Slashdot Mirror

You're better off going to intrade's website here for information: http://www.intrade.com/

" With sincere regret we must inform you that due to circumstances recently discovered we must immediately cease trading activity on www.intrade.com.

These circumstances require immediate further investigation, and may include financial irregularities which in accordance with Irish law oblige the directors to take the following actions:

Cease exchange trading on the website immediately.
Settle all open positions and calculate the settled account value of all Member accounts immediately.
Cease all banking transactions for all existing Company accounts immediately.


During the upcoming weeks, we will investigate these circumstances further and determine the necessary course of action.

To mitigate any further risk to members’ accounts, we have closed and settled all open contracts at fair market value as of the close of business on March 10, 2013, in accordance with the Terms and Conditions of our customers’ use of the website. You may view your account details and settled account balances by logging into the website.

At this time and until further notice, it is not possible to make any payments to members in accordance with their settled account balance until the investigations have concluded.

The Company will continue the maintenance and technology operations of the exchange system so that all information is preserved properly.

We are not able to provide telephone support or live help services at this time, please contact the company by email at: accountservices@intrade.com

We appreciate your custom and support over the years. We are committed to reporting faithfully the status of things as they are clarified and hope you will bear with us as we do all we can to resume operations as promptly as possible.

Sincerely,

The Board of Directors of Intrade the Prediction Market Limited "

You probably should go to intrade... yeah yeah yeah... I know it's pretty obvious to everybody here, but... what the hell

You can go to http://intrade.com/ to get accurate odds on elections. The odds are accurate because people can bet real money on the outcome, so people with good polling or better insider knowledge can bet on the outcome... It had Scott Walker at 93% odds of winning. Funny watching the media say how close it was going to be... and it turned out to be an easy win for Walker (54-46%)

InTrade already has a market running on this issue, where you can bet real money: https://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=745353

Putting up a factual page about Newt Gingrich at newtginggrich.com won't make Mr Gingrich happy, but legally they should be OK.

You're absolutely right... the problem is, they aren't doing that. Newtgingrich.com currently redirects at random to a list of other sites:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/12/gingrichs-campaign-still-looks-awful-lot-book-tour/45977/
http://www.greektravel.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/gingrich-senior-aides-resign/2011/06/09/AGN77VNH_blog.html
http://www.tiffany.com/?siteid=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaZFfQKWX54
http://www.freddiemac.com/
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/09/11/60353/gingrich-porn/
http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=654836

And at that point, it starts to look more like bad faith registration. I know they picked the domains it redirects to as a form of political protest, but most visitors won't see that redirection list. Under the UDRP, I think Gingrich could seize the domain name.

Just tried the link http://newtgingrich.com/ and up comes freddiemac.com

Looks like it is on a rotating forwarder. The briefest of examinations suggests that it sends people to a URL from this list:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/12/gingrichs-campaign-still-looks-awful-lot-book-tour/45977/
http://www.greektravel.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/gingrich-senior-aides-resign/2011/06/09/AGN77VNH_blog.html
http://www.tiffany.com/?siteid=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaZFfQKWX54
http://www.freddiemac.com/
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/09/11/60353/gingrich-porn/
http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=654836

I think it is great. I'd think it was funny if it happened to any politician, or any public figure really.
At a minimum it is funny because of all the people who will get their panties in a wad over it.

Here's their market for Gaddaffi no longer be Libyan leader by the end of August 2011

https://data.intrade.com/graphing/jsp/closingPricesForm.jsp?contractId=750841&tradeURL=https://www.intrade.com

The value of the contract can be interpreted as the market's perception of the probability of the event.

Ten dollars says that they support the government in by at least 7 members. mmm I wonder if my bookie is taking bets on this..

I'll bet the same thing. Intrade doesn't have a market up on this that I can find.

I tend to find people more credible when they're willing to put their own money on the line. 2010 looks like the warmest year on record.

2.calling it warming is kind of fucked up since it's warming in some places, and cooling in others

Wow, so the Earth isn't actually warming overall? Holy crap, I should go get rich on Intrade.

I don't know if you know anything about trading, but there's a crapload of bids out there, and hardly any asks for that contract. Wonder why?

