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I can see you thinking you're smarter that Nate Silver. But do you really think you're smarter than every bookie in Vegas?

Good thing is that US geopolitically is as good as ever. Europe as usual is in trouble, China slows down. There is nothing else.

Even a complete idiot like Bush could not manage to do much harm to the country. Trump is not an idiot. He talks the talk, but it is not clear what kind of walk he will walk.

I would not be so sure about Hillary's win. Sure the bets are on her now:

http://www.paddypower.com/bet/...

1/3 for hillary versus 2/1 for Trump.

http://www.oddschecker.com/pol...

gives quite comprehensive odds across gambling sites

Ah. You might be right. Stupid Hillary is heading there.

Since you asked, the probability of him being the next US President are between .015 and 0.2 depending on which bookmaker you ask.

Betting Odds for next US President

I like using bookmakers odds to assess political events. It cuts through all the bullshit. If you think the odds are wrong, then put your money where your mouth is. Strangely, most people rarely do.

Vegas bookies are paying out 1:4 if you bet on her right now. You sound like you know something they don't so put your money where your mouth is. The "Hillary is Inevitable" argument is not as strong as it was a few months ago.

I'm the biggest atheist you'll ever meet, but I'm still very much interested in what goes through the Vatican people's heads - a major mass-delusion involving over a billion people inevitably has some definite geopolitical and economic implications... As far as religions go, I tend to judge them by their aggregate voting patterns, with much respect going to the Mormons and certain Protestant sects. (Hey, not everyone has the brains to be a rationalist...) I'm also very much aware of how certain religions have historically sabotaged economic and technological growth, with Protestants in Northern Europe (especially the Netherlands and England) deserving much credit for the foundations of capitalism, independent science, the Industrial Revolution, and the modern world as we know it today.

When I first heard about that silly "Prophecy of the Popes" ~15 years ago, I wondered... What are the odds of them just choosing someone named Peter when the time comes (the first Peter in 2000 years, supposedly), and whether having this name would increase or decrease his chances of being selected pope... And now here we are, at the end of the list, with the leading candidate's birth name being Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson... Seems like "the scriptwriters" are trying to use this "prophecy" boost their show's ratings!

And then there's another "coincidence" - lightning striking the Vatican dome hours after the resignation announcement... (Very easy to fake, of course, by timing the Pope's announcement to take place on the same day as a thunderstorm, and then putting out a previously-unpublished photo of it happening before...)

It was funny to watch at first, sorta like scripted wrestling, but when I looked at Peter Turkson's political views - my blood turned to antifreeze! I don't care about the same ol social conservative bullshit that not even Catholics take seriously anymore (the fertility rates in Catholic Europe are among the lowest in the world), but look at his calls for a Global Tax and a Global Socialist Government! He's exactly the kind of Pope the government elites want, and it looks like they're ready to use the Vatican as a propaganda weapon, more intensively than in a very long time!

There were many reasons to dislike Catholics in the past, but Peter Turkson is the icing on the cake!

--libman

I dabble in this a bit, and if I had time I'd do a lot more of it. There's a killing to be made from sports betting if you're prepared to put in the effort - I know one guy who paid off his mortgage years early by dabbling while he's at work, and at almost no financial risk.

I'd say it ticks all your boxes:
  - It's geeky because it involves probabilities and a fair bit of number-crunching;
  - You can do it from anywhere on your laptop, and at any time you like;
  - It's as lucrative as you want it to be.

There are a number of ways to approach this, but generally, betting exchanges such as Betfair are your friend. They have markets on every sport you can think of, as well as lots of other stuff like politics, reality TV shows, etc. etc. Choose a field that interests you and start to swot up.

What you have is basically an options market - you're buying and selling probabilities. You'll find varying amounts of liquidity, and some markets will be more volatile than others. Study them, learn how they tend to behave.

There are any number of strategies you can employ. If you want to take no risk at all, simply look for arbitrage - use sites like Oddschecker to spot when a bookmaker's offering a price that you can lay on the exchanges for guaranteed profit. This happens all the time - you'd be amazed. Usually it doesn't last long, though (I'm talking minutes), so you have to be quick off the mark.

Alternatively, you can just trade on the exchanges. Like any market, there is a spread between the back and lay prices of anything you can bet on, and all you have to do is back at longer odds than you lay, and you'll win whatever. In more volatile markets, you can cash in on market trends - for example, back a horse at a particular price and then lay it off when the odds shorten, hedging so that you win the same amount regardless of the outcome of the race. The trick here is to spot the likely direction of movement of the market and position yourself accordingly. You won't get it right all the time, but over time you learn.

Or if you fancy something a bit riskier, go head-to-head against the bookies. A friend of mine plays chess against a grand master who makes his living betting in-running on cricket. He does his own assessments of the state of play as the game goes on and calculates what he thinks the odds should be. When the bookie is out of step with his own calculations, he puts in money. Generally this just comes down to his opinion against that of the guy setting the odds at the bookies - and because he's smart he gets it right more often than they do. He says he makes about £500 a day tax-free out of this, and most bookies won't take his credit cards, so he gets my friend to open accounts for him and gives him 10% of his winnings!

There are other crazy tactics that some people use, such as backing horses in-running that are clearly going to win at odds of 1/100, i.e. you've got to put up £100 to win £1. An instant 1% return on investment sounds lucrative, especially if you're doing it twenty or thirty times in an afternoon, but sometimes a steward's enquiry sees the result of a race overturned and suddenly you're looking at a big loss. Effectively by doing this you're gambling on fewer than 1% of winning horses being disqualified.

Bottom line is that bookies get stuff wrong all the time and there's easy money to be made from their mistakes if you're smart and quick enough to spot them. You can feel your way into this by putting up a little bit of play money that you can afford to lose, and learn the ropes. If you're successful, your winnings will accumulate and you'll be able to play for bigger stakes. I'm not able to devote enough time to this to make a lot of money out of it, but I do turn a profit just by having half a brain. If you're able to dedicate yourself, the sky's the limit, and there's no risk.

Not according to these guys. And they wont question your patriotism either!