Price snapshot

Polling Numbers versus Popular Vote
Contract RCP.SPREAD.ERROR>5.0%
Difference between RCP final poll spread and popular vote spread to be greater than 5.0% points M Trade
Bid Ask Last Vol Chge
3.0 30.0 - 0 0

RCP.SPREAD.ERROR>2.5%
Difference between RCP final poll spread and popular vote spread to be greater than 2.5% points M Trade
Bid Ask Last Vol Chge
30.0 40.0 - 0 0

RCP.SPREAD.ERROR>0.0%
Difference between RCP final poll spread and popular vote spread to be greater than 0.0% points M Trade
Bid Ask Last Vol Chge
55.0 60.0 - 42 0

RCP.SPREAD.ERROR>-2.5%
Difference between RCP final poll spread and popular vote spread to be greater than -2.5% points M Trade
Bid Ask Last Vol Chge
66.0 82.0 - 14 0

RCP.SPREAD.ERROR>-5.0%
Difference between RCP final poll spread and popular vote spread to be greater than -5.0% points M Trade
Bid Ask Last Vol Chge
80.0 92.0 - 5 0

I don’t know what any of that means...

So 80% are bidding Obama does weaker than his polling?

So what does one large pay if you bet that the RCP spread is greater than 5%?

Basically it means we can make money by the polls being inaccurate.

So what does one large pay if you bet that the RCP spread is greater than 5%?
***Volume is zero for that contract right now.

From the Intrade FAQ:

Tell me what the prices mean
Since our contracts trade between 0 and 100, you can think of the price at any time to be the percentage probability of that event occurring. Let’s go back to our George Bush example, on December 1, 2003 the George Bush re-election contract was trading at 63, meaning, traders gave him a 63% chance of being re-elected.

If you thought President Bush will be re-elected you would expect that price to go up - towards 100. In that case, if you bought one contract at 63 and Mr. Bush did get re-elected you would make the difference between your purchase price - 63 - and the closing price - 100 - or 37 points. How much profit would that be? Click here.

It’s important to realize that you don’t have to hold your contracts until the result of the event is decided - you can get out of your position at any time until the event is over. So if you change your mind about the outcome you can come back to the exchange, enter an order and close out your position, whether it’s for a profit or loss depends on you.

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Who determines the prices?

You do - along with thousands of traders around the world. Just like the price of Microsoft stock is determined by the buying & selling activities of thousands of traders in the financial markets, the price of our contracts are determined by traders, like you, who are confident enough to back up their opinion by risking real money.

RCP.SPREAD.ERROR>0.0%
Difference between RCP final poll spread and popular vote spread to be greater than 0.0% points M Trade
Bid Ask Last Vol Chge
55.0 60.0 - 42 0

I don’t think that means 80% of them are saying one thing or another. It means that right now you can buy this contract at 60 and you can SHORT it for 40. How many of us think the RCP polls are going to beat a 2.5% accuracy?

I don’t understand what the brackets are. Is the last bracket from -5.0 to -2.5 or from -5.0 to -100?

I think the last one is from 5 to whatever...

Here are the contract specific rules:

This market will compare the percentage point spread between Barack Obama and John McCain in the final Real Clear Politics (RCP) poll average (RCP Obama minus McCain) with the percentage point spread between the share of the 2008 presidential election popular vote received by Barack Obama and John McCain (Actual Obama minus McCain).

If the difference in the two spreads is greater than the number of percentage points specified in the contract then the contract will expire at 100. If the difference in the two spreads is not greater than the number or percentage points specified in the contract then the contract will expire at 0.

If RCP do not publish a final poll average then the RCP poll average published at 5:00pm GMT on November 3rd will be used for expiry purposes.

For expiry purposes the popular vote is defined as the number of registered voters casting a vote. The official popular vote figures published by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) will be used for the expiry of this market. Please note that these may not be available until several weeks after the election. This market will remain open until these figures are available. If no timely figures are released by the FEC then we will use figures published by the US Census Bureau.
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Example of expiry:

The final RCP poll average has Barack Obama at 51.5% and John McCain at 45.0%. The spread is therefore 5.1% points.

The popular vote figures show that Barack Obama received 48.0% of the popular vote and John McCain received 47.5%. The spread is therefore 0.5% points.

The difference in the spread is -4.6% points (0.5% points less 5.1% percentage points). The expiry of this market will therefore be:

RCP.SPREAD.ERROR>5.0% expired at 0
RCP.SPREAD.ERROR>2.5% expired at 0
RCP.SPREAD.ERROR>0.0% expired at 0
RCP.SPREAD.ERROR>-2.5% expired at 0
RCP.SPREAD.ERROR>-5.0% expired at 100

Due to the nature of this contract please also see Contract Rule 1.7 Unforeseen Circumstances.

The Exchange reserves the right to invoke Contract Rule 1.8 (Time Protection) if deemed appropriate.

Any changes to the result after the contract has expired will not be taken into account - Exchange Rule 1.4

Please contact the exchange by emailing help@intrade.com if you have any questions regarding this contract before you place a trade.

So there’s no contract which pays out if the difference is, say, -6.1%?

Do you know if it is it legal to buy these in florida?

The contract that is greater than 5%.

Is that what you mean by brackets?

I think it’s legal. The problem is that getting it put on credit card is blocked by the PTBs (Powers That Be).

So you have to send in a check or money order for now.

It would have made things a lot clearer if they were bracketed: "+5 to +100", "+2.5 to +5", "0 to +2.5", "-2.5 to 0", "-5 to -2.5" and "-100 to -5". That would avoid any ambiguity. Still, I find it curious that there's no contract for the last option, since it would be the one most likely to win.

When is the final RCP poll? Midnight election day?

I don’t think so because that contract paid out at -4.6 in the example.

I think it’s in the contract specific rules:

If RCP do not publish a final poll average then the RCP poll average published at 5:00pm GMT on November 3rd will be used for expiry purposes.

I’m going to be busy over the next couple of days, so if you need to drill deeper you might want to log in at Intrade & ask them. They have online support. The contract specific rules might change for each contract — I only posted one set.

fyi