It hasn’t escaped the notice of forecasters that prediction markets aren’t free of issues. For instance, check Scott’s Mantic Mondays posts on ACX.
For one thing, while there are many issues (like legal ones) which currently impede popularity of prediction markets, it’s nevertheless the case that so far none of them has particularly caught on on a larger scale. Then there’s stuff like transaction costs making them less useful (if there are transaction costs of 5%, markets won’t drop below 5% or rise above 95%), resolution risk being a big problem (questions you can easily arbitrate are often not the ones you care about; but if you can’t arbitrate the ones you care about, you can’t make a prediction market for them), lack of liquidity (another way for a prediction market to flop is for it to experience no uptake by users), and so on.
None of these issues seem fundamentally unresolvable. But conversely, we cannot currently point at any existing prediction market and say that “if we legalize this market and scale it up, it will transform society”, or something.
As for market questions like “is my wife cheating on me”, I’m extremely dubious that even if you managed to get prediction markets legalized, those kinds of questions would be allowed.
As for market questions like “is my wife cheating on me”, I’m extremely dubious that even if you managed to get prediction markets legalized, those kinds of questions would be allowed.
This is actually already possible right now on https://manifold.markets/ Even though, the market uses play, instead of real money, but you get at least something..
Otherwise I completely agree with your critique of current prediction markets, and I agree that none of the issues seem fundamentally unresolvable. Actually, I’m currently starting a new project (funded by FTX Future Fund) which aims to do just that! Sorry for the shameless plug, but here is a description of the project, and while I’m at it, I’m looking for a cofounder ;)
I’m aware of Manifold Markets. The only reason the site can be lax with regards to which markets and resolution criteria it allows is precisely because it only uses play money.
It hasn’t escaped the notice of forecasters that prediction markets aren’t free of issues. For instance, check Scott’s Mantic Mondays posts on ACX.
For one thing, while there are many issues (like legal ones) which currently impede popularity of prediction markets, it’s nevertheless the case that so far none of them has particularly caught on on a larger scale. Then there’s stuff like transaction costs making them less useful (if there are transaction costs of 5%, markets won’t drop below 5% or rise above 95%), resolution risk being a big problem (questions you can easily arbitrate are often not the ones you care about; but if you can’t arbitrate the ones you care about, you can’t make a prediction market for them), lack of liquidity (another way for a prediction market to flop is for it to experience no uptake by users), and so on.
None of these issues seem fundamentally unresolvable. But conversely, we cannot currently point at any existing prediction market and say that “if we legalize this market and scale it up, it will transform society”, or something.
As for market questions like “is my wife cheating on me”, I’m extremely dubious that even if you managed to get prediction markets legalized, those kinds of questions would be allowed.
This is actually already possible right now on https://manifold.markets/ Even though, the market uses play, instead of real money, but you get at least something..
Otherwise I completely agree with your critique of current prediction markets, and I agree that none of the issues seem fundamentally unresolvable. Actually, I’m currently starting a new project (funded by FTX Future Fund) which aims to do just that! Sorry for the shameless plug, but here is a description of the project, and while I’m at it, I’m looking for a cofounder ;)
I’m aware of Manifold Markets. The only reason the site can be lax with regards to which markets and resolution criteria it allows is precisely because it only uses play money.