• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Ed FiveThirtyEight GE Forecast

Varanid said:
Sure, but the odds of an election are determined by the perception of the gamblers. The odds fluctuate to try to keep even money on both sides of the bet, no?

I'm not a gambler, so I am ready to be corrected.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's how it works with gambling on elections. Or sports for that matter. They want equal money on each side so they are guaranteed to make a profit.
 
Tony Stark said:
Yes, that's how it works with gambling on elections. Or sports for that matter. They want equal money on each side so they are guaranteed to make a profit.
Click to expand...

That's how it works for any market actually. Prices move to where supply and demand are balanced. There is no reason to believe the political betting markets are wrong any more than you would believe the price of Google stock is wrong. Actually, there is good reason to believe the political markets are more accurate, since there aren't any insider trading constraints, where the people with the best knowledge are prohibited from trading.
 
sunmaster14 said:
That's how it works for any market actually. Prices move to where supply and demand are balanced. There is no reason to believe the political betting markets are wrong any more than you would believe the price of Google stock is wrong. Actually, there is good reason to believe the political markets are more accurate, since there aren't any insider trading constraints, where the people with the best knowledge are prohibited from trading.
Click to expand...
The betting odds currently give Trump a 21.5% chance at winning. Would you agree that is more accurate than the 40% you pulled out of your ass?

https://electionbettingodds.com
 
sunmaster14 said:
Meh. I don't care about saving face. Nobody will remember this thread come election time, except me, in which case I'll only resurrect it if it shows that I was right. ;)
Click to expand...

If history is any indicator, this thread will most likely still be very active right up until the election. And incorrect predictions and misguided criticisms will almost certainly be dredged up and mocked.

I'm just trying to give my honest assessment. If the numbers look "perfect," it's because my experience has shown me that true probabilities in politics have usually been closer to 50/50, than the "smart" people have previously believed. It's a hard thing judging how the masses will judge things. In part because the judging itself affects how the masses will judge. This isn't like rolling dice or flipping coins.
Click to expand...

That's all well and good, but your assessment is based on approximately zero hard data. You just threw a number out there.

I have a lot of respect for political polls, and for Silver's methods of weighting them. But the fact remains, his models can't properly account for effects which have not happened yet. His models can tell you with petty good accuracy what the results of an election today would be. He doesn't have much to go on as to how much polls can change over 4 months in an uncertain world made far more uncertain by an extremely unpredictable Republican candidate and a Democratic candidate who is being investigated by the FBI.
Click to expand...

His models aren't attempting to account for unpredictable future events, nor do they need to. They are based on the data as it currently exists. And as before, the results will be modified as that data changes.
 
Tony Stark said:
The betting odds currently give Trump a 21.5% chance at winning. Would you agree that is more accurate than the 40% you pulled out of your ass?

https://electionbettingodds.com
Click to expand...

No. Sometimes I disagree with the market. In this case, I think it's a little low. Regardless, it's not so easy to distinguish 40% from 21.5%. Note also that the probability for Hillary is only 73.5%, so the market is in fact pricing in a real chance that Hillary does not become the nominee (and Trump for that matter, but much less so). I think that if Hillary were to drop out, Trump's chances would decrease, so that's a factor I had not incorporated into my 40% number. I was assuming a binary contest.
 
sunmaster14 said:
No. Sometimes I disagree with the market. In this case, I think it's a little low. Regardless, it's not so easy to distinguish 40% from 21.5%. Note also that the probability for Hillary is only 73.5%, so the market is in fact pricing in a real chance that Hillary does not become the nominee (and Trump for that matter, but much less so). I think that if Hillary were to drop out, Trump's chances would decrease, so that's a factor I had not incorporated into my 40% number. I was assuming a binary contest.
Click to expand...
No reason to believe the all knowing, invisible hand of the free market is wrong. Unless of course it goes against what you wish to believe.

LOL.

BTW, the all knowing, invisible hand of the free market gives Trump a lower chance of winning the nomination than it does Hillary. It says her odds are 95.7% while his are 92.2%. Let me guess, those are wrong too because they disagree with what you wish to believe.
 
Last edited:
Tony Stark said:
The media allowing Trump to spew his garbage for free probably hurts him more than helps him because Trump is an idiot with poor impulse control. The whole Judge Curiel thing, for instance.
Click to expand...

And the media is getting tougher on Trump. I think his obvioius dislike for a free press is scaring them a little.
 
