{"id":27,"date":"2004-11-03T13:17:17","date_gmt":"2004-11-03T21:17:17","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2015-10-12T17:10:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T01:10:00","slug":"tradesports_compared_to_the_pollsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/2004\/11\/03\/tradesports_compared_to_the_pollsters\/","title":{"rendered":"Tradesports compared to the pollsters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nOnce again, I feel somewhat humbled for underestimating the accuracy of presidential election markets. At least I was cautious enough to mainly bet against Bush winning states where he appeared to be behind, and against him winning 400 electoral votes, which made up for what I lost betting that Kerry would win the election and popular vote.\n<\/p>\n

\n Assuming the preliminary results are accurately indicating the final results, Tradesports<\/a> did quite well at predicting the elections (except for a few hours on Tuesday afternoon when it mistakenly reacted to exit polls). It’s Monday evening prices correctly indicated which presidential candidate would win each state. And it did a good job of indicating which states were closest (saying Iowa and Ohio were the least certain).\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Judging by the home page on what seemed to be the best known site devoted to tracking the polls (electoral-vote.com), the final polls got Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Hawaii wrong and predicted a tie in New Mexico and New Hampshire. Other ways of interpreting the polls probably did better, but I didn’t track them.\n<\/p>\n

\n Even using the Tradesports prices from a month before the election (October 2), Tradesports looks better than the final polls, getting only Wisconsin, New Mexico, and New Hampshire wrong, and showing Iowa and New Hampshire as the closest states.\n<\/p>\n

\n Tradesports also had several contracts which did a good job of predicting the total electoral vote count, predicting a month in advance that Bush would get just under 300 electoral votes, and predicting on Monday evening that he would get about 276 electoral votes.\n<\/p>\n

\n Tradesports predicted all but one senate race correctly. It was wrong on Alaska (which it said was the hardest to call). It looks like the pollsters called that one correctly. I haven’t checked whether pollsters missed any of the other Senate races.\n<\/p>\n

\n Here are some of the prices I’ve saved, taken at approximately 9pm Pacific time on the indicated dates:\n<\/p>\n

