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Intrade Ceases Trading Activity
- ghayes 14y agoThe title here is misleading. They are "ceasing trading activity" ... "as we do all we can to resume operations as promptly as possible." The statement alludes to "financial irregularities" which are being investigated.
- PeterisP 14y agoWell, "financial irregularities which in accordance with Irish law oblige the directors ..." is legalese that, in essence, means something like "we've caught someone [stealing from the cookie jar / lying about losses] on a so large scale that the board is not sure if the company will be able to pay the money it owes to everyone". There are just a few cases where the law obliges directors to do something; I'm not an expert in Irish legislation, but most likely they are clearly enumerated in a single law.
- jellicle 14y agoWell, it's worse than that. No significant company would shut down in this manner unless they were 100% certain that they did NOT have the money to pay their debts.
- unreal37 14y agoI don't think it's misleading. Reading that statement by Intrade makes the situation seem that dire.
- joonix 14y agoRead between the lines. There's likely been fraud here. They aren't coming back from this.
- niggler 14y agoSlightly OT: what's the current status of online gambling? There were talks of nevada and new jersey loosening restrictions, but most of those were reported by financial analysts and not by the technical community.
- rishimoko 14y agoIt's booming in some circles, millions a month probably: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Category:Gambling https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Category:Gambling sealswithclubs.eu should be mentioned here too.
- gwern 14y agoThe problem is that currently the closest thing to a prediction market is Bets of Bitcoin, and they use probably the bizarrest set of rules you have ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on. So.. not really an alternative at all except for the most wildly mispriced bets on it (where you can be sure to come out with a profit regardless of how much the rules screw you). I see the wiki lists 2 other prediction markets, but they seem to handle sports only.
- carbocation 14y agoThanks for exposing a market opportunity! Sounds promising, in the right jurisdiction.
- gwern 14y agoYeah. I keep hoping someone will do a bitcoin version of Intrade as a Tor hidden service. It's the logical next step.
- rishimoko 14y agoThere's also https://icbit.se https://icbit.se for actual futures.
- adam 14y ago
- andrewcooke 14y agois it related to http://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/pr6423-12 http://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/pr6423-12 and the subsequent collapse in volume http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e0c9eea0-7ae4-11e2-915b-00144feabdc0.html http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e0c9eea0-7ae4-11e2-915b-00144... ?
- ChuckMcM 14y agoProbably. Interesting line the CFTC is taking though, since it is only able to regulate US citizen's use of commodity markets and predictions are a commodity by the definition of the law as far as I can tell [1]. The 'fiction' here is that you're actually going to by pork bellies or soy beans or oranges, when really your just buying and trading the 'right' to buy these commodities at a particular price. So "The 49'ers will win the super bowl" is a "bet" but it isn't really a commodity. So while I could buy intrade as an unlicensed betting parlor I don't see them as a commodities trader. That said, folks don't like it when you make money that they think they should be making. [1] http://www.cftc.gov/ConsumerProtection/EducationCenter/FuturesMarketBasics/index.htm http://www.cftc.gov/ConsumerProtection/EducationCenter/Futur... - "A commodity futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell a particular commodity at a future date"
- ad 14y agoAgree with you on the 49ers example but Intrade had a few contracts that were closer to the ones regulated by the cftc: the price of oil, gold, the DOW, etc.
- apineda 14y agoReal life version of the ban hammer. What are they called? Power tripping moderators or something like that.
- dmix 14y agoWhat exactly was intrade?
- mattyohe 14y agoIntrade shutting down? Huh, what are the odds of that?
- ad 14y agoYour joke is even better since one of the Intrade contracts was "intrade will no longer exist in X years"
- raverbashing 14y agoTalk about an intrinsically impossible bet to win! (at least when betting on the platform itself)
- bo1024 14y agoThere was speculation, especially in the run-up to the 2012 Presidential election, that some of the pricing differences between Intrade and Betfair were due to the higher risk associated with trading on Intrade. So it is thought that market prices on Intrade may in fact have taken the likelihood of this event into account.
- gameshot911 14y agoThe money is gone. Either fraud (founders were skimming off the top all along), or they got hacked (and the 'hack' could have been an inside job as well). That's why they're not paying out - they don't have enough funds available. Same thing happened previously to one of the largest bitcoin exchanges[1]. [1]http://www.dailytech.com/Inside+the+MegaHack+of+Bitcoin+the+Full+Story/article21942.htm http://www.dailytech.com/Inside+the+MegaHack+of+Bitcoin+the+...
- il 14y agoOr it could be the most likely explanation: the existing US federal investigation of Intrade is moving to the next phase, a grand jury has issued a sealed indictment of Intrade staff, and their assets have been frozen.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- vellum 14y agoAfter they got shut out of the US market in November 2012, they lost a lot of customers overnight and had to pay all of them out in full. It might be something like the Madoff case, where he might still be free, if the financial crisis hadn't hit and made his customers cash out.
- ig1 14y agoUnless you have strong evidence to support that statement I'd suggest deleting it as it's potentially libellous.
- CurtMonash 14y agoThey are taking several extraordinary measures: 1. Settling all open contracts. 2. Shutting down trading. 3. Not making cash payouts. #3 would be the end result of any of various sorts of problems. #1/#2, however, suggest there were problems with the prediction markets themselves, rather than -- for example -- straight embezzlement from the company's bank accounts.
- MichaelApproved 14y agoMobile version is still showing trade prices and other info https://m.intrade.com/#home https://m.intrade.com/#home
- michaelrhansen 14y agoDoes anyone have any direct experience using them? Curious - not familiar with prediction markets...
- juskrey 14y agoWhoa, I thought anyone today already knows that words "market"+"prediction"="scam"
- jey 14y agoCare to elaborate for the ignorant among us?
- hackerboos 14y agoMarkets are unpredictable.
- jplewicke 14y agoMarkets are only hard-to-predict in terms of future prices and returns. If all you want to do is to compare the relative value of two assets, the current price is a great place to start out. For example, the market is pretty sure that Exxon Mobil is worth vastly more than Groupon. Likewise, a prediction market does just fine at telling you stuff like "Romney is much more likely than Ron Paul to be the Republican candidate."
- smsm42 14y agoInterestingly enough, online prediction markets do not predict the markets, just as online dating sites don't date anyone. They provide a platform for other people to try and predict. Of course, many of these people would be wrong, but that doesn't mean the platform itself is a scam.
- kybernetikos 14y ago"market prediction" and "prediction market" are two very different things.
- Zigurd 14y agoIowa Electronic Market is run by the University of Iowa. It seems to be accepted that it isn't gambling and it isn't a scam. While Intrade might have been mismanaged, there is nothing fundamentally dishonest about a prediction market.
- joelthelion 14y agoTime for bitcoin-based version :)
- mathattack 14y agoWow - this is pretty heavy. It's unfortunate, as I liked it as a view of market sentiment. It's one thing to pontificate, another to vote with dollars. "Financial Irregularities" is never good, and I can't see this ending well.