I don’t know much about individual bookies. I was hoping that other people would talk about them. I added an update to the post saying that Betfair is probably the best existing prediction market. It was on Wikipedia’s list, but I excluded it in error.
Here are my general thoughts on bookies:
I do think that bookies are currently the best source today for odds on the US presidential elections. The have the disadvantage of usually being opaque, rather than markets. But that same structure has the advantage of not swinging as wildly when large bets are placed. And my impression, is that even if they are structured as markets, they are less likely to record the past movements of the price, which is valuable to someone who wants to test the quality of prediction markets, rather than using them as black boxes (either for making money or for learning info).
But even though sports bookies are probably better than existing prediction markets, I think that if a prediction market got off the ground, it could be better than a sports bookie who only does it as a hobby. A sports bookie that took it seriously rather than as a hobby could be great, too, and maybe that’s the direction Betfair is going, but it’s moving slowly. The advantage of doing it separately is getting quasi-legal American participation. I think that the mindset of a prediction market rather than a sports bookie is important. For example, long-term predictions may require different rules than short-term sports bets. If the market views itself as selling information rather than entertainment, it might act differently. It might change the rules to stop encouraging overestimation of low probability events. But it might not, since they are good advertising.
I don’t know much about individual bookies. I was hoping that other people would talk about them. I added an update to the post saying that Betfair is probably the best existing prediction market. It was on Wikipedia’s list, but I excluded it in error.
Here are my general thoughts on bookies:
I do think that bookies are currently the best source today for odds on the US presidential elections. The have the disadvantage of usually being opaque, rather than markets. But that same structure has the advantage of not swinging as wildly when large bets are placed. And my impression, is that even if they are structured as markets, they are less likely to record the past movements of the price, which is valuable to someone who wants to test the quality of prediction markets, rather than using them as black boxes (either for making money or for learning info).
But even though sports bookies are probably better than existing prediction markets, I think that if a prediction market got off the ground, it could be better than a sports bookie who only does it as a hobby. A sports bookie that took it seriously rather than as a hobby could be great, too, and maybe that’s the direction Betfair is going, but it’s moving slowly. The advantage of doing it separately is getting quasi-legal American participation. I think that the mindset of a prediction market rather than a sports bookie is important. For example, long-term predictions may require different rules than short-term sports bets. If the market views itself as selling information rather than entertainment, it might act differently. It might change the rules to stop encouraging overestimation of low probability events. But it might not, since they are good advertising.