I thought this was pretty interesting.  InTrade the 'prediction markets' site has a contract for the probability of Bush bombing Iran by September or December.  I had a chance to discuss and analyze this contract with Afshin Rattansi on Press TV, Iran's hottest television station, last night.

Here's the YouTube link;

During the long primary campaign, one of my favorite browser bookmarks was the Intrade futures market on presidential nominees.  For those who aren’t familiar with it, Intrade allows you to buy and sell contracts that pay $100 on the occurrence of future events (and nothing if the event does not occur).

Fans of Intrade argue that it is a much more accurate predictor of future events than simple punditry, as traders are actually putting money behind their predictions.  I’m not totally sold on this ... after all, the free market once priced Yahoo at $300+ a share, and thought $500,000 tract homes in the California desert were fairly priced.   Despite these drawbacks, Intrade does provide a fascinating synopsis of current expectations.

And the verdict?  Jim Webb has jumped into the front-runner spot in the race to become Barack Obama’s VP.   Here’s a look at where the market stands today (along with my own punditry on each, for what it’s worth)...

http://www.intrade.com/...

With the ink nearly dry on the presidential nominating process, the time has come to begin focusing on the general election. To that end, for several months now I have been periodically checking on the election pools over at Intrade.com.

I put together an analysis of the presidential race as seen through the eyes of the Intrade investment community. It is quite revealing and includes a few surprises in it's scope. If this proves of interest here (by way of recommendations) I'll update this weekly or so as we run through the process.

For those who are not familiar, Intrade is an investment organization that specializes in trading on the outcomes of various political events. These primarily take the form of "investing" (or betting if you like) on elective races.

There are many different ways to follow or be involved in this primary season. The Daily Kos site is read by a lot of activists who do a great deal of work on behalf of our candidate of choice. Part of this work is trying to bring attention to news and facts that help our candidate. And, subsequently, deriding the media for NOT paying attention to these issues, while they instead prefer to treat the whole primary as a horse race.

Nevertheless, we all look for signs about where this horse race is going. A good poll or news item in the morning is cherished and brought forward to keep the mo going. So, what is the status of the horse race at this moment?

This was diaried earlier, but I have new substance to add

A rumor is spreading that Hillary Clinton will avoid humiliation and drop out this Friday, FEBRUARY 29th.

Lending creedence to this rumor is that fact that shares of "Dropout.Feb08.Clinton" have surged almost 1800% from $2.00 to $35.00. That means there is a 35% chance that Hillary Clinton will drop out on or before Friday.

Is that a result of the rumors or is someone in the know putting their money where their mouth is?

The Intrade prediction market currently has Hillary pegged at a 6.1% chance to become the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, and Obama at 81% to become the Presidential nominee. This means that Intraders think it that the odds of Hillary becoming Obama's VP at less than 1 in 13.

Ridiculous! Now, I don't think it's particularly likely that Hillary becomes the VP. Maybe it's 1 in 4, maybe 1 in 5. But certainly not 1 in 13. Hillary brings a lot of negatives to an Obama ticket, but she also brings a TON of positives.

No, not that money. Today we're talking Prediction Markets. Come to your own conclusion on their validity versus traditional polling, but for good or ill, they are a snapshot of how the street sees the race.  

First, let's look at InTrade.

I swore to myself that I wouldn’t write a diary championing one candidate over another.  I tried to keep this diary neutral but it is very interesting to see how people are investing/betting with real money.

Full disclosure I was planning on voting for Edwards during the Washington caucus this Saturday.  After he dropped out I’m leaning towards Obama.  I LOVE intrade.com, I swear I’m addicted to it.  I check it at least once or twice a day.  I have NOT invested money and I want to be clear about that.  

Now, onto the interesting bits...  Obama has had a HUGE jump yesterday.  

It is clear he beat the expectations game and a lot of really smart people are seeing this.  Let’s look in a little more detail.

(Cross posted at BareNaked Pundits)

It's Super Tuesday, and I admit it... I'm dying for some exit polls.  

In the past, we've usually seen some start to leak before the polls closed.  Often as early as 1pm.  But as we call know, ever since the 2004 debacle, when exit polls showed Kerry winning, it's become pretty much impossible to get early ones, even crappy ones.

Apparently, there's a much tighter rein on them these days.