\r\nDate   Last  Bid  Ask   Contract Description\r\n041101 97.3 97.1 98.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 150 Electoral Votes\r\n041101 92.0 91.5 92.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 200 Electoral Votes\r\n041101 71.5 71.5 72.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 250 Electoral Votes\r\n041101 23.2 23.2 23.5 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 300 Electoral Votes\r\n041101  9.0  7.6  9.2 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 350 Electoral Votes\r\n041101  3.9  2.6  4.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 400 Electoral Votes\r\n041101  2.0  1.7  3.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 450 Electoral Votes\r\n041101 51.2 51.2 53.0 George W Bush to receive the most Popular Votes\r\n041101 48.9 46.2 48.9 John F Kerry to receive the most Popular Votes\r\n041101  276  266  285 Number of Electoral Votes won by George W Bush\r\n041101 53.4 53.2 53.4 George W Bush is re-elected as United States President.\r\n041101 47.5 47.5 47.8 John Kerry to be elected as United States President\r\n041101 97.3 95.3 99.6 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Alabama\r\n041101 97.0 95.0 99.8 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Alaska\r\n041101 92.0 91.0 92.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Arizona\r\n041101 85.0 81.1 85.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Arkansas\r\n041101  3.6  2.9  3.6 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of California\r\n041101 76.0 75.3 76.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Colorado\r\n041101  3.0  1.2  5.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Connecticut\r\n041101  7.9  5.3  8.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Delaware\r\n041101 55.9 55.5 55.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Florida\r\n041101 97.0 97.0 99.6 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Georgia\r\n041101 26.8 26.2 28.4 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Hawaii\r\n041101 99.0 96.0 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Idaho\r\n041101  6.0  3.2  6.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Illinois\r\n041101 95.0 95.4 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Indiana\r\n041101 51.9 51.9 52.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Iowa\r\n041101 96.0 96.1 99.6 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Kansas\r\n041101 95.5 95.4 99.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Kentucky\r\n041101 95.0 95.0 99.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Louisiana\r\n041101  6.0  4.0  6.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Maine\r\n041101  5.0  3.1  5.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Maryland\r\n041101  2.0  0.4  3.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Massachusetts\r\n041101 22.0 22.0 23.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Michigan\r\n041101 27.0 20.0 29.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Minnesota\r\n041101 97.0 97.0 97.8 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Mississippi\r\n041101 87.2 87.1 91.6 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Missouri\r\n041101 98.0 98.0 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Montana\r\n041101 96.5 95.3 99.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Nebraska\r\n041101 74.9 74.0 75.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Nevada\r\n041101 31.5 31.5 34.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New Hampshire\r\n041101 13.0 11.1 14.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New Jersey\r\n041101 60.0 55.0 60.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New Mexico\r\n041101  2.1  1.7  3.1 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New York\r\n041101 95.0 92.1 95.1 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of North Carolina\r\n041101 95.2 96.3 99.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of North Dakota\r\n041101 55.0 51.4 55.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Ohio\r\n041101 99.6 95.0 99.6 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Oklahoma\r\n041101 10.0  8.5 10.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Oregon\r\n041101 28.9 25.0 28.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Pennsylvania\r\n041101  1.7  0.4  2.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Rhode Island\r\n041101 96.3 95.1 98.1 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of South Carolina\r\n041101 95.3 96.3 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of South Dakota\r\n041101 95.9 95.0 97.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Tennessee\r\n041101 96.0 96.0 99.8 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Texas\r\n041101 96.0 96.0 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Utah\r\n041101  2.6  0.6  4.7 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Vermont\r\n041101 90.1 90.2 93.3 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Virginia\r\n041101  5.9  5.9  6.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Washington\r\n041101 90.4 89.5 90.4 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of West Virginia\r\n041101 44.0 44.1 46.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Wisconsin\r\n041101 97.6 95.2 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Wyoming\r\n041101  1.4  0.1  1.4 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of the District of Co\r\n041101 96.3 94.0 97.4 Arlen Specter (R) of Pennsylvania to win re-election to U\r\n041101 99.0 98.0 None Barack Obama(D) of Illinois to win election to US Senate\r\n041101 97.0 98.2 98.8 Barbara Boxer(D) of California to win re-election to US S\r\n041101 96.0 94.0 97.0 Barbara Mikulski(D) of Maryland to win re-election to US \r\n041101 95.5 93.0 98.0 Blanche Lincoln(D) of Arkansas to win re-election to US S\r\n041101 23.0 18.0 23.0 Brad Carson (D) of Oklahoma to win election to US Senate\r\n041101 96.5 94.0 99.0 Byron Dorgan(D) of North Dakota to win re-election to US \r\n041101 96.5 94.0 99.0 Charles Schumer(D) of New York to win re-election to US S\r\n041101 94.5 92.0 97.0 Christopher Bond (R) of Missouri to win re-election to US\r\n041101 96.5 94.0 99.0 Christopher Dodd(D) of Connecticut to win re-election to \r\n041101 96.5 94.0 99.0 Chuck Grassley (R) of Iowa to win re-election to US Senat\r\n041101 94.5 92.0 97.0 Daniel Inouye(D) of Hawaii to win re-election to US Senat\r\n041101 60.0 50.2 60.0 David Vitter (R) of Louisiana to win election to US Senat\r\n041101 34.0 34.0 39.0 Erskine Bowles(D) of North Carolina to win election\r\n041101 96.5 94.0 99.0 Evan Bayh(D) of Indiana to win re-election to US Senate\r\n041101 95.5 93.0 98.0 George Voinovich (R)  of Ohio to win re-election to US Se\r\n041101 97.0 95.0 99.0 Harry Reid(D) of Nevada to win re-election to US Senate\r\n041101 89.0 82.0 89.0 Jim Bunning (R) of Kentucky to win re-election to US Sean\r\n041101 90.0 87.5 None Jim DeMint(R) of South Carolina to be elected to US Senat\r\n041101 96.5 94.0 98.8 John McCain (R) of Arizona to win re-election to US Senat\r\n041101 96.0 95.0 99.0 Johnny Isakson(R) of Georgia to be elected to US Senate\r\n041101 97.0 94.0 99.0 Judd Gregg (R) of New Hampshire to win re-election to