Tradesports: Republicans Losing House; Senate Certainty is Down (Money where mouth is alert!)

Tradesports.com ^ | 09 October 2006

[Recovering_Democrat]

Control of the House is down to around 40%:

And the Senate is down to around 65-70%--it used to be at 80%!

[Thalos]

But this is all before Rove's October surprise.

Didn't you hear? Rove's October Surprise was he tested a nuke in North Korea.

[mojo114]

People really bet on this kind of stuff? Is there real money involved?

[AaronInCarolina]

Tradesports had Bush getting 227 with Kerry getting 311.

That was ON election day AFTER deceptive exit polling data came out. Of course it would tank under those circumstances. But in the days leading up to the election, without the false information injected, it predicted a Bush win.

[art_rocks]

Just like the experts said that Baltimore would win over Denver.

[AaronInCarolina]

Sorry Thalos, my reply was to SoulSeeker.

[Soul Seeker]

From Kaus on the two betting sites IEM and Tradesports

http://www.slate.com/id/2109137/

Conclusion excerpted-So, what are we to conclude? Over the long-term of the campaign, IEM was quite accurate in projecting the vote distribution. And over the long term, both markets projected the winner. But so, by and large, did the polls. The furious and seemingly irrational Election Day market action stands as evidence that the traders are more poll-followers than poll-beaters.

In short, the betters saw the MSM push polls and panicked. Last week they heard Christians would abandon over Foley and they panicked. Their results likely are as close to reality as Bush losing in 2004 after they got the false exit polls.

[Soul Seeker]

Yes, and read #26.

These results are after panic over Foley and the flood of polls released today.

Same deal.

[underbyte]

I like the Iowa Markets better - less hysteria

http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_CONGRESS06.cfm

[tenthirteen]

Michael Barone did not cite Tradesports in his column today. The site he cited was intrade.com. Same concept yet different spot.

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

From your lips .. er, keyboard - to God's ears.

[AaronInCarolina]

That graph globs things together too much. This one deals just with Republican control of the house, which looks discouraging. But again, it is reacting to short-term bad news. It may well not reflect what is going to happen in 4 weeks.

IEM House Control Graph

[Yardstick]

Another difference in Tradesports and a regular poll: a regular poll reflects an aggregate of people reporting their own opinions; tradesports reflects an aggregate of people's opinions about other people's opinions.

I'm not sure what the effect of that would be, but it seems to me that it would make the numbers more sensitive to whatever the prevailing conventional wisdom is. Maybe that's part of the volatility you mention.

[defenderSD]

I don't know if this is "manipulated" or not, but there was a news article a couple weeks ago that really caught my eye that got very little coverage from the MSM: President Musharraf of Pakistan was quoted saying that Osama Bin Laden is now in Afghanistan, not in the border region of Pakistan as he had previously said for the last few years. I'm not an expert on Al Qaeda, but that statement strikes me as VERY significant. That means Musharraf is effectively saying that OBL has moved and is now in a location where the US can capture him without going into Pakistani territory and stirring up the Pakis. I wouldn't be surprised if we finally capture Osama this month, but after all this time I still give it less than a 50-50 chance.

You're right EV, we have to get to work and get the vote out. I'm giving a few dollars to Rick Santorum tonight. I still think he can win that race in a very close, all night count that leaves the Dims in an incredulous frenzy. His opponent is a clown IMO.

[Maelstorm]

Bush should just send the bombers into North Korea. There is no reason to wait. It is the right thing to do and the left won't like it whenever we do it so it might as well be before an election.

[There You Go Again]

That data you pulled was from election day on which there was false data being disseminated by the Demos...but go back and look at these betting contracts for all the days before the election, they were correct....these betting sites incorporate "all best currently known information"...if bad information is being bandied about, then they will be off. If someone said Bill Gates died, and there was good reason to believe that to be true, Microsoft stock would fall....but, if later we learned that Bill Gates was fine and healthy, Microsoft stock would go back up...it doesn't mean the stock was "wrong" to drop.....the stock price simply incorporated "all best known information"....that is why stock fluctuates throughout the trading day...it is incorporating information about the company and the economy to determine the right price...subject to change with new, better information..... Anyhow, all best known information is, it will be a tough election day for House Repubs....subject to change....but accurate given current info.

[ThinkDifferent]

As fast as its gone down, it will go back up.

If that's the case, you have the opportunity to make a tidy profit...

[KoRn]

"Here's a bit of remembrance. When the fake exit polls came out in 2004 not just Tradesports but the REAL stock market plummeted over a 100 points. They put their money where their mouth was too, but they put it on false data.

I was just about to say something very similar in a reply to another post. I believe these trade sites are near worthless as predictors. I recall Bush taking a nosedive when the NYT ran the non-story about the missing munitions in Iraq the week before the election in 2004. All those trade sites are good for is to see who may be ahead on any given day, and not who is going to win. Unless you check it at 11PM EST on election night.

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

I'm Christian, and while I'm dissapointed about Foley, that will not cause me to abandon my duty and not vote for the party most likely to give us some judicial sanity. Pro-life issues are the most important thing to me. This is bacause I believe that murdering the innocent is not a way to get God protect us as a nation. Therefore, we are in danger from the Islamofacists, illegal immigration, and cultural decay (not to mention China). I can even hold my nose and vote for a squishy GOP candidate if it causes us to hold onto the majority. I think most other people in my shoes will do the same thing.

[JasonC]

Um, in other news, the Feds banned overseas transfers for betting purposes a week or so ago. Big article about it in Barron's. Online poker is collapsing. So now only Englishmen etc can bet there, Americans have been kicked out.

[Yardstick]

The site he cited was intrade.com.

You're right. I knew it was one of them.

It's funny how the trader sites have gotten popular with the analysts and pundits. The guys over at The Corner at NR mention Tradesports pretty regularly.