Hey guys!
I’m a rising senior at ND, working on a research project this summer related to prediction markets, a recent concept in economics that tries to figure out the likelihood of future events through letting a bunch of people trade stocks where the payouts are related to those future events (here’s the website if you are interested: http://nd.inklingmarkets.com/).
For example, one thing I might be interested in is who win the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination. Say you, as a participant, are looking at a prediction market, and you know that if the event occurs, you’ll receive $1 for every share you own in the event. Let’s also say that you think there is a 60% chance that Mitt Romney will win the nomination. Then if the price of the Mitt Romney stock is below 60 cents per share, you would have an incentive to buy shares, because from your perspective, you expect to make money off of this. As you purchase shares, the price of the stock rises, and when you combine the trades of everyone participating in the market, you end up with a pretty decent estimate of the probability that the event will occur (in this case, that Romney will win the nomination).
The reason I bring this up is that I’m trying to pick some questions related to ND football that would be interesting to people that might be playing the market (Which could be anyone, but is currently mostly Notre Dame students). I’m also trying to come up with some questions that are more in-depth than extremely basic things. For example, I already have “How many games will Notre Dame win this coming season,” “If Tommy Rees starts more than half the games, how many games will ND win?” and “If Dayne Crist starts more than half the games, how many games will ND win?” However, I’m looking for some more ideas… any suggestions? (How often will South Florida run the football versus passing it? How many yards will Cierre have? Etc…) Feel free to toss ideas out there, and/or check it out on the website.
P.S. If you’d like me to go into further detail as to how these sorts of markets work, I can, but I don’t want to bore you with the details otherwise.
Thanks a bunch!
I’m a rising senior at ND, working on a research project this summer related to prediction markets, a recent concept in economics that tries to figure out the likelihood of future events through letting a bunch of people trade stocks where the payouts are related to those future events (here’s the website if you are interested: http://nd.inklingmarkets.com/).
For example, one thing I might be interested in is who win the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination. Say you, as a participant, are looking at a prediction market, and you know that if the event occurs, you’ll receive $1 for every share you own in the event. Let’s also say that you think there is a 60% chance that Mitt Romney will win the nomination. Then if the price of the Mitt Romney stock is below 60 cents per share, you would have an incentive to buy shares, because from your perspective, you expect to make money off of this. As you purchase shares, the price of the stock rises, and when you combine the trades of everyone participating in the market, you end up with a pretty decent estimate of the probability that the event will occur (in this case, that Romney will win the nomination).
The reason I bring this up is that I’m trying to pick some questions related to ND football that would be interesting to people that might be playing the market (Which could be anyone, but is currently mostly Notre Dame students). I’m also trying to come up with some questions that are more in-depth than extremely basic things. For example, I already have “How many games will Notre Dame win this coming season,” “If Tommy Rees starts more than half the games, how many games will ND win?” and “If Dayne Crist starts more than half the games, how many games will ND win?” However, I’m looking for some more ideas… any suggestions? (How often will South Florida run the football versus passing it? How many yards will Cierre have? Etc…) Feel free to toss ideas out there, and/or check it out on the website.
P.S. If you’d like me to go into further detail as to how these sorts of markets work, I can, but I don’t want to bore you with the details otherwise.
Thanks a bunch!