US \r\n041101 46.0 44.0 46.0 Lisa Murkowski (R) of Alaska to win re-election to US Sen\r\n041101 65.0 56.1 65.0 Mel Martinez (R) to win election to US Senate\r\n041101 96.5 94.0 99.0 Mike Crapo(R) of Idaho to win re-election to US Senate\r\n041101 96.5 94.0 99.0 Patrick Leahy(D) of Vermont to win re-election to US Sena\r\n041101 95.0 90.0 95.0 Patty Murray(D) of Washington to win re-election to US Se\r\n041101 34.0 33.0 34.0 Pete Coors(R) of Colorado to be elected to US Senate\r\n041101 96.5 94.0 99.0 Richard Shelby (R) of Alabama to win re-election to US Se\r\n041101 96.5 94.0 99.0 Robert Bennett(R) of Utah to win re-election to US Senate\r\n041101 96.0 96.0 97.0 Ron Wyden(D) of Oregon to win re-election to US Senate\r\n041101 95.2 93.0 98.0 Russell Feingold(D) of Wisconsin to win re-election to US\r\n041101 96.5 94.0 99.0 Sam Brownback (R) of Kansas to win re-election to US Sena\r\n041101 43.0 40.0 44.0 Tom Daschle(D) of South Dakota to win re-election to US S\r\n\r\n041002 97.0 95.1 98.9 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 150 Electoral Votes\r\n041002 92.0 91.1 95.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 200 Electoral Votes\r\n041002 77.0 74.2 77.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 250 Electoral Votes\r\n041002 40.0 41.0 45.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 300 Electoral Votes\r\n041002 15.0 12.0 14.9 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 350 Electoral Votes\r\n041002  4.2  3.2  5.2 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 400 Electoral Votes\r\n041002  2.0  1.0  3.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 450 Electoral Votes\r\n041002 57.0 59.0 60.0 George W Bush to receive the most Popular Votes\r\n041002 42.9 41.2 43.3 John F Kerry to receive the most Popular Votes\r\n041002  300  282  300 Number of Electoral Votes won by George W Bush\r\n041002 62.0 61.0 62.0 George W Bush is re-elected as United States President.\r\n041002 38.0 38.1 39.9 John Kerry to be elected as United States President\r\n041002 96.0 94.0 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Alabama\r\n041002 97.0 95.0 98.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Alaska\r\n041002 82.0 83.0 87.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Arizona\r\n041002 85.0 83.0 86.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Arkansas\r\n041002  8.5  8.3  9.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of California\r\n041002 80.0 75.0 80.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Colorado\r\n041002  7.0  5.0 10.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Connecticut\r\n041002 13.5 13.0 13.8 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Delaware\r\n041002 63.0 63.0 64.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Florida\r\n041002 97.0 95.0 97.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Georgia\r\n041002  8.0  7.5  8.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Hawaii\r\n041002 97.0 94.0 98.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Idaho\r\n041002  8.2  6.5  8.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Illinois\r\n041002 96.0 94.0 98.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Indiana\r\n041002 58.0 57.0 59.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Iowa\r\n041002 94.0 94.5 97.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Kansas\r\n041002 90.0 89.0 92.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Kentucky\r\n041002 94.0 94.0 96.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Louisiana\r\n041002 22.0 22.1 27.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Maine\r\n041002 15.0 15.0 19.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Maryland\r\n041002  2.0  0.4  4.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Massachusetts\r\n041002 26.0 25.0 29.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Michigan\r\n041002 35.0 35.2 37.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Minnesota\r\n041002 96.0 94.0 98.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Mississippi\r\n041002 84.0 82.7 86.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Missouri\r\n041002 95.0 94.0 95.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Montana\r\n041002 95.0 95.0 98.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Nebraska\r\n041002 70.2 73.5 75.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Nevada\r\n041002 53.0 53.1 57.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New Hampshire\r\n041002 19.0 18.6 21.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New Jersey\r\n041002 35.0 36.0 39.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New Mexico\r\n041002  7.5  7.0  8.4 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New York\r\n041002 90.0 90.0 92.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of North Carolina\r\n041002 96.0 94.1 99.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of North Dakota\r\n041002 67.1 67.1 69.8 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Ohio\r\n041002 97.0 95.0 99.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Oklahoma\r\n041002 25.0 25.0 29.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Oregon\r\n041002 33.3 34.2 36.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Pennsylvania\r\n041002  4.0  2.0  6.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Rhode Island\r\n041002 95.0 94.0 95.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of South Carolina\r\n041002 96.0 94.0 98.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of South Dakota\r\n041002 88.0 88.5 90.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Tennessee\r\n041002 97.5 97.5 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Texas\r\n041002 97.0 95.0 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Utah\r\n041002  8.0  7.0  9.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Vermont\r\n041002 87.0 86.5 87.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Virginia\r\n041002 18.5 18.0 23.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Washington\r\n041002 81.0 81.0 83.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of West Virginia\r\n041002 62.5 59.0 63.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Wisconsin\r\n041002 97.0 95.0 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Wyoming\r\n041002  2.0  0.1  2.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of the District of Co\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once again, I feel somewhat humbled for underestimating the accuracy of presidential election markets. At least I was cautious enough to mainly bet against Bush winning states where he appeared to be behind, and against him winning 400 electoral votes, which made up for what I lost betting that Kerry would win the election and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[17,18,15],"tags":[35,124],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-if","category-investing","category-us","tag-polls","tag-prediction-markets"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p80O1l-r","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":358,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions\/358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayesianinvestor.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}