Monday, October 20, 2008

Trading update

I posted Intrade odds last week. The state odds on Intrade are almost all trending toward Obama and just a bit better than last week. Things are a bit worse in Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia, but modestly better in the Kerry states, and notably better in Missouri and Virginia. And remember that Intrade, if anything, runs conservative in two ways (they probably lean Republican, and the odds are closer to 50-50 than Nate's odds).

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks, George. When you have a sec, maybe you can explain Intrade to our Sassy readers who are unfamiliar with it.

Not surprised about W. Virginia, Nate moved them solidly into the R column over the weekend. A bit surprised about IN--luckily we're headed back there this weekend!

George said...

Intrade is a betting market, where you bet on real world events like you might bet on sports events. It's an example of what's called a prediction market. The lure of these markets (which are used by companies like Google and Intel to forecast things like project completion times and new product sales) is twofold: (1) people put their money where their mouth is; and (2) the market exploits the "wisdom of crowds", the average over lots of people typically does better than most individuals.

George said...

I also love how Intrade gives Obama a better chance of winning Missouri than it gives Mitch McConnell of holding on to his Senate seat (the current price for that market is 62.0). Poor Elaine Chao (was she your boss, Ilsa?).

Unknown said...

elaine had just left when i got to uwa, but she left with a very good reputation there (hard to do). george, i'm surprised you knew of her. it's like you know everything!

anyway, elaine is just mitch's beard.