David M. Rothschild - Predictwise Blog

Conditional Probabilities are Hard to Determine

One tempting thing to do with market-based probabilities of victory is to determine the conditional probability of candidate winning the general election; simply divide the probability of victory of getting the nomination by the probability of winning the general election! But, there are two

Democrats

State of election markets: 345 Days

My condolences to the family and friends of the victims of the vicious terrorist attack on the Planned Parenthood in Colorado. This was the 5th major terrorist attack at Planned Parenthood since the release of the doctored videos of them in July. As we

Democrats

State of election markets: 352 Days

I cut the Republican chart down to five candidates this week; four of them have a non-negligible chance of winning the nomination and, because many consider him the front-runner, Ben Carson. On the Democratic side of the election, Hillary Clinton went from dominate to

Democrats

Two very different views of the 2016 GOP primary

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/two-very-different-views-the-2016-gop-primary The above link is to a story I wrote for NBC's new website: Data Points

Democrats

State of election markets: 359 Days

On a personal note, let me share my sympathy to the people of Paris in the aftermath of this devastating terrorist attack … Both parties debated this week and there was not much to show for it in the markets. The Republican debate was

Democrats

State of election markets: 365 Days or 1 Year!

Today begins the one year countdown to Election Day 2016. Serious candidates have already come and gone (looking at you Scott Walker and Joe Biden), but while the Democratic side is basically wrapped up, the Republican side is still in a tight battle. The

Democrats

State of election markets: 373 Days

The Republican primary got another jolt this week with Wednesday, October 28’s debate: Marco Rubio won and Jeb Bush lost. Rubio won because he beat up Bush, and they are the only two viable establishment candidates left in the race. Rubio beat

Democrats

State of election markets: 380 Days

Hillary Clinton followed up a strong debate with the other Democratic candidates, last week on October 13, with strong debate with the Select Committee on Benghazi, this week on October 22. Consequently, she has moved from really likely to almost certainly the Democratic nominee

Democrats

State of election markets: 387 Days

The biggest news this week was the Democratic debate held on Tuesday, October 13. Hillary Clinton expanded her lead in the Democratic primary both by looking strong herself and her strength dampening the spirts of Joe Biden supporters. On the Republican side Marco Rubio

Election 2016

State of election markets: 394 Days

The market was pretty calm this week with Jeb Bush continuing to hold off Marco Rubio as the most likely candidate. His polling numbers look good, but his funding is still lagging; with several month left until the first voting, a poll of money

Election 2016

State of election markets: 401 Days

With no debates there was nothing dramatic this week in the markets, but there was something quite interesting. The top establishment GOP candidates continued to hold onto about 60% of the likelihood of victory, but Jeb Bush ceded a lot of ground to Marco

Election 2016

State of election markets: 408 Days

The previous week was punctuated by Scott Walker dropping out of the race for the GOP nomination on Monday, September 21 and Marco Rubio taking up all of his likelihood for victory (and some). The key date is Wednesday, September 16, which was the

Election 2016

State of GOP post-second debate

There were four tiers of candidates going into the second GOP debate. One candidate who is most likely to get the nomination, two candidates who are serious contenders, four candidates who are long-shots, and those candidates that are negligible. 1) Most likely: Jeb Bush

Markets

How Cash Affects Prediction Markets

This is a guest post by Ben Golden/@BenGoldn who is an Engineer at Cultivate Labs. I added a few comments on the bottom! When I first heard about play-money prediction markets, I was skeptical that they could be as interesting, useful, or accurate

Election 2016

State of GOP pre-second debate

There are four tiers of candidates going into the second GOP debate. One candidate who is most likely to get the nomination, two candidates who are serious contenders, four candidates who are long-shots, and those candidates that are negligible. 1) Most likely: Jeb Bush

Election 2016

Bush is on a downward slope, but still winning; Rubio and Trump in next level

Jeb Bush continues his slow decline as the most likely Republican nominee nomine. He is still over twice as likely as any other person, but he down close to 35%, from 45% just before the first Republican debate. Sources: Betfair, Hypermind, PredictIt, http://twopointoh.

Democrats

Clinton is less likely to win Democratic nomination than July, but still really likely

Hillary Clinton has slid to 70% likely to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2016. This is much lower than her peak of 85% in late June and early July. But, it is still incredibly high for a non-incumbent just after Labor Day.

IEM

Iowa Electronic Market

The Iowa Electronic Market (IEM) is a prediction market run by the University of Iowa and sanctioned by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). PredictIt is the other exchange sanctioned by the CFTC; it just opened in the fall of 2014. IEM is capped

exchange

Differences between “bookie” and “market” data

Betfair has two locations on the same website (1) exchange or market (2) sportsbook or bookie. The first, the exchange or market, is a place where people bet against each other. The second, the sportsbook or bookie, is a place where people bet against

Euro

Greek Polling

Pollfish, a Greek-based mobile polling platform, has been releasing a series of fascinating polls over the last few weeks. Pollfish operates as a pop-up poll inside of third-party mobile applications. Prior the Sunday, July 5 referendum they polled 7,275 Greeks. And, in the

UK Election

Prediction Markets and the UK Election

In the final stages of the UK election on May 7, 2015 the polls showed Labour in the lead for seats. It is reasonable to say it was a statistical dead heat. Despite the polling, prediction markets had the Conservative party over 65% to

Basketball

NCAA Men's Basketball - March 30

Kentucky is 55% to win the tournament, same as they were before the Elite Eight. They did not look dominate so advancing a round was not as helpful as it should!

Basketball

NCAA Men's Basketball - March 28

1) Kentucky is 55% to win the tournament, up just 11 percentage points from the start of the tournment. 2) The other three games are all pretty tight. Michigan State is a 58% favorite, Duke is a 57% favorite, and Arizona is a 52

Basketball

NCAA Men's Basketball - March 26

1) Of the three top seeds left, Duke is the most at risk. 2) Wichita State (7) v. Notre Dame (3) is the tighest pick with the market-based forecasets at 54% for Wichita State and the FiveThirtyEight's model at 53% for Notre

Basketball

NCAA Men's Basketball - March 22

Day 3 was another day of top-seeds or expected favorites winning … will the exception of the top seeded Villanova. This is a huge blow to the FiveThirtyEight predictions which had a big weight on Nova: a 16% likelihood of winning the tourney going