Tony Stark said:
No reason to believe the all knowing, invisible hand of the free market is wrong. Unless of course it goes against what you wish to believe.

LOL.

BTW, the all knowing, invisible hand of the free market gives Trump a lower chance of winning the nomination than it does Hillary. It says her odds are 95.7% while his are 92.2%. Let me guess, those are wrong too because they disagree with what you wish to believe.
Click to expand...

I don't think that difference is meaningful. It's within the bid/ask spread. Remember that those numbers are implied from rather crude betting markets and translated into percentages. They seem to be trying to adjust them so that probabilities don't add up to more than 100%, but there are still rather wide bands around each number.

However, I do indeed agree that there's a reasonable chance Trump won't be the Republican nominee, just as I think there's still a reasonable chance that Hillary won't be the Democratic nominee. Once again though, I was assuming a binary outcome, i.e. that the race is between Trump and Clinton. In the real world, even Nate Silver would agree that both of them have lower probabilities of being President then what Nate Silver is calculating right now.
 
Tony Stark said:
As far as I know, he uses all the polls. He weighs them on based on how accurate they have been in the past. He doesn't tweek them based on his gut.

The Trump thing was not based on a mathematical model or data at all. He didn't tweek the polls, he outright ignored them. The prediction was purely him being a (bad) pundit and not understanding how stupid Republicans are.

And look at his model's record at calling states in the past. 99/100 for the last two elections. 99%.
Click to expand...

Are those the only two events they've ever predicted?
 
Fudbucker said:
Remember though, professional odds-makers who wager large sums on these sorts of things, thought Remain was an 80% lock too.
Click to expand...

First, "80% lock" is a contradiction. Second, maybe the professional statistician who called all 50 states correctly in the last presidential election knows more about presidential elections than a bookie does about U.K. referendums.
 
jt512 said:
First, "80% lock" is a contradiction. Second, maybe the professional statistician who called all 50 states correctly in the last presidential election knows more about presidential elections than a bookie does about U.K. referendums.
Click to expand...

Bookies absolutely have to know what they're doing when they set odds or they lose their asses. It's not just punditry, there's real money at stake.

And are you talking about Nate Silver? Who completely blew it on Trump? None of these guys are infallible. Remember, 538 gave Bernie about a 1% chance of winning Michigan.
 
Fudbucker said:
Bookies absolutely have to know what they're doing when they set odds or they lose their asses. It's not just punditry, there's real money at stake.
Click to expand...

It is interesting how many sports analogies come into this thread, considering that Silver started out doing predictive statistics for Major League Baseball (and still does). He's not a bookie, but he does work not too dissimilar to a bookie.
 
Fudbucker said:
You must never play poker then.

"Math vs Feel by AVP Resident Pro Benton Blakeman"

In my opinion you need to understand the math enough to not make any major fundamental mathematic mistakes while also having a keen sense of where you are in a hand based on your gut reactions."

http://www.pokeratlas.com/table-talk/announcements/las-vegas-news-math-vs-feel
Click to expand...

Again, I'm not even a gambler, but I know that poker is part chance (meaning odds do come into effect) and part skill ("gut" reactions and whatnot).

An election is clearly more akin to a straight up game of chance (roulette wheel) than a skill-based game like poker.
 
Fudbucker said:
Bookies absolutely have to know what they're doing when they set odds or they lose their asses. It's not just punditry, there's real money at stake.

And are you talking about Nate Silver? Who completely blew it on Trump? None of these guys are infallible. Remember, 538 gave Bernie about a 1% chance of winning Michigan.
Click to expand...

Yes, but a bookie doesn't care if <insert local sports team> *really* has a 75% chance at winning their next game. They are setting odds where they think 3/4 of people will take the favorite and 1/4 will take the underdog. If 75% of their customers pick the favorite it doesn't matter who wins the game, they break even, so long as they gave the underdog 3 to 1 odds. They charge (usually) 5% extra to makea bet, thats where they make money. If more people bet on one team or the other than expected they'll adjust the odds before the event.

That is not what Nate Silver does. He looks at polling data. If the data is flawed his predictions will not be accurate. And anyways how many times has he been wrong when giving a candidate that long of odds? If he's called 99 other elections at 100:1 correctly then so what. Its like people being angry at the weatherman, well you said there was a 90% chance of sunshine and it rained!!!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom