Bet on it

I was thinking about the prediction markets today. I'm not much of a gambler, myself, but I'm interested in the ways in which markets can be used to predict certain outcomes--not just betting on sports, but things like elections. Online betting is illegal in the US, but in Ireland Tradesports and Intrade allow you to bet online on a range of things, including the outcome of the Russian presidential elections or whether there will be an airstrike by the US against Iran by the end of September. Many observers in political science and economics have argued that these kinds of markets, where there is real money involved, have a good track record at guessing future outcomes correctly. That being said, it's interesting to look at the Democratic candidates for president as viewed by the betting community. The number on the right can essentially be viewed as a percentage of likelihood of that person being nominated. You can click on the pictures for a larger size.

Here's the bet on Clinton becoming the presidential nominee:

And here's Obama:



Interesting to look through, even if you're not a gamer at heart.