View Full Version : Iowa Electronic Market
Have you ever seen this (http://tippie.uiowa.edu/iem/)? It is an online futures market for politics (and other stuff) run by the U of Iowa.
The latest graph (http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_PRES12_WTA.cfm) for the winner-take-all presidential market has Obama over Romney by something like 78%/22%. The vote share market graph (http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_PRES12_VS.cfm) is much closer at something like 51%/49%.
I have not read how accurate a predictor this is, but I seem to recall it was something in the 75% range fwiw
When you take emotion out and put cold hard cash on the line I think it tends to make you see things a little differently. It will be interesting no matter the outcome.
Insomniac
11-06-12, 12:10 PM
That type of market has been around for a while. I believe Intrade is the most well known.
Napoleon
11-06-12, 01:12 PM
The below site has a summary of several of these markets. BTW, FWIW, Intrade has been suspected of having its numbers manipulated by betters from time to time in the past, including recently.
http://www.predictwise.com/politics/2012presidentindividual
In every Presidential election held on November 6th since 1860 (Abraham Lincoln was elected) the Republican won.
Insomniac
11-07-12, 10:30 AM
In every Presidential election held on November 6th since 1860 (Abraham Lincoln was elected) the Republican won.
More recently, an African-American has never lost a Presidential election.
WickerBill
11-07-12, 10:37 AM
No proponent of the Cross-Fit exercise system has ever been elected Vice President.
datachicane
11-07-12, 12:31 PM
Kudos to Nate Silver, he absolutely nailed it.
Napoleon
11-07-12, 01:33 PM
Kudos to Nate Silver, he absolutely nailed it.
And better yet he did it after some of the media decide to attack him in the last couple of weeks. By the way Deadspin has a great article on him from a few days ago on how he has been through it all before during his PECOTA projection system days. Also the NYTimes (and Youtube) has a clip of him being interviewed by someone from the NY Times in the middle of last night about how his projections panned out. He managed to do the interview without getting up and doing a victory dance or spiking a football.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/nate.jpg
More recently, an African-American has never lost a Presidential election.
No proponent of the Cross-Fit exercise system has ever been elected Vice President.
:rofl::rofl:
datachicane
11-07-12, 01:36 PM
Math > well, everything
Napoleon
11-07-12, 02:02 PM
Math > well, everything
Oh, and:
http://isnatesilverawitch.com/
extramundane
11-07-12, 02:13 PM
By the way Deadspin has a great article on him from a few days ago on how he has been through it all before during his PECOTA projection system days.
Article here (http://deadspin.com/5956562/nate-silvers-braying-idiot-detractors-show-that-being-ignorant-about-politics-is-like-being-ignorant-about-sports)- it was quite a good read.
And from Neal Pollack:
Nate Silver wandering around the NYT offices this morning saying "Guys, I have some really cool metrics on the 2014 midterms. Guys? Guys?"
Insomniac
11-07-12, 03:02 PM
And Nate's contract with the NYT is up at the end of this year. They said leading up to the election, his blog was driving 20% of the traffic to the NYT site.
Napoleon
11-07-12, 05:34 PM
And Nate's contract with the NYT is up at the end of this year. They said leading up to the election, his blog was driving 20% of the traffic to the NYT site.
His contract is up already!
I kind of figured something like that on the second point. When the NYT public editor in that whole betting nontoversy called him something like “probably our most prominent writer” it made you wonder how she could say that. Also I have a friend who really isn’t all that politically minded (although she canvas a bunch for Obama, but that is more because work is slow for her now and a friend of hers was dragging her along) and she sent me a link to him maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago, though I have been following him since he was still maintaining his anonymity on his own website. First thing I though was if someone like her knows about him there must me a lot of people going to his blog on the NYT site.
PS, His book sales have sky rocketed. (http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/07/news/companies/nate-silver-election/index.html)
I discovered him a few months ago and after looking into what he is doing, decided that his model was valid. And Professor Sam Wang at Princeton, who was also derided for being biased when he was in fact coldly assessing the facts and using -gasp- math.
I know that some of my friends have sensed that I can't even breath without gloating, so I can imagine these guys must be insufferable. :D
Napoleon
11-10-12, 05:35 PM
I discovered him a few months ago and after looking into what he is doing, decided that his model was valid. And Professor Sam Wang at Princeton, who was also derided for being biased when he was in fact coldly assessing the facts and using -gasp- math.
As to the first sentence, did you catch his victory lap on The Daily Show Wed. night? Should be available at their website on line. Tonight I will watch his Colbert appearance Monday night where he dissed political pundits.
As to Wang I think his probability are way too optimistic (well for us, pessimistic for others) and there were some this year on the house outcome that were laughable. After listening and seeing 4 or 5 interviews with Nate talking about his book, he impresses me as very conservative in approach (his personal style, not talking his politics) that I am a lot more comfortable that his 9-1 odds on Monday are a lot more solid then Wangs who 2 weeks out were approaching 99% with the national polls having tightened to be close or tied, on average. From everything I have read Wang just sounds way simpler then what we know of Silvers model.
Oh, and if anyone wants a good laugh a twitter meme has taken off on things Drunk Nate Silver would do. Google the phrase (and also the twitter meme Nate Silver Facts). A sample:
"Drunk Nate Silver is riding the subway, telling strangers the day they will die."
"Drunk Nate Silver writes a one-sentence letter to PETA: "Don't worry, Schrödinger's cat is fine."
"Drunk Nate Silver in the parking lot of Yankees stadium, spray painting the spots where next years' home runs will land."
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