Based on the current bid, you can get almost 4x your money back if this year is not the hottest year on record. So what are you waiting for?

As far as your "argument", please provide an example of a recent long-term cooling trend, on the order of decades (as man made global warming has been) anywhere on the Earth . A cold winter isn't climate. It's weather. Denialists such as yourself cannot seem to (or don't want to) grasp this concept.

There's a "play money" version of Intrade available which appears to track the events and prices/odds on the real site, so you can experiment risk-free right now if you wish.

Ideosphere/Foresight Exchange and Intrade are much more interesting. Both market "real world" events instead of hollywood flakes.

Ideosphere/Foresight is free, intrade is real dollars.

Ideosphere is semi-comatose, and the email list is currently filled with a debate over what exactly "astrology is true" means, which is at least somewhat more interesting than the past six months debating if an ipod touch/iphone is a real computer or not.

Intrade, last time I checked, is very much alive. Once I feel I know what I'm doing with monopoly money on ideosphere, I have been planning on moving to intrade and investing real money. At my present rate of learning, which only exceeds my weight loss program for failure to progress, I'll be moving to intrade right around the year 2100.

http://www.ideosphere.com/

http://www.intrade.com/

Both have been around for "forever" on the internet. The only new thing about HSX is that its securities are based on the actions of hollywood drug addicts, thus inherently unpredictable, whereas you can gain an advantage by trading intelligently on ideosphere and intrade. HSX is pure gambling, intrade is investing or at least intelligent speculation. Two inherently different activities.

Yeah, most of us in North America are familiar with prediction markets like Intrade. Those aren't considered gambling sites, since what you are actually doing is trading a contract that pays out if the event happens. I can illustrate the difference between this and a bet with an example.

Say I buy 1000 contracts of "Bin Laden to be captured by end of May 2009" for 5 cents each. Each contract pays out 100 cents if he is captured. Now say tomorrow the BBC reports that the US has engaged Al-Quaeda in a region in Pakistan where Bin Laden is thought to be hiding. Some people interpret that as a sign that the US is close to capturing Bin Laden and they start buying the same contracts. The price goes up to 25 cents per contract. I can then sell my contracts for a 200 dollar profit. I can do this whether or not they actually find him in the end (although I'll be kicking myself if they find him and I sold at 25 cents). On the other hand, if I make a bet of 50 dollars at 20:1 odds that they find Osama by the end of May 2009, and they don't, then I lose that money.

There are markets for betting on the Boson alone. Right now the betting is at 48% that it will be confirmed by 2011. See: http://www.intrade.com/index.jsp?request_operation=trade&request_type=action&selConID=622297 [intrade.com]

I guess InTrade wasn't good enough?

Well, you see, InTrade did it right, by making people put their money where their mouth is.

What this game will do is allow people to game the forecasts since it won't cost them nearly as much to be wrong. Then they can go proclaim those forecasts as gospel and, say, pump-and-dump stocks with it.

In short, InTrade converges to truth, whereas this game will converge to truthiness.

I guess InTrade wasn't good enough?

At the moment, it looks to me like Obama is going to lose. The only chance I see is if people who care get involved in unprecedented numbers.

I think you have more options than you realize. Here's an idea: bet money on a McCain win. On InTrade right now, you can buy a McCain contract (warning, link resizes window) for about $4.80, and it will pay off $10 (minus fees) if you win. So, even if Obama doesn't win, you've doubled your money and can contribute your winnings to whatever cause you think most worthy.

Unfortunately, in order to get real money there, you'll have to mail a check to Ireland (InTrade is legit, check them out if you want) and wait for it to clear, which will take a week or two.

The interesting thing is that someone with knowledge of the VP pick could have made big money on it, much like a stock. http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/common/c_cd.jsp?conDetailID=607621&z=1220132512721

Actually, these days you almost can...

"Prediction" markets are very good at putting numbers on the conventional wisdom of who is going to win, but not that good at predicting who is actually going to win. All you have to do is look at the Obama graph on the second link. Just look at the graphs for the Democratic nomination. It 2007, intrade predicted that Clinton would be the winner.

