Posts tagged Intrade

Out with the Intrade

13
2 months ago
by Monotreme in
Quick: Is this a graph of Herman Cain's fortunes, or Intrade's?

Quick: Is this a graph of Her­man Cain’s for­tunes, or Intrade’s?

Intrade had a lot of trad­ing mar­kets. You could place a bet on whether Marco Rubio would be elected Pres­i­dent in 2016. You could bet on the fea­si­bil­ity of cold fusion. You could bet on who would win a Grammy.

The one con­tract that Intrade never car­ried: “Intrade will close abruptly on Sun­day, March 10.” Too bad, because some­one could have made a mint on that one.

It is unclear whether Intrade will ever come back. Most experts say it’s unlikely.

After the jump, you’ll see what you get when you type “Intrade​.com” into your browser. (more…)

Can Congress Do a Backflip?

26
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Intrade per­cent­ages for Repub­li­can con­trol of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives after the 2012 elec­tion cycle.

Many polit­i­cal sci­en­tists and poll­sters have focused on the President’s “coat­tails” when try­ing to pre­dict the out­come of Con­gres­sional elec­tions. It’s com­mon to find pun­dits claim­ing that the President’s rel­a­tively low job approval rat­ings, and the rel­a­tively poor state of the econ­omy, bode poorly for Con­gres­sional Democ­rats in this elec­tion cycle.

Intrade per­cent­ages for Demo­c­ra­tic con­trol of the Sen­ate after the 2012 elec­tion cycle.

For exam­ple, on Intrade, Repub­li­cans are given a 78% chance to con­tinue their con­trol of the House, while Democ­rats are given only a 25% chance to con­tinue their con­trol of the Sen­ate, almost a mirror-​​image result. That is, Intraders give 5:3 odds that the Repub­li­cans will have con­trol of both houses of Con­gress after the 2012 elections.

Iowa Elec­tronic Mar­kets per­cent­ages for (from most to least likely, top to bot­tom): Repub­li­cans con­trol both houses (red); Repub­li­cans con­trol the House and Democ­rats the Sen­ate (green); Democ­rats con­trol both Houses (blue); Democ­rats con­trol the House and Repub­li­cans con­trol the Sen­ate (black); one or both houses are tied (yellow).

The story is sim­i­lar over at the smaller Iowa Elec­tronic Mar­kets, where the Repub­li­can con­trol of both House and Sen­ate in the 113th Con­gress is given a 60 per­cent chance of occurring.

I want to present the case for a some­what counter-​​intuitive result: that con­trol of both the House and the Sen­ate are likely to flip in the upcom­ing elec­tion cycle, but for some­what dif­fer­ent rea­sons. (more…)

The 2012 Republican Primary Field: July, 2011

38
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Once a month, we give a run­down of the Repub­li­can field for the 2012 Pres­i­den­tial nomination.

Texas Gov­er­nor Rick Perry and for­mer New York City Mayor Rudy Giu­liani are still on the side­lines, look­ing at the game. They both have been mak­ing noises for two months with no sig­nif­i­cant movement.

Last month, there were 11 can­di­dates judged by Intrade to have bet­ter than a 1% at the nom­i­na­tion. This month, there are nine, and only five of those have declared; the other four (Perry, Giu­liani, New Jer­sey Gov­er­nor Chris Christie, and for­mer Alaska Gov­er­nor Sarah Palin) have not. My best guess is that there is one Repub­li­can can­di­date who has not yet declared that we will see in the early pri­maries next year; what I can’t pre­dict is which one of the four listed here will be “it”.

I’ve gath­ered Real Clear Pol­i­tics aggre­gated poll aver­ages and July 20 Intrade prob­a­bil­i­ties for each can­di­date, rounded to the near­est whole number.

I’ll list the poten­tial Repub­li­can can­di­dates after the jump, in order of their Intrade per­cent­ages, from high­est to low­est. In each case, the polling num­bers are given in paren­the­ses after the candidate’s name, rounded to the near­est whole num­ber, fol­lowed by the change from last month:

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