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Betting Markets As Predictors (1 Viewer)

How Much Of An Indicator Is The Gambling Market?

  • The Gambling Market Is An Extremely Good Predictive Indicator

    Votes: 3 8.1%

  • The Gambling Market Is A Good Predictive Indicator

    Votes: 4 10.8%

  • The Gambling Market Is A Somewhat Good Predictive Indicator

    Votes: 8 21.6%

  • The Gambling Market Is A Poor Predictive Indicator

    Votes: 15 40.5%

  • The Gambling Market Is A Bad Predictive Indicator

    Votes: 7 18.9%
  • Total voters
    37
Joe Bryant

Joe Bryant

Guide
Staff member
@rockaction shared a good line last night. 

As Jesse Walker of Reason magazine said tonight, "betting markets are just groupthink with cocaine jitters."
Click to expand...


I've long been interested in this from a predictive angle. For anything, not just politics. Actually I'm more interested in the non political part of it. 

I know it's popular for many people to use "Sharp Money" takes and see how the betting markets are predicting an outcome. I've never really been sure how one determines in the overall betting which bets are "Sharp Money" and which bets are "Not Sharp Money".

And I know last night the odds were all over the place. It makes me think Walker's point is more right. These folks aren't predictive geniuses. They're just following the herd. But I also know smart people who put a lot of faith in the betting markets.

What do you think?

 
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Joe Bryant said:
@rockaction shared a good line last night. 

I've long been interested in this from a predictive angle. For anything, not just politics. Actually I'm more interested in the non political part of it. 

I know it's popular for many people to use "Sharp Money" takes and see how the betting markets are predicting an outcome. I've never really been sure how one determines in the overall betting which bets are "Sharp Money" and which bets are "Not Sharp Money".

And I know last night the odds were all over the place. It makes me think Walker's point is more right. These folks aren't predictive geniuses. They're just following the herd. But I also know smart people who put a lot of faith in the betting markets.

What do you think?
Click to expand...
I think betting markets read people well, which is what predicting elections is about.

However, it basically just reads their betting patterns, which can be skewed off of voting patterns fairly easily for thousands of reasons.

I voted poor predictive indicator.

 
I've never paid much attention to them and after seeing what happened last night I think I may change that next time around. Cause those odds in the 9 and 10 o clock hours given the info available were absurd. I'm not going to say free money cause there is still some doubt, but at + 2__ or +3__ that's an auto bet.

 
Well, the pre-election betting market gave Trump around  a 35% chance of winning, compared to the big name forecasters which put Trump's chances in the 1%-15% range. So, from that perspective they seem to have done a better job.

 
Think this election was a pretty good answer to the question. Not very good. Betting markets swung back and forth as the results came in. They were seeing the same thing as everyone else watching tv from home. 

 
Joe Bryant said:
Can you expand on that? 

As naturally, that's my real interest in this. 
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It's not about what is going to happen. It's all about public perception and the Casino responds with a balanced line . For example, there was a 5 million dollar bet placed on Trump before the election which moved the line to better odds for Joe.

 
They are better than pollsters. I suppose because there are people actually putting their money where their mouths are with betting. 

 
Shutout said:
They are better than pollsters. I suppose because there are people actually putting their money where their mouths are with betting. 
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Betting lines were all over the place last night.

538's aggregate of polls ended up being pretty accurate overall.

A lot of premature trashing of 538 before final tallies were in.

 
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Shutout said:
They are better than pollsters. I suppose because there are people actually putting their money where their mouths are with betting. 
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The pollsters are as well though through their professional reputation.  If a given pollster is way off on their polls (or models) people will stop paying attention to them and they will lose business. 

 
Capella said:
Cannot think of a more useless indicator. Can’t believe people still look at it. 
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Thanks. Do you really believe that? I don't have much faith in them as I do think it's groupthink with the jitters. But I know people who put a lot of faith in them. Were you being serious on this?

 
The Z Machine said:
The pollsters are as well though through their professional reputation.  If a given pollster is way off on their polls (or models) people will stop paying attention to them and they will lose business. 
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that is entirely true because many pollsters have been very off the mark for 3-4 elections in the last few major elections and mid-terms...yet a lot of people keep listening to them. 

 
Joe Bryant said:
Thanks. Do you really believe that? I don't have much faith in them as I do think it's groupthink with the jitters. But I know people who put a lot of faith in them. Were you being serious on this?
Click to expand...
I don't thin they are worthwhile at this point. I believe it has become very clear that pollsters have largely lost their finger on the pulse in getting good information. The reason-The trust is gone. There is absolutely no incentive for a person to care to give information because there is such a lack of respect for an opposing opinion these days. Nobody wants to deal with being "labeled" and judged instead of just listened to. 

 
gianmarco said:
Betting lines were all over the place last night.

