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Related recent podcast interview from the Star Spangled Gamblers: https://starspangledgamblers.libsyn.com/the-trader-who-guessed-every-swing-state-correctlytwic

by qznc 1y ago

Related recent podcast interview from the Star Spangled Gamblers: https://starspangledgamblers.libsyn.com/the-trader-who-guessed-every-swing-state-correctlytwice https://starspangledgamblers.libsyn.com/the-trader-who-guess... > In 2016, Blitz (@blizzythegoat24) bet on Donald Trump to win the general election. > In 2020, Blitz not only bet on Biden to win the election, he guessed the outcome of every state correctly. > In 2024, he managed to do the same. He bet on Trump to win the election and guessed every state correctly.

ceejayoz 1y ago
There are people who've won the lottery more than once, too, out of pure chance. It doesn't necessarily mean there's skill involved.
- mattm 1y ago
  Also most states are foregone conclusions so there's really only a handful in doubt.
slg 1y ago
You have a 12.5% chance to correctly predict 3 coin flips in a row. You need a lot more than 3 examples before we can actually be confident that a successful prediction is anything more than luck.
- achierius 1y ago
  To be fair "guessed every state" carries significantly more bits of information than 3 coin tosses.
- ThePowerOfFuet 1y ago
  What are the chance of guessing 50 coin flips in a row? What are the odds of doing it again four years later?
  - slg 1y ago
    This question shows a fundamental misunderstanding of predicting presidential elections. There is no value in predicting New York would go blue or Alabama would go red. Most states are easy to predict and the states that are more difficult are correlated. Especially in an election like 2024 when all the swing states went the same way, getting them all right isn't much of an accomplishment. These weren't 51 independent coin flip predictions. There was one prediction, Donald Trump would do slightly better than polling indicated (or really more accurately Harris would do worse), and the results all flowed logically downstream of that.
    - pc86 1y ago
      Your hubris would be justified had every media outlet and pundit been talking ad nauseam about how Trump was absolutely going to sweep the field, but they didn't. Harris losing was a shock to many, many informed people. Claiming "guessing every state right isn't much of an accomplishment" is a joke and absolutely, categorically not true. Otherwise I hope you made a lot of money on the prediction markets!
      - foobarian 1y ago
        I knew the minute I saw Obama pull frozen Biden off a podium at some random event in early '24. It was no surprise he bowed out later, and it was downhill from there doubling down on the 2016 mistakes. Oh well.
      - slg 1y ago
        Once again, this is not an accurate description of presidential elections or even what I said for that matter. I did not say that everyone knew Trump would win in the manner in which he did. But once we take Trump winning as a prediction, the results of the individual states mostly fall in line. For example, a standard path to victory for Harris was to win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. But those states are pretty similar to each other and their results are correlated. If you think Trump is going to win, you could have just awarded him one of those states, but that isn't actually a likely outcome due to their similarity. Whatever hypothetical reason that would explain Trump being underestimated in Michigan likely also applies to Wisconsin. The reverse is also true, if Harris won one of those, it was likely she would win the other. Therefore predicting Trump winning both Wisconsin and Michigan is not nearly as bold of a prediction as winning one and not the other. Considering the way that every swing state went to Trump makes it very easy to predict all 50 states, because the only actual prediction you need to reach that conclusion is that Trump will outperform his polling (or like I said before, Harris to underperform). It seems like ABC has wiped the full 538 predictions from the web, but look at this chart of their predictions[1]. They have Trump winning by roughly his margin of victory as the most likely of any individual outcome. It doesn't mean he was favored, it is just the way all these state results are correlated to each other. If Trump were to win, the manner in which he did is not surprising. [1] - https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/ff20d77c-0734-48d0-b9b3-72eb9bec8a4e/final-presidential-election-forecast-abc-ml-241105_1730808838900_hpEmbed_27x16.jpg?w=750 https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/ff20d77c-0734-48d0-b9b3-72eb9bec8a...
- Spooky23 1y ago
  The presidential election is 50 independent events, 20% of which are moderately variable. It’s impressive, especially 2024.
  - slg 1y ago
    >The presidential election is 50 independent events This is just fundamentally not true. See my other comment, the results are heavily correlated making prediction of them all easier, especially in 2024 when they all moved in the same direction.
    - Rastonbury 1y ago
      So was it an easy prediction or was it luck? Anyone can say that about any prediction, if not these then what kind of prediction would pass the bar for both?
      - slg 1y ago
        Lucky and easy are not mutually exclusive. See my other comment below about the 538 predictions[1]. We basically got the most likely individual outcome (making it easy), which itself wasn't that likely because there were so many possible outcomes (making it lucky). I just don't think the 2024 election was a particularly good one to demonstrate predictive skill due to the results all being relatively uniformly off expectations. You would need to accurately predict different states swinging in different directions to show an actual interesting insight. But that wasn't possible this election because Trump mostly just beat his poll numbers by a relatively consistent amount across the board, not giving any opportunity to hit multiple different uncorrelated outcomes. [1] - https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/ff20d77c-0734-48d0-b9b3-72eb9bec8a4e/final-presidential-election-forecast-abc-ml-241105_1730808838900_hpEmbed_27x16.jpg?w=750 https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/ff20d77c-0734-48d0-b9b3-72eb9bec8a...
nitwit005 1y ago
From that podcast, it sounds like his predictions were very reliant on his judgement calls: "you could sense that people really wanted a change", "if you could call it a formula, sure", etc. Clearly it's worked for him, but I'm not sure you can call that a model.
- qznc 1y ago
  My understanding is that „model“ in that field generally means things as simple as an Excel table with some formulas.

