How much do you want to bet?
Permalink | August 22nd, 2005
It is being called “The Wisdom of the Crowds,” a phenomenon wherein if there are enough people performing their own individual investigations, and gathering their own information, their combined findings can be stunning; and often times better than individual experts in the same field. And what better tool to link all of these individuals together than the Interwebnet.
The world’s online betting markets have done quite a nice job of predicting the future lately.
A kind of futures exchange where participants bet on real-world events, these markets could have told somebody last fall to ignore the talk of a late surge by John Kerry and stick with President Bush. Based on the odds posted at InTrade, one of the biggest exchanges, you could have correctly forecast the presidential winner of all 50 states, and 33 of 34 Senate races.
The markets also could have told you that Cardinal Josef Ratzinger was neither too old nor too doctrinaire for his red-hatted colleagues. His contract was the most expensive on InTrade in the days before he was chosen to succeed John Paul II, meaning that it had the smallest payoff, because traders considered the cardinal the favorite.
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Now one of these markets has turned its gaze to a consumer activity that is a favorite discussion topic these days: real estate. And the bettors see no signs of a bursting bubble anytime soon.
