I agree with the reasoning of this post, and believe it could be a valuable instrument to advance science.
There does exists scientific forecasting on sites like Manifold market and Hypermind, but those are not monetarily traded as sports betting is.
One problem I see with scientific prediction markets with money, is that it may create poor incentives (as you also discuss in your first foot note).
For example, if a group of scientists are convinced hypothesis A is true, and bet on it in a prediction market, they may publish biased papers supporting their hypothesis.
However, this doesn’t seem to be a big problem in other betting markets, so with the right design I don’t expect the negative effects to be too big.
Futuur is a prediction market with play money and real money options (each option has a different probability of some event occurring). An interesting market launched was which option would be more accurate, and real money won even with fewer bettors.
I believe markets with play money are more likely to be biased as no money is involved, with less skin in the predictions.
I agree with the reasoning of this post, and believe it could be a valuable instrument to advance science.
There does exists scientific forecasting on sites like Manifold market and Hypermind, but those are not monetarily traded as sports betting is.
One problem I see with scientific prediction markets with money, is that it may create poor incentives (as you also discuss in your first foot note).
For example, if a group of scientists are convinced hypothesis A is true, and bet on it in a prediction market, they may publish biased papers supporting their hypothesis.
However, this doesn’t seem to be a big problem in other betting markets, so with the right design I don’t expect the negative effects to be too big.
Futuur is a prediction market with play money and real money options (each option has a different probability of some event occurring). An interesting market launched was which option would be more accurate, and real money won even with fewer bettors.
I believe markets with play money are more likely to be biased as no money is involved, with less skin in the predictions.