by qznc 1y ago

ceejayoz 1y ago

There are people who've won the lottery more than once, too, out of pure chance. It doesn't necessarily mean there's skill involved.

mattm 1y ago
Also most states are foregone conclusions so there's really only a handful in doubt.

slg 1y ago

You have a 12.5% chance to correctly predict 3 coin flips in a row. You need a lot more than 3 examples before we can actually be confident that a successful prediction is anything more than luck.

achierius 1y ago
To be fair "guessed every state" carries significantly more bits of information than 3 coin tosses.
ThePowerOfFuet 1y ago
What are the chance of guessing 50 coin flips in a row? What are the odds of doing it again four years later?
- slg 1y ago
  This question shows a fundamental misunderstanding of predicting presidential elections. There is no value in predicting New York would go blue or Alabama would go red. Most states are easy to predict and the states that are more difficult are correlated. Especially in an election like 2024 when all the swing states went the same way, getting them all right isn't much of an accomplishment. These weren't 51 independent coin flip predictions. There was one prediction, Donald Trump would do slightly better than polling indicated (or really more accurately Harris would do worse), and the results all flowed logically downstream of that.
  - pc86 1y ago
    Your hubris would be justified had every media outlet and pundit been talking ad nauseam about how Trump was absolutely going to sweep the field, but they didn't. Harris losing was a shock to many, many informed people. Claiming "guessing every state right isn't much of an accomplishment" is a joke and absolutely, categorically not true. Otherwise I hope you made a lot of money on the prediction markets!
    - foobarian 1y ago
      I knew the minute I saw Obama pull frozen Biden off a podium at some random event in early '24. It was no surprise he bowed out later, and it was downhill from there doubling down on the 2016 mistakes. Oh well.
    - slg 1y ago
      Once again, this is not an accurate description of presidential elections or even what I said for that matter. I did not say that everyone knew Trump would win in the manner in which he did. But once we take Trump winning as a prediction, the results of the individual states mostly fall in line. For example, a standard path to victory for Harris was to win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. But those states are pretty similar to each other and their results are correlated. If you think Trump is going to win, you could have just awarded him one of those states, but that isn't actually a likely outcome due to their similarity. Whatever hypothetical reason that would explain Trump being underestimated in Michigan likely also applies to Wisconsin. The reverse is also true, if Harris won one of those, it was likely she would win the other. Therefore predicting Trump winning both Wisconsin and Michigan is not nearly as bold of a prediction as winning one and not the other. Considering the way that every swing state went to Trump makes it very easy to predict all 50 states, because the only actual prediction you need to reach that conclusion is that Trump will outperform his polling (or like I said before, Harris to underperform). It seems like ABC has wiped the full 538 predictions from the web, but look at this chart of their predictions[1]. They have Trump winning by roughly his margin of victory as the most likely of any individual outcome. It doesn't mean he was favored, it is just the way all these state results are correlated to each other. If Trump were to win, the manner in which he did is not surprising. [1] - https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/ff20d77c-0734-48d0-b9b3-72eb9bec8a4e/final-presidential-election-forecast-abc-ml-241105_1730808838900_hpEmbed_27x16.jpg?w=750 https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/ff20d77c-0734-48d0-b9b3-72eb9bec8a...
Spooky23 1y ago
The presidential election is 50 independent events, 20% of which are moderately variable. It’s impressive, especially 2024.
- slg 1y ago
  >The presidential election is 50 independent events This is just fundamentally not true. See my other comment, the results are heavily correlated making prediction of them all easier, especially in 2024 when they all moved in the same direction.
  - Rastonbury 1y ago
    So was it an easy prediction or was it luck? Anyone can say that about any prediction, if not these then what kind of prediction would pass the bar for both?
    - slg 1y ago
      Lucky and easy are not mutually exclusive. See my other comment below about the 538 predictions[1]. We basically got the most likely individual outcome (making it easy), which itself wasn't that likely because there were so many possible outcomes (making it lucky). I just don't think the 2024 election was a particularly good one to demonstrate predictive skill due to the results all being relatively uniformly off expectations. You would need to accurately predict different states swinging in different directions to show an actual interesting insight. But that wasn't possible this election because Trump mostly just beat his poll numbers by a relatively consistent amount across the board, not giving any opportunity to hit multiple different uncorrelated outcomes. [1] - https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/ff20d77c-0734-48d0-b9b3-72eb9bec8a4e/final-presidential-election-forecast-abc-ml-241105_1730808838900_hpEmbed_27x16.jpg?w=750 https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/ff20d77c-0734-48d0-b9b3-72eb9bec8a...

nitwit005 1y ago

From that podcast, it sounds like his predictions were very reliant on his judgement calls: "you could sense that people really wanted a change", "if you could call it a formula, sure", etc. Clearly it's worked for him, but I'm not sure you can call that a model.

qznc 1y ago
My understanding is that „model“ in that field generally means things as simple as an Excel table with some formulas.