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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

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.

endianswap 11y ago
Isn't predictit.com sufficient for what you want?
- secfirstmd 11y ago
  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.
throwaway1967 11y ago
> 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!
GregBuchholz 11y ago
What do you think of the Iowa Electronic market: http://tippie.uiowa.edu/iem/markets/pres16.html http://tippie.uiowa.edu/iem/markets/pres16.html ...and their "U.S. Presidential Election Market"?
csarsam 11y ago
> I really don't understand why I can't be allowed to speculate/gamble/hedge on geopolitical events. There was an interesting Planet Money episode lately about the history of betting on US presidential elections - http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/21/433557935/episode-646-why-cant-we-bet-on-elections http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/21/433557935/episo.... It hadn't occurred to me before how much participation in the public sphere gambling could (and previously did) generate.

endianswap 11y ago

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

secfirstmd 11y ago
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.

throwaway1967 11y ago

> 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!

GregBuchholz 11y ago

What do you think of the Iowa Electronic market: http://tippie.uiowa.edu/iem/markets/pres16.html http://tippie.uiowa.edu/iem/markets/pres16.html ...and their "U.S. Presidential Election Market"?

csarsam 11y ago

> I really don't understand why I can't be allowed to speculate/gamble/hedge on geopolitical events. There was an interesting Planet Money episode lately about the history of betting on US presidential elections - http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/21/433557935/episode-646-why-cant-we-bet-on-elections http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/21/433557935/episo.... It hadn't occurred to me before how much participation in the public sphere gambling could (and previously did) generate.