Internet betting and prediction markets on the Apple iPhone and the Google Android

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I watched the Apple event introducing the iPhone 3.0 &#8212-the new version of the operating system for the smart phone. (The competitor is the Google Android, caressed by the innocent mister Cowgill.)

We have now 2 different ecosystems for people to access betting online:

  1. a personal computer (desktop or laptop) + a connection to the Internet (coupled sometimes with the phone system)-
  2. a personal hand-held computer + a connection to both the phone system and the Internet.
  1. a personal computer is piloted by a mouse (or a trackpad) on a plane surface-
  2. a personal hand-held computer is piloted by the fingers.

More and more, businesses (like Automattic/WordPress) are developing a special entry point on the Web for the iPhone and Android users. BetFair has already developed a sub-website for them. No doubt that the other prediction exchanges will follow course &#8212-since the 2 different ecosystems are here to stay.

Lights! Camera! Futures trading! Cantor Exchange!

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Investment News:

&#8220-Technically, you can trade anything, because wherever there is a financial interest, there can be a market,&#8221- said Andre Julian, chief financial officer of Option Investments Inc., an Irvine, Calif.-based independent broker for futures and options traders.

&#8220-People love stats, and movies are something people understand, which is why it could bring some regular people into the futures markets for the first time,&#8221- he said. &#8220-Of course, it might be more difficult if it was launched in the middle of a bull market, when there would be no reason to look beyond stocks.&#8221-

With a $50 trading minimum, the movie futures exchange clearly is hoping to attract a segment of retail-class investors and movie junkies, but once developed, the exchange could also become a vehicle to allow movie moguls to hedge their investments.

&#8220-If it costs a studio $200 million to make a movie, that studio could use this exchange to protect its investment by going short the same amount, and then if they&#8217-re losing money on the open market, they could make it back on the short side,&#8221- Mr. Julian said. &#8220-It all comes down to money, and there&#8217-s always somebody on the opposite side willing to make a trade.&#8221-

Cantor Exchange

Best wishes to Richard Jaycobs.

Statistician and econometrician Nate Silver is going to write up a book on… SUSPENSE, SUSPENSE… not on statistics, not on econometrics… on prediction markets.

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Via the unjustly suspected mister Cowgill, the LAT:

[Nate] Silver is now at a crossroads, trying to decide what to do with his newfound fame. He’s about to leave Chicago, where he now lives, and move to New York, and he’ll spend the next few months working on a book on prediction markets.

I bet that book will be more impartial that the writings of our economic canaries who are in bed with the exchanges and the vendors.

The fact that Inkling needs five bullet points and a graph to explain short selling is a good indication it’s too complicated.

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That was Jason Trost&#8217-s comment.

But see, first, Chris Hibbert&#8217-s comment:

My main complaint about using the “short-selling” terminology in prediction markets, is that it uses a term from finance that describes a complicated scenario to describe a simple scenario it doesn’t apply to. In financial markets, short selling means that you accrue money in order to take on a conditional obligation. When you bet against a proposition (on InTrade, Foresight Exchange or (I think) Inkling), you spend money and gain a conditional asset. In the prediction market case, you don’t have any further obligation- there’s no possibility of a margin call. The asset has a non-negative value.

I actually think the way NewsFutures describes binary outcomes is the simplest. They never talk about selling unless you already own the asset. If you don’t own any of the asset, you can either buy it, or click a button to see the opposite view, which you can also buy. They don’t have “yes” and “no”, they just have complementary wordings and titles for opposing outcomes.

Go reading all the comments, there.

HubDub: If you sign up a friend and he/she wins a prize, then you win the same prize.

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HubDub – March Madness 2009:

*Prediction Market Technology – Experience March Madness Like Never Before*

March 16th: Anticipation is running high for the 2009 NCAA Division I Men’s
Basketball Championship (popularly known as March Madness) with the first
round tipping off on March 19th.