This is not to say that they aren't valuable. They are really good at codifying who people *think* will win at any particular time, and the closer you get to the actual event, the more accurate they tend to be. I've no doubt that the night before the election, the intrade prediction will pan out, but right now, its "predictions" are fairly meaningless.

Apparently other people are also interested in weather markets can predict things:

http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/
http://www.intrade.com/
http://www.google.com/search?q=political+markets

Notice at Google that major media outlets are running them now. UIowa was pretty early if they weren't the first.

What does it say about the outcome of the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray battle? I want to buy my player now!

I don't know about Google, but the latest bid on Intrade's real-money market that "Blu-Ray Disc sales will outnumber HD-DVD disc sales in the US in 2008" is 85.0 out of 100. Popular Science's fake-money market is $87 out of $100 for "Will Toshiba stop manufacturing HD-DVD machines by the end of 2009?".

And with non-funny money at: https://www.intrade.com/

Oh fuck that it doesn't like the URL for some reason.

https://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/contractSearch/searchPageBuilder.jsp?z=1198441040843&grpID=95#

THERE

Well, as much as I like both Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, what are the actual odds of either of them winning the nomination?

InTrade.com is currently rating Guiliani at 40% to Romney's 30% to Ron Paul at 6%.

https://www.intrade.com/aav2/trading/tradingHTML.jsp?evID=23030&eventSelect=23030&updateList=true&showExpired=false

When the very same market predicted a Kerry victory after the close of the Ohio and Florida polls?

http://www.intrade.com/news/images/Dartmouth_Elect ion_Paper_11_9_04%20(2).doc (WARNING! DOC FILE!)

They go on to discuss why, but they were apparently wrong in 2004.

Your nick (Walt Dismal) is very appropriate given the message: a story of grandiose, long-term proportions that could spring only from somebody with a vivid imagination for the dismal (which I also have...).

Sadly, you might not very far off-the-mark. :-/

Happily though, the bid price on the contract for whether Bush will attack Iran by Dec 2007 on Intrade is only about $15. Assuming the prediction market is accurate, that implies (given Intrade's contract design) a 15% probability that that event will actually occur... But that's the longest-term Iran contract there; it says nothing about what the U.S. might do to Iran prior to Bush leaving office on Jan. 20, 2009 (to be replaced by an as-yet unknown person).

I think you can learn a lot about a candidate from their website design. McCain is probably trying to get all the old conservatives -- the one who remember when black and white was the only thing on TV. Or in movie theaters. Big hit among the retired.

Obama. Skewed the other way -- video, flash, very modern. Sure to be a winner among the 18-25 set.

Clinton. Not bad, but very powder-puff blue. It's traditional... with a woman's touch, and a woman's vote. She's very much in front of the Democrats.

Edwards. Nothing pulls it together. It makes a good try at content, but no organization. Tries to be everything to everyone. Doesn't succeed. Neither will his campaign.

Giuliani. I know he looks like a villain in that picture, but that's how he always looks. Deep blue, stands for deep traditional conservatism. Will look to the letter of the law and not the spirit, appealing to all law-and-order citizens. Will probably make it illegal to have porn theaters within 300 miles of each other. Guiliani is tied with McCain. Black (McCain) and Blue (Giuliani) is how the Republicans are going to end up.

Romney. The biggest three pictures show him gesticulating with the back of his hand. Like he's gonna hit someone. "As seen on MittTV" pic VERY creepy, almost as creepy as V's stuff. Information-rich, but a bit bland. Like Kerry, his campaign will be information-rich and a bit bland.

--Rob

I think you can learn a lot about a candidate from their website design. McCain is probably trying to get all the old conservatives -- the one who remember when black and white was the only thing on TV. Or in movie theaters. Big hit among the retired.

Obama. Skewed the other way -- video, flash, very modern. Sure to be a winner among the 18-25 set.

Clinton. Not bad, but very powder-puff blue. It's traditional... with a woman's touch, and a woman's vote. She's very much in front of the Democrats.

Edwards. Nothing pulls it together. It makes a good try at content, but no organization. Tries to be everything to everyone. Doesn't succeed. Neither will his campaign.