But if you're into reading tea leaves, then you might want to check out Intrade. For those not familiar, it's a market where you can bet on the outcome of elections. For the first time in the entire election cycle, Intrade traders are now giving Barack Obama a higher chance of winning than Hillary Clinton.  Just slightly higher -- 52.9% vs 47.9% as of 5:26 pm -- but higher nonetheless.

This switcheroo just happened about 2 hours ago.  Maybe evidence of betting by some who really did get early evidence of exit polls?  Perhaps.  Or perhaps just a coincidence.

Over at OpenLeft Chris Bowers has posted the latest in his "Nomination at a Glance" series.

This is the money part:

I will say, however, that I think the Edwards rise in Iowa has slightly improved his chances to win the nomination, but also improved Clinton’s chances to win the nomination. Right now, I say that based on the likelihood of the scenarios I presented above, Clinton has a 60% chance to be the nominee, Obama a 30% chance, and Edwards a 10% chance.

If anything, Bowers may have understated the effect of an Edwards Iowa win and the odds of a Clinton nomination.

It has certainly been an interesting week.  The O trains seems to be trucking along with seemingly nothing able to stop it.  Recent polls out of the early states show Obama up six in South Carolina, up eight in Iowa, and down by a statistically insignificant 1 percentage point in New Hampshire.

Interestingly as well, there is a first of this campaign in some other numbers I've been watching as an indicator of where this race is going to go:  The people who put their money where their mouth is.  Follow me below the fold for an interesting glance at a breaking point that hasn't yet been discussed...

He also predicts she will win the general unless Republicans see the light and return to the true faith of Reaganism. This prediction about Clinton will be dismissed with howls of rage here by those who will dismiss Armey as a Republican,a has been, Hillary's secret paymaster, etc. In fact Armey is a very astute politician who understands exactly how it all works. He was a long time majority Republican leader and has no reason to applaud the Clintons who worsted him and Newt in the wars of the nineties. No he's just giving his honest opinion based on his experience and the contours of the political landscape. Unlike most of the media who are intent on producing a horse race; the spinners from various campaigns; why does Tweety keep rolling out Obama's campaign manager to tell us what a great campaign Obama is running; the Clinton hating cottage industry; and the Republican noise machine; he's giving an "objective" opinion and that is worth a lot.          

As a numbers geek of sorts, I follow the presidential futures markets closely, most notably at Intrade and to a lesser extent the Iowa Electronic Markets.

For better or for worse, these markets have come to be an important part of the political playing field.  You will now see them cited explicitly in the mainstream media, particularly on the Fox News and MSNBC political talk programs, and my guess is that they play an implicit role in framing the discourse about the status of the campaign.

I don't like to bet (esp. with money), except for a rare lottery ticket or two and a rarer slot machine playing for fun.

But, I happened to check the online betting site Intrade for the 2008 election and found something very interesting. Link (click the "2008 US Election" link to the left).

As I've written about in the past on this website, InTrade (Previously Tradesports) is a betting exchange that estimates probabilities of different outcomes based on the collective wisdom of its gamblers. This method has repeatedly been found to offer more realistic predictions about election outcomes than opinion polls.

For the last month, the market for the winner of the Democratic Nomination has been fairly static, with Hillary Clinton at around 50%, Barack Obama at 30%, Al Gore at 10% and John Edwards at 6-7%. However, over the last 12 hours, the market has been moving rapidly in Obama's favor.

See my earlier post on the election futures market and their accuracy here:

http://www.dailykos.com/...

Read about latest quotes below the break:

One of the things I like to look at when trying to get a sense of who is winning an election is a website called Intrade (www.intrade.com).  Basically, the website is a "market" in which buyers and sellers trade contracts with real money.  The contracts are about various different current events.  I have found the political contracts to be staggeringly accurate when it comes to predicting the winner of a race.  (I must say I was heartbroken when at the beginning of November 2004, Bush contracts traded above Kerry Contracts before I went off to vote).

Below the fold, I have included ALL of the 2006 Senate races and their associated bid price as of this morning for each party.

I've been peeking over at Intrade and, as of 1:49 a.m., the Democrats are favoried in both races.

In New Jersey, Jon Corzine is trading at a bid of 89.0 while Forrester is stuck at 7.1. In Virginia, Tim Kaine leads with a bid of 70.5 with Kilgore stuck at 20.5.

I don't know the accuracy of such sites, but I would think people who are willing to put money on elections have an idea of what's going on. We'll see.