I trust Polymarket more than Predict It
Polymarket is bigger but all non-US. The latter may be a bonus.
OTOH, why would you trust a bunch of people who think gambling is a good life choice.
Trust is the wrong word. Polymarket is a bigger betting market than Predict It despite being non-US.
Polls have become more biased and unreliable. Polymarket ‘appears’ to be a more reliable snapshot than polls or Predict It. But I am also biased.
Betting or prediction markets got it wrong in 2016: Brexit and Trump.
Okay, then, trust the judgement. Why would I trust the judgement of a bunch of people who think gambling is a good life choice? If you are looking to betting markets for guidance, you are trusting the judgement of the participants. Making a bet is making a judgement about probability.
Polymarket is a bigger betting market than Predict It because it is non-US.
FIFY
Why trust these odds?
Studies find that political prediction (betting) markets tend to be better at predicting elections than polls. Some reasons:
- Bettors take into account important factors besides polls. In 2020, for example, the virus, mail-ins, and “shy voters” shook things up in unpredictable ways.
- Unlike pundits, bettors put their money where their mouths are.
- People involved in the event might trade before news breaks publicly
- The “wisdom of crowds”.
The wisdom of crowds is largely mythological. As a counterpoint, consider the madness of a mob. Crowds can be irrational — irrational exuberance in the financial markets, as Alan Greenspan would have it.
Today’s collapse in global markets illustrates the phenomenon.
Maxim Lott, who runs electionbettingodds.com with John Stossel, did a detailed comparison between betting election predictions and 538’s predictions. Their performance was almost indistinguishable. Curiously, both exhibited similar underdog bias.
It’s striking how similarly accurate the sites are, even though they often make quite different predictions. On a scale of “perfect” to “coin toss” their difference is barely visible.
There was one subtle difference:
Nate Silver’s site is worse than bettors at predicting Republican wins, and better at predicting Democratic wins.
Pollsters ask who will you vote for. Sometimes they ask who do you think will win.
Bettors only ask themselves who do I think will win.
Nate Silver is no longer affiliated with 538, the company he created.
Edit: Predict It right now has Walz leading, 58 - 43, 11:44 PST.
Polymarket has Shapiro with a tiny lead, 50 - 48
added: Shapiro has the lead in every betting market. 1:34 PST
I already placed a bet on Predict It that Shapiro will be the nominee.
Payout is 94 cents on a 43 cent bet.
Update: 10:08 PST Walz is the pick. I lost 43 cents on Shapiro.
The comparison indicates that the betters are fairly accurate. Isn’t that the opposite of you not trusting the judgement of gamblers?
Event betting is different from betting on games of chance with defined odds.
It’s reasonably accurate if all contest are included, from dogcatcher to president. The results are less impressive for important ones, where there tend to be more shenanigans.
Furthermore, the winner often switches just before the election. Brexit was a good example of that. Predicting a result 12 or 24 hours ahead is not that useful or that great a trick.