the “product endorsement by celebrity” marketing thing. BetFair premiered that with John McCririck.
- 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.
- Equity Financing Documents For Prediction Market StartUps (like Inkling or HubDub)
- Look at the inconsistency between the two faces. Mat Fogarty is jubilant like if he had just stolen a big client from Inkling. Alan Greenspan, on the other hand, has a constipated look that conveys that he is fed up with all those conference co-speakers asking him out for a photo op.
- Prediction Market Proposal
Thinking they would fight poverty and solve the 2 Americas problem, the John Edwards donors ended up giving (thru his political action committee) $114,000 to his mistress (a de facto prostitute whom he said he didnt love) on the pretext of producing 4 YouTube videos (on a mere 2 1/2 minutes long).
I want John Edwards to disappear in his own ass, and I don’-t want to hear anymore about that bastard.
I have updated my previous post with the relevant links —-for those of you who are just surfacing from an Afghan cave.
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PS: I made a killing at HubDub, shorting down that f*****g bastard.
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