Politics Betting

December 24th, 2019 at 7:35:52 AM permalink
Mission146
Administrator
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
Posts: 4147
Greetings!

It's nice to see everyone, especially those who may not appear on WoV as frequently as they used to, if at all.

I wrote an Article for WoV having to do with the PredictIt Binary Lines on multiple political topics:

https://wizardofvegas.com/articles/impeachment-now-what/

While I touched on a few others, the primary impetus for writing the Articles was the possibility of Trump being removed from office either by the Senate, or by some other means. In the article, I state the opinion that I identified value on the following binary options:

-Trump NOT to be removed by the Senate
-Trump to finish his first term
-Trump NOT to resign
-Trump to be the Republican nominee for 2020
-Buttigieg (long-shot, but potential for sale value) to be the Democratic nominee for 2020
-Hillary Clinton NOT to be the Democratic nominee for 2020

In any event, the subject matter is both gambling-related and of interest to me. I also find binary betting markets interesting, in general, and while they may have some steep fees...PredictIt is, in my opinion, one of the only legitimate binary markets out there.

For anyone who doesn't understand how binaries work, the simple explanation is that it is like buying stocks, except there is a YES option and a NO option. If you buy an option and that option comes to pass, (or a certain date arrives without it coming to pass) then that option is a winner and becomes worth $1.00 per share. At any time, a binary option may be purchased and then sold in the future.

When I say that PredictIt fees are expensive, I mean it, but that does not mean there is no potential value. However, they do charge 10% of any profits on a binary option that is ultimately sold for a profit or that otherwise wins. Additionally, they have a cash withdrawal fee of a very high 5%. For this reason, many potential bets can only really be said to have potential value if you already have money in PredictIt anyway.

Anyway, I am posting this here because it is a subject that interests me. Also, as I suspected might end up being the case, there's no real way to discuss political betting over on WoV because it inherently brings political discussion (disallowed) into play. I thought that it might be possible by sticking only to absolute facts that are related directly to the betting lines in question, but that is not so. It seems like Wizard was willing to give the thread a chance, but BBB disagreed, which is perfectly within her rights as an Admin, so that thread was locked. The only real problem that I had is that she said it's impossible to state objective fact or to separate fact from spin, but if I say, "Zero Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to Impeach President Trump," that's not spin and there's nothing to separate. It's just a straight up fact. But, again, I definitely respect her decision and am perfectly fine with it.

I do see that there are other politics threads here, but I did not want to jump in with this in the middle of other conversations. I would request that we restrict this topic to things related to political betting...why x event is good for a line or why y event is not good, that sort of thing. However, there is no reason to restrict it to PredictIt binaries as many sports books have politics betting lines (online, usually overseas) that can be discussed and there's always the potential that two or more people might choose to make bets amongst themselves.
"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen..let us give them all they want." William T. Sherman
December 24th, 2019 at 11:16:57 AM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Gee, another political thread. So thankful
on the Yule holiday for the block thread
feature.
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.