Giuliani. I know he looks like a villain in that picture, but that's how he always looks. Deep blue, stands for deep traditional conservatism. Will look to the letter of the law and not the spirit, appealing to all law-and-order citizens. Will probably make it illegal to have porn theaters within 300 miles of each other. Guiliani is tied with McCain. Black (McCain) and Blue (Giuliani) is how the Republicans are going to end up.

Romney. The biggest three pictures show him gesticulating with the back of his hand. Like he's gonna hit someone. "As seen on MittTV" pic VERY creepy, almost as creepy as V's stuff. Information-rich, but a bit bland. Like Kerry, his campaign will be information-rich and a bit bland.

--Rob

I copied Trade Sports's chart from 12:32 a.m. to 1:56 a.m. to my blog.
Looks like the plunge happened at 1 a.m.

You jest, but one can in fact bet, on-line, on whether this legislation will pass. See Intrade.

I just did a search and found two but I am not sure if they are any good:

http://www.intrade.com/ where you can in many political, entertainement and world events

http://www.tradesports.com/ Mostly sports but also a bit of world events

I'm going to short neoconservatism.

I'm not aware of anything that lets you short Neoconservatism itself, but you can short on, say, the chances of a Republican winning the 2008 US Election, using real money. It's currently at 50.1% over on Intrade.

I'm happy to finally see a slashdot story on prediction markets, like the one described in the article, as they're one of the neatest new concepts I've come across. They've shown themselves to be on average the most accurate way to predict future events, more accurate than, say, individual experts or opinion polls. Having people "put their money where their mouth is" greatly improves the quality of predictions.

If you've never seen a prediction market in action before, I highly recommend checking out the real-money Intrade market, or the virtual-money Foresight Exchange. At such markets you can get estimated probabities for almost any major event. Here's a few examples from Intrade:

* Sony Playstation 3 release before October 6: 33% chance
* Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic Presidential Nominee in 2008: 43.1%
* John McCain to be the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2008: 36.6%
* Osama Bin Laden to be captured/neutralised by 30 June 2006: 5.7%
* Donald Rumsfeld to announce his resignation on/before 31Dec2006: 18.5%
* Bird flu (H5N1) to be confirmed in the USA ON/BEFORE 31st December 2006: 70.0%

That said, I think the company described in the article can probably improve the way they handle their pay-offs. From the article:

At Rite-Solutions, the architecture of participation is both businesslike and playful. Fifty-five stocks are listed on the company's internal market, which is called Mutual Fun. Each stock comes with a detailed description -- called an expect-us, as opposed to a prospectus -- and begins trading at a price of $10. Every employee gets $10,000 in "opinion money" to allocate among the offerings, and employees signal their enthusiasm by investing in a stock and, better yet, volunteering to work on the project. Volunteers share in the proceeds, in the form of real money, if the stock becomes a product or delivers savings.

The wording in the article is a little ambiguous, but it seems that if you choose to bid on an idea which you "know" is good, and would be if it were selected as a product, if other people don't agree you lose your money. It would be better to have a system where if the stock isn't selected as a product, you get your money back. If the product is selected, you gain money if the product does well, and lose money if the product does poorly. This also adds an incentive for people to "short" popular ideas that they think are going to perform poorly.

This only works when the distribution is NORMAL.

That's why you have special markets used to explicitly deal with non-normal distributions. For example, check out this prediction market over at Intrade on what the federal funds rate will be by the end of 2005. Notice that they actually have several different tickets, for increases ranging from +1% to +5%.

In the real stock market, it's also why you have things like options, which I believe can be used to get a handle on non-normal distributions.

Maybe instead of using stupid non-related sports "predictions", people should look towards things that actually DO predict outcomes (or at least do a decent job of it). Futures. Try intrade.com for more information.

During the 2000 election, there was a story about a small town in New Hampshire (I think) who had ALWAYS voted for the winner of the presidential election. (Or at least for a very long time.) They open the polls at midnight and all the votes are cast and counted very quickly. Well, they voted for Gore in 2000. So that means this year there will be no story about them, since obviously they were wrong. At least THAT'S a story that is related. Sports and politics are unrelated and any correlation is just coincidence.