538's aggregate of polls ended up being pretty accurate overall.

A lot of premature trashing of 538 before final tallies were in.
Click to expand...
Its hard to defend 538 (or a lot of others). they were off in Ohio by about 8 percentage points, in Florida by about 5 points, and in Texas by about 4 points, etc.  You have to do a lot wrong to get it that wrong.  After 2016 there was all this talk that they were adjusting models, this wouldn't occur again, etc, and after 4 years of work it is actually worse.  

The trashing seems warranted when you see 10-12 point errors across the spectrum. In any industry you could make a comparison, this degree of errors across a 4+ year span would have led to people being fired or replaced for errors of this degree.  The pollster industry should be worried. If they can't produce credibility, what are they useful for?

 
Shutout said:
Its hard to defend 538 (or a lot of others). they were off in Ohio by about 8 percentage points, in Florida by about 5 points, and in Texas by about 4 points, etc.  You have to do a lot wrong to get it that wrong.  After 2016 there was all this talk that they were adjusting models, this wouldn't occur again, etc, and after 4 years of work it is actually worse.  

The trashing seems warranted when you see 10-12 point errors across the spectrum. In any industry you could make a comparison, this degree of errors across a 4+ year span would have led to people being fired or replaced for errors of this degree.  The pollster industry should be worried. If they can't produce credibility, what are they useful for?
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None of those numbers you just posted are accurate. I think you need to look again.

For example, Florida was under 3% off from actual. Not 5 points.

And there definitely wasn't 10-12 point differences across the board. Not sure where you're getting your numbers.

 
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Shutout said:
I'm not sure that is entirely true because many pollsters have been very off the mark for 3-4 elections in the last few major elections and mid-terms...yet a lot of people keep listening to them. 
Click to expand...
But maybe their revenue is falling and they are about to close up shop?

 
gianmarco said:
None of those numbers you just posted are accurate. I think you need to look again.

For example, Florida was under 3% off from actual. Not 5 points.
Click to expand...
https://theweek.com/speedreads/947823/polling-terrible-again-isnt-going-anywhere

For your review.  2nd paragraph, released this morning.  

But not to bury the lead in the story, the point is these are MASSIVE errors occurring over and over again and there are at least a dozen media outlets using words like "fiasco" and "colossal errors".  The pollsters need to rethink their methods if they want to survive. 

 
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Joe Bryant said:
Thanks. Do you really believe that? I don't have much faith in them as I do think it's groupthink with the jitters. But I know people who put a lot of faith in them. Were you being serious on this?
Click to expand...
For a live line like this during a once in 4 year event, absolutely. I trust their lines for NFL games typically. 
 

Last night the line movement was all being adjusted by the immense amount of money pouring in from gamblers. The books couldn’t keep up with the action coming in on Trump and scrambled to adjust the line all night to not end up taking a huge bath. It had no basis in reality at any point in time after Florida was called. 

 
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Capella said:
For a live line like this during a once in 4 year event, absolutely. I trust their lines for NFL games typically. 
 

Last night the line movement was all being adjusted by the immense amount of money pouring in from gamblers. The books couldn’t keep up with the action coming in and scrambled to adjust the line all night. Had no basis in reality at any point in time after Florida was called. 
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Isn't this what they are supposed to do, as professionals?  Isn't this what would be done in real time on the fly in ,say, a patriots-giants game spread?  I'm not sure we can give them a pass and say "it was crazy" ..This is a big deal.  This is their one job for a hugely important event.  This is like a moon shot. They have their methods they are said to have been working on for 4 years to get this right and they simply did not. 

 
gianmarco said:
Betting lines were all over the place last night.

538's aggregate of polls ended up being pretty accurate overall.

A lot of premature trashing of 538 before final tallies were in.
Click to expand...
Lots of discussion in the election thread (BnB, in particular) about how there was huge money to be made.  If Zow actually bet the way he talked about hammering Biden at +225 he'd probably be rolling in it next week.

Right now the betting markets rely on polling to some extent and, as we all know, polling is just broken, with the exception of Rasmussen and Trafalgar.

 
Shutout said:
Isn't this what they are supposed to do, as professionals?  Isn't this what would be done in real time on the fly in ,say, a patriots-giants game spread?  I'm not sure we can give them a pass and say "it was crazy" ..This is a big deal.  This is their one job for a hugely important event.  This is like a moon shot. They have their methods they are said to have been working on for 4 years to get this right and they simply did not. 
Click to expand...
I doubt anyone was betting the spread.  This is purely a money line event, and as such, given the inaccuracy of the polls last time around, needs to be book driven.

 
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