{"id":1437,"date":"2010-03-22T19:31:04","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T18:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decisionsciencenews.com\/?p=1437"},"modified":"2010-03-22T19:31:04","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T18:31:04","slug":"predict-a-lot-and-thats-an-understatement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decisionsciencenews.com\/?p=1437","title":{"rendered":"Predict a lot (and that’s an understatement)"},"content":{"rendered":"

PICK NCAA WINNERS WITH THE LARGEST COMBINATORIAL PREDICTION MARKET EVER<\/p>\n

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Tracking 9.2 quintillion outcomes, Predictalot<\/a> offers something for everyone.<\/p>\n

Dave Pennock<\/a> sits behind the Decision Science News editor at Yahoo! Research<\/a> (a kind of academic department sitting inside a company). Much more importantly, he has lead a team that has built what is probably the largest prediction market in history. The market is called Predictalot<\/a> and its first mission is a fun one: the predict NCAA basketball winners.<\/p>\n

The team is: Mani Abrol, Janet George, Tom Gulik, Mridul Muralidharan, Sudar Muthu, Navneet Nair, Abe Othman, Daniel Reeves, Pras Sarkar.<\/p>\n

What’s special about Predictalot<\/a> is that it lets you bet on just about anything that you like, and all the bets are interconnected (which helps it make better predictions of what will happen). Says Dave<\/a><\/p>\n

Because we track all possible outcomes, the predictions are automatically interconnected in ways you would expect. A large play on Duke to win the tournament instantly and automatically increases the odds of Duke winning in the first round; after all, Duke can\u2019t win the whole thing without getting past the first round.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And<\/a><\/p>\n

A combinatorial market maker fulfills an almost magical promise: propose any obscure proposition, click ‘accept’, and your bet is placed: no doubt and no waiting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can play Predictalot by clicking to play directly<\/a>, or by adding it to your Yahoo home page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Predictalot is a combinatorial prediction market<\/a> and it’s been generating a lot of media interest, for example:<\/p>\n