5 ms·
It doesn't matter if 99% resolve no, if they're priced appropriately betting no on every single one won't make you money.
by some_random 6mo ago
It doesn't matter if 99% resolve no, if they're priced appropriately betting no on every single one won't make you money.
- treyd 6mo agoThat's a massive "if".
- some_random 6mo agoTotally, that's the entire conjecture of this bot. My point is just that the odds of the underlying events are irrelevant, what matters is if they're matched with the betting price
- irishcoffee 6mo ago[flagged]
- some_random 6mo agoYou are either reading way too much into what I am saying or statistically illiterate.
- CyberDildonics 6mo agoOf course, they were just explaining the basics of statistics.
- jfengel 6mo agoIf they're appropriately priced, you can't win money at all, unless you have insider knowledge.
- okhobb 6mo agoThe purpose of prediction markets is to communicate insider knowledge.
- khimaros 6mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
- eru 6mo agoCompare and contrast https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpose-of https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...
- viccis 6mo ago>The purpose of the Ukrainian military is to get stuck in a years-long stalemate with Russia. >These are obviously false. The purpose of the Ukrainian military is to exhaust the Russian army's materiel and test out our weapons. "Years-long stalemate with Russia? Yes, please." -the US. Seems like an overwhelmingly common Scott Alexander L.
- eru 6mo ago> The purpose of the Ukrainian military is to exhaust the Russian army's materiel and test out our weapons. Since when does country A decide what the purpose of country B's military is?
- hamasho 6mo agoI hate that many people or even the news and scientists have already started to see the odds of prediction market as fact. I'm sure in the near future, policy decisions or war strategies will be decided by prediction markets' odds, if they are not already being used.
- jonahx 6mo agoThey're far from facts, but have an important advantage over most other sources: the bettors are motivated to predict truth. News sources are motivated to get clicks, to appeal to certain audiences, and to retain tribal customers. None of these create incentives for truth. You can seek out smart, well-informed and principled journalists who will prioritize truth-seeking over money-making. There are some. But the fact remains you are relying on character to override incentives. With prediction markets, incentives and truth are naturally aligned. This makes them a powerful and valuable resource imo, even if there is a lot of scumminess that comes along for the ride. The insiders, more than anyone, are contributing to the truth signal.
- Geezus_42 6mo agoThey are motivated to pick what they believe is most likely to happen. The develope their idea of what is most likely to happen for the news. The reporters use their bets to wrote stories predicting what will happen. See the loop?
- eru 6mo agoNo? Where's the loop?
- jonahx 6mo agoThat's not how it works. First, you have inside traders. Then, among legitimate bettors, you have smart people using multiple data sources (not just the "news") and doing sophisticated analysis that most journalists cannot do, and are not motivated to do -- again, because their incentives are different.
- names_are_hard 6mo agoYes. And indeed, when aggregated and averaged across all betters, nobody makes any money. The question isn't what percentage of bets resolve to no, but whether there is a consistent bias in the prices away from the fair price, which has an expected value of 0, and what direction that bias is in.