Political markets go wild

Politickr — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:47:25 GMT

Unlike the IEM, Intrade has pulled in more than $100 million in trades so far this cycle, which is already a sixfold increase over 2004. I'm a political trader and a journalist who follows prediction market developments and pundit predictions on my blog - http://politickr.blogspot.com. Check it out if you're interested.

Political markets go wild

Sayeed Ibrahim — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:23:45 GMT

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/intrade-betting-is-suspcious.html

Manipulation...

Political markets go wild

Nigel Eccles — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:52:33 GMT

Excellent article.

While manipulation is very hard to prove the evidence that Intrade is being manipulated is very strong. Their prices have been consistently 8-10% more in favor of McCain for the past month compared with Betfair and other UK betting sites. That sort of disparity just shouldn't occur without manipulation.

Betfair alone has traded over £4m ($7m) on the Obama contract compared to around $800,000 on Intrade. If you check the prices this morning you'll see that Obama is trading at 1.26 (=80%) compared to 72% on Intrade.

We also have Obama at about 80%. Here is a link to that market (the page also links to all the other markets where the presidential contract is being traded): http://www.hubdub.com/m17795/
Who_will_win_the_2008_US_Presidential_Election

Political markets go wild

Tim Rommes, Washington, UT — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:06:41 GMT

I've finally made a tentative decision in this race. Unless the Dems give me a reason to change my mind I'm going Republican. Installing Sara Palin as the first female VP will ensure a rich, vibrant future ... of comedy as Tina Fey does her on SNL.

REAL POST
If the traders, who actually put real money on the line, are more likely to be informed. An informed vote is much different than a party based vote. It seams odd that there would be a strong correlation with the actual vote unless Americans are more informed voters than I think. Are there any studies on, is there any way to determine, what motivates the traders? Are 90% in it for the money? Are 70% representing their party? Have past results picked the winner just by dumb luck? Any way to tell if the traders are representative of voters generally?