Live odds on the UK election

#1

Post by vide0star » Thu, May 06, 2010, 12:44 PM UTC

Live odds on the UK election
smarkets.com

Re: Live odds on the UK election

#2

Post by danparsonson » Thu, May 06, 2010, 2:12 PM UTC

... or just a link to a gambling site :-(

Re: Live odds on the UK election

#3

Post by vide0star » Thu, May 06, 2010, 2:14 PM UTC

danparsonson wrote: post #2

... or just a link to a gambling site :-(

It's a prediction market - different than a pure gambling website. The prices are set in realtime by the users so there is 'wisdom of the crowd' information for the public.

Re: Live odds on the UK election

#4

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 06, 2010, 2:15 PM UTC

vide0star wrote: post #3

danparsonson wrote: post #2

... or just a link to a gambling site :-(

It's a prediction market - different than a pure gambling website. The prices are set in realtime by the users so there is 'wisdom of the crowd' information for the public.

[deleted]

Re: Live odds on the UK election

#5

Post by axod » Thu, May 06, 2010, 2:16 PM UTC

vide0star wrote: post #3

danparsonson wrote: post #2

... or just a link to a gambling site :-(

It's a prediction market - different than a pure gambling website. The prices are set in realtime by the users so there is 'wisdom of the crowd' information for the public.

"wisdom in the crowd" seems like a contradiction. Nice phrase.

Re: Live odds on the UK election

#6

Post by intranation » Thu, May 06, 2010, 2:18 PM UTC

danparsonson wrote: post #2

... or just a link to a gambling site :-(

The title says "odds"—what did you expect?

Re: Live odds on the UK election

#7

Post by huherto » Thu, May 06, 2010, 2:19 PM UTC

vide0star wrote: post #3

danparsonson wrote: post #2

... or just a link to a gambling site :-(

It's a prediction market - different than a pure gambling website. The prices are set in realtime by the users so there is 'wisdom of the crowd' information for the public.

and as far as I know they are the best mechanism to predict the outcome of an election. It's an honest opinion since they are betting their own money independently of their personal preferences.

Re: Live odds on the UK election

#8

Post by jodrellblank » Thu, May 06, 2010, 2:25 PM UTC

axod wrote: post #5

vide0star wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a prediction market - different than a pure gambling website. The prices are set in realtime by the users so there is 'wisdom of the crowd' information for the public.

"wisdom in the crowd" seems like a contradiction. Nice phrase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds

"a book written by James Surowiecki about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group."

Re: Live odds on the UK election

#9

Post by danparsonson » Thu, May 06, 2010, 2:29 PM UTC

vide0star wrote: post #3

danparsonson wrote: post #2

... or just a link to a gambling site :-(

It's a prediction market - different than a pure gambling website. The prices are set in realtime by the users so there is 'wisdom of the crowd' information for the public.

The user pays money in the hope of winning more back - it's gambling however you slice it.

There is no information of any value here outside the context of the site itself - unless you're claiming that your audience is a representative sample of the UK population?

Re: Live odds on the UK election

#10

Post by imurray » Thu, May 06, 2010, 2:39 PM UTC

Graphs over time: http://politicszone.betfair.com/

To interpret the numbers do 100/(decimal odd) to get percentages as shown in the graphs.