On the web users can watch all the live action for free on CBSSports.com.
Additionally, there are no shortage of sites offering brackets on which you
can predict who will win all 63 games in the tournament.

Hubdub however has launched a prediction competition with a difference.
Unlike a bracket, Hubdub players can trade predictions through out the
tournament and in the later stages during the actual games themselves.
Additionally, not only are all the usual match up questions but players will
also receive daily questions like “Will any team hit a 3 pointer with 5
seconds or less to win?” and “Will President Obama attend any March Madness
game?”.

The Hubdub Predict-a-thon is free to enter and is offering $500 in cash
prizes to its top players. On top of that, if you introduce a friend to the
competition and they win, then you receive the same amount.

InTrades Accounts and Balance Sheets – 2007 and 2008

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This material is available on: http://www.cro.ie/ .
.

2007

te1

te2

2008


There might be a slight discrepancy between the accounts and the balance sheet. If you, too, spot it, then publish a comment just below, and we will share our thoughts. (Please, do not publish any negative comment that can be legally reprehensible.)


intradeaccounts

intrade2

I have obscured the personal addresses of these 2 persons:

intrade3-without-addresses

The 6 little things David Pennock didnt tell you about the Prediction Market Institute

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– #1. – It is not such a great idea to call it a &#8220-prediction market institute&#8221-, for the reasons that it excludes the non-market mechanisms and the other collective intelligence mechanisms. (See Daniel&#8217-s comment on the Pennock blog, here.) That said, it should focus on prediction markets &#8212-do you feel the nuance, doc?

– #2. – It shall not be a pure academic endeavor. It shall be a mix between academics, exchange operators, and other participants in the field of prediction markets. The term &#8220-applied research&#8221- conveys it. It is &#8220-applied&#8221- in the sense that it is not research eggheads bottling up in yet another Ivory Tower. The outputs of this PMI should be useful for the prediction exchanges and the software vendors.

– #3. – One of the purpose of regrouping the prediction market forces into a grand consortium would be to seek external alliances with some foundations, think tanks or educational organizations that might share our ideology &#8212-yes, I said &#8220-ideology&#8221-.

– #4. – It is not such a great idea to set up our own organization from scratch. It is more pragmatic to seek out the creation of a &#8220-unit&#8221- or &#8220-department&#8221- within an already existed organization that has a larger purpose than ours &#8212-for instance, one focused on &#8220-derivatives&#8221-, &#8220-wisdom of crowds&#8221-, &#8220-digital business&#8221-, &#8220-knowledge management&#8221-, &#8220-forecasting&#8221-, or whatever meta keyword you can think of and that encompasses the prediction markets and their cousin mechanisms.

– #5. – It shall have a clear strategy, game plan, and way to assess the results.

– #6. – It shall have David Pennock on top. That guy is our common denominator. He is our most sociable element. He never slammed anyone. (The only time he went on being bombastic is when, being a boy, he told his mother, &#8220-I don&#8217-t like broccolis, they taste like fractals.&#8221-)

Should research scientist David Pennock lead the Prediction Market Institute?

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Should we create a Prediction Market Institute?

– Should we ask doctor David Pennock to super-head it?

– Should we have a Prediction Markets Consortium that will anchor itself somewhere in an educational institution or non-profit foundation?

– Should we follow the ideas of Chris Masse, or should we follow someone else with better ideas?

Should we let the non-PM companies (Google/Yahoo!/MicroSoft) dictate to us the founding terms of this Prediction Market Institute?

– Shouldn&#8217-t the public prediction exchanges (InTrade, BetFair, HedgeStreet, Hollywood Stock Exchange, HubDub, NewsFutures, etc.) be more involved into the founding of this Prediction Market Institute?

– Should we let David Pennock rename &#8220-The Open Institute Of Prediction Markets&#8221- into a &#8220-Prediction Market Institute&#8221- without my prior agreement? :-D