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Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

toddwschneider.com

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Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#31

Post by secfirstmd »

I worked for a summer at Intrade.com during 2008.

It was a very flawed company (and CEO) but it's a pity it's not around during this election. US Presidential elections were one of the few things were it had enough data and people putting money on it's markets that it's predictions were excellent. (Though I think in hindsight I got the job by telling John Delaney the immediate market highs for the Republican's post-Palin entry was a temporary bounce and Obama would win because the economy was the main issue, the Democrats were polling far far higher on it - guess a political degree can sometimes trump market sentiment :)

In fact, I think it's a pity (with the exception of how badly the company was run) in general that something like Intrade is not around. If I am legally allowed to speculate/gamble on oil futures, I really don't understand why I can't be allowed to speculate/gamble/hedge on geopolitical events.

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#32

Post by imaginenore »

Why in the world would they bet on Jeb Bush over Trump or Carson? Look at the actual polls, Bush is doing worse and worse, while Trump and Carson are rising:

http://i.imgur.com/naxgnhi.png

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/rise-of-the-a...

(yesterday's numbers)

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#34

Post by endianswap »

secfirstmd wrote: post #31

I worked for a summer at Intrade.com during 2008. It was a very flawed company (and CEO) but it's a pity it's not around during this election. US Presidential elections were one of the few things were it had enough data and people putting money on it's markets that it's predictions were excellent. (Though I think in hindsight I got the job by telling John Delaney the immediate market highs for the Republican's post-P…

Isn't predictit.com sufficient for what you want?

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#35

Post by zxcvcxz »

vixen99 wrote: post #2

How depressing that a country of 300+ million individuals has candidates from the same families again and again.

That's why I think we should elect officials on a local level, then send the winner to state to compete against the other local winners in the state, then on to the national level. After the local level everything is funded by taxes and highly regulated to attempt to give everyone a fair chance.

I think it would highly diversify the elections and give the people more of a sense of power. A local election is a lot easier to run than a national one.

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#36

Post by saturdaysaint »

Killobyte wrote: post #29
saturdaysaint wrote: post #6

I don't know if this has any special significance, but I think the number of FB/Twitter followers for the current frontrunners are interesting. I'll use Facebook numbers. Hillary Clinton - 1.3 million Jeb Bush - .26 million Donald Trump - 3.7 million Joe Biden - .85 million Bernie Sanders - 1.4 million Marco Rubio - .99 million John Kasich - .14 million Scott Walker - .36 million Ben Carson - 2.88 million No, I don't…

"people just aren't interested in the guy" isn't accurate - "people who use social media aren't interested in the guy" is. The candidates with low numbers on social media seem to also be the candidates whose supporters are less likely to be on social media.

I acknowledge that this is an imperfect, perhaps fatally flawed, metric - I'm sure it skews young, for example. Something I noticed after posting is that Rand Paul isn't on the linked list (and is barely holding on in polls), but has 2 million FB follows. But who knows, I could see him picking up as the fields starts winnowing.

But I think it's fair to characterize Jeb's numbers as indicative of low interest. There are a ton of people on Facebook in demographics that Jeb needs to do well in to win. To stereotype (using known statistics), white males in their 30's tend to vote Republican - there are plenty of those on Facebook and I see them "sharing" conservative links every day (and I can see that many have followed guys like Carson and Paul). In our increasingly "filter bubbled" world, I think we're seeing people aggressively tune out milquetoast establishment types (on the right at least).

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#37

Post by saturdaysaint »

Chathamization wrote: post #28
saturdaysaint wrote: post #6

I don't know if this has any special significance, but I think the number of FB/Twitter followers for the current frontrunners are interesting. I'll use Facebook numbers. Hillary Clinton - 1.3 million Jeb Bush - .26 million Donald Trump - 3.7 million Joe Biden - .85 million Bernie Sanders - 1.4 million Marco Rubio - .99 million John Kasich - .14 million Scott Walker - .36 million Ben Carson - 2.88 million No, I don't…

Worth pointing out that Rand Paul has 2.06 million likes and he's polling at 2.7%.

Yeah, I noticed that after posting (he wasn't on the original list). My guess is that he's attracted a following of libertarian college students who pollsters probably (rightly) don't give much weight. Maybe he's an example of how flawed the metric is, but maybe he'll be surprisingly resilient as the field winnows.

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#38

Post by wmil »

saturdaysaint wrote: post #6

I don't know if this has any special significance, but I think the number of FB/Twitter followers for the current frontrunners are interesting. I'll use Facebook numbers. Hillary Clinton - 1.3 million Jeb Bush - .26 million Donald Trump - 3.7 million Joe Biden - .85 million Bernie Sanders - 1.4 million Marco Rubio - .99 million John Kasich - .14 million Scott Walker - .36 million Ben Carson - 2.88 million No, I don't…

Jeb is actually really unpopular with a lot of the Republican base. He gets booed when he's at conventions.

His strategy was to use his Wall St connections (he was working for Lehman Brothers when it went bankrupt) to build a war chest capable of permanently damaging any other candidate in the race with negative ads. Essentially forcing Republican voters to make an early choice between accepting candidate Jeb Bush and getting president Hillary Clinton.

That drove most other candidates from the race, but Trump's entry has completely destroyed that strategy.

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#39

Post by secfirstmd »

endianswap wrote: post #34
secfirstmd wrote: post #31

I worked for a summer at Intrade.com during 2008. It was a very flawed company (and CEO) but it's a pity it's not around during this election. US Presidential elections were one of the few things were it had enough data and people putting money on it's markets that it's predictions were excellent. (Though I think in hindsight I got the job by telling John Delaney the immediate market highs for the Republican's post-P…

Isn't predictit.com sufficient for what you want?

Hmm, hadn't come across it before.

They seem to be offering to customers in the USA which is interesting. It was the regulatory issues in the US which was one of the biggest problems with Intrade's business.

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#40

Post by throwaway1967 »

secfirstmd wrote: post #31

I worked for a summer at Intrade.com during 2008. It was a very flawed company (and CEO) but it's a pity it's not around during this election. US Presidential elections were one of the few things were it had enough data and people putting money on it's markets that it's predictions were excellent. (Though I think in hindsight I got the job by telling John Delaney the immediate market highs for the Republican's post-P…

> I really don't understand why I can't be allowed to speculate/gamble on geopolitical events.

That would get people interested in geopolitical events. At least, more interested than the establishment would like them to be.

There'd be books on geopolitical spread betting, how to become informed, how reading unpopular economics blogs can actually help your understanding, and so on.

Lots of truth would come out if this were allowed. I'm just hypothesizing, feel free to disagree!

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