Enron Trial – All Bets Are Off

http://www.nypost.com/business/66511.htm

BetCRIS, an online gambling site, decided to stop taking bets on the outcome of the Enron trial after the odds so heavily favored guilty verdicts for ex-chiefs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling that people began complaining about paying too much to bet on a conviction.

The site closed betting yesterday with odds at 1 to 80 that Lay would be convicted and 1 to 100 that Skilling goes down.

This is not directly comparable to the Tradesports wagers which require a certain number of convictions to pay off. By designing a different contract they could have continued to make a market but instead they chose to pull the contract.

American Idol Betting: Taylor Hicks Move From Likely To Lock

Dial Idol says so:



Tradesports says so:



Pinnaclesports says so: After the competition they moved the line on his win from -363 to -600 meaning Taylor’s odds greatly improved.

And the judges agree.

If there are correct it’s a 10% return on TS in one night. Traders should pay attention to the McPhee odds as well, for some time it has been a better trade to short her contract than to buy Taylor. Good luck.

Is HedgeStreet out of Housing Options?

That is what this cryptically worded release seems to say, “…HedgeStreet will not list for trading any new NAR variable payout contracts until further notice…”

http://www.cftc.gov/files/submissions/rules/selfcertifications/2006/rul051606hedgestreet002.pdf

A Threshold is Crossed

As you can see from the chart Mr. Calderon has taken the lead from Mr. Obrador in the 2006 Mexican elections. Supported by current president Fox, and waging a vicious attack campaign against Obrador has moved Calderon to the favourite. Madrazo, which the polls put at 20% and Tradesports puts at 1% will not be a factor. The election will be held on July 2nd so there is still plenty of time for surprises; the smart play in betting elections so far has been a pull to parity the closer the elections get. So the farther away the favourites get from 50 the better the bet looks.

Foreign elections are always tough to predict, the Canadian presidential election was the latest example, betting the favourites has not been a winning strategy.

Why is this article a big deal?

http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/15/etstory.pl?-sec-Biz+fn-fn-fn-fn-fn-fn-housingfutures.0521-20060521-fn

The link is from fark.com which makes it mainstream

New Market Blog

Not focused on Prediction Markets but this has some entertaining posts: http://thehedgefunder.blogspot.com/

Lots of Housing Futures Press

From FT to the New York Times, everyone is talking about hedging the housing market. Will it be enough to make the market liquid and bring retail client? We'll see.

Here is the latest one. http://rismedia.com/index.php/article/articleview/14594/1/1/

It may take years before anyone knows whether housing futures succeed, analysts said.

"There are some contracts that come out of the gate and do very well and gain traction very quickly," said Craig Pirrong, a professor at the University of Houston's Bauer College of Business. "By the nature of the beast, this would likely take time to build."

And the uncertainty is even greater for housing, since it is a market unlike any other the large futures exchanges have tried. Said Srinivasan: "Here, we are in uncharted territory."

Also note the explanations of the basics of futures contracts in the article, clearly this is not aimed at a sophiscated investor.

Pop Culture Obsession Drives Online Gambling

From todays NY Post:

And while men fueled the 100 percent growth in the number of online U.S. gamblers last year - who laid down roughly $6 billion in bets, mainly on casino games and sports -women made up nearly half of online novelty bettors.

Iran Contracts Swept

Was this a fat finger error?



Looking at the charts shows the price spiked up and then came down immediately. If it was across the board buying on every expy you could assume someone though it was imminent or happening but it was only on this contract. Hope no one read into those odds too much.

Kentucky Derby - Tradesports Nailed It

This image says it all. TS called the winner. Another thing of note is just how bad the odds are overall compared to TS. To be a winner at the track you have to overcome a 40% vig, no mean feat.

Kentucky Derby Betting

This is, by far, the trading event of the week. The main even has light liquidity now but expect it to pick up substantially before race day. As far as tips I'll defer to Grantland Rice (Gartman readers will already be familiar with this one), "The race doesn't always go to the swiftest nor the fight to
the strongest, but that is the way to bet." For now you can get better odds on tradesports than most sports books on Brother Derek. Snatch it up, it won't last.

FT on CME Derivatives

The days of measuring the "consensus" expectations for leading economic indicators by polling economists could be numbered. If the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has anything to do with it, its derivative contracts, which enable investors to hedge exposure to economic indicators such as US non-farm payrolls, could soon do the job just as well.

The early popularity of the products, known as "economic derivatives", suggests a healthy appetite for using them as tools for hedging risk and for forming a market consensus in advance of important releases.

...

Dennis Gartman, editor of the Gartman letter, an industry commentator and a trader for 35 years, said the auction could be used to hedge risk in the hours before an economic indicator is issued. He said it might arguably be the best source of predictive economic data available. This implies that it could supplant analyst estimates as a market consensus in advance of economic releases.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f26b1c0e-dabb-11da-aa09-0000779e2340.html

FT is the worst when it comes to linking to thier stories, which is why it is rarely done. They seem to be the only major newspaper that provides a link to email their stories but doesn't let the person you send it to read the story