Good point on real-time sentiment, on that part I agree, the prediction market does better reflect potential result-changing events since it is not static-- albeit those reflections are always likely to be over-exaggerated by the market creating opportunity by means of over-correction.
Prediction markets are still markets which means a) they will typically act irrationally and b) you have your winners and your losers, your sharps and your suckers. For that reason I can't agree that they attract an exclusively intelligent crowd. It is also an assumption to say that traders of those markets evaluate and analyze polls to determine the goods and the bads. Some of them probably do but I'm also willing to assume that many of them do not. Further, going back to irrationality, market sentiment should not directly shadow voter sentiment to a tee because it takes original information and anticipates what has not yet happened. Therefore, in theory, it should have an inflated relationship to voter sentiment. In other words, the price is run up or down by speculation rather than maintaining rational price levels on par with the information known at hand.
i.e. Concerning Prop. 64 PredictIt numbers, those currently buying the 'Yes' are essentially saying, "I believe that I will be able to flip these shares at a higher price than I bought them." OR "I am 89% confident that Prop. 64 will pass" (each share is redeemed for $1 upon positive result). This is a 29% difference from the majority of polls (outliers excluded) taken from samples of registered voters within the State of CA. I will be extremely surprised if the proposition passes with a emphatic 89% 'Yes' vote but, in the case that it happens, I fully expect to hear you give me some shit about this post. None of the polls coming out of California have a margin of error even relatively close to 29% though so I think I'm pretty safe on that one.
I still disagree up front that prediction markets are wholly better barometers than polls. In earnest, they are actually probably worse barometers the majority of the time-- even when taking their dynamic nature into consideration. While they do have some dynamic advantage, they also a) draw heavy on speculation providing for unrealistic and irrational stance when translated and b) in this case, are not solely limited to the participant voters in the state of question.
Sorry for the story but I had to provide logic to the matter. And so concludes another pointless ihub debate.
$AMMJ
