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The denizens of the poll markets make it part of their ritual to trick people that aren't completely familiar with the market into buying disadvantageous positions. The market is a cesspit. There are profits to be made, but those profits are mostly made in very short periods of time where you're racing against half the traders.
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Jun 30, 2016 04:39
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ganbatte, Bernie
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Jun 30, 2016 07:52
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Yeah. Usually you can do the math and stake out a likely position that won't be overly affected by poll variances, but even then a random outlier can come around and gently caress you. It's even worse for the approval polls, where the ranges can be as little as 0.5%. Poll bets are best regarded as Very Short Term investments--get in, ride it up a bit, get out and lock the gains. The only poll I'm riding out to completion right now is the Johnson 11%+ one, because that was a stupid high level to post him at and he was never going to hit it, especially with a 4 in the mix.
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Jun 30, 2016 10:25
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I lost $5 on a poll and said to myself "Never Again", sorry you had to lose a massive amount of money but now you know. Don't gamble if you can't afford to lose it all btw.
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Jun 30, 2016 15:08
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Thanks, guys. All very good points. Polls are so random sometimes it really was just like throwing my money to chance (I understand the irony given this is the whole point of PredictIt). Now I have to decide if I want to attempt to win my money back. It was nearly $100.  Do you people really only bet like a few bucks at a time on a given market? Anyone go all in like I stupidly did? OAquinas posted:Yeah. Usually you can do the math and stake out a likely position that won't be overly affected by poll variances, but even then a random outlier can come around and gently caress you. It's even worse for the approval polls, where the ranges can be as little as 0.5%. I thought I had good math. I got hosed by about .1% on the RCP margin. loving polls. Michael Scott has issued a correction as of 15:43 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 15:40
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Michael Scott posted:Now I have to decide if I want to attempt to win my money back [...] I thought I had good math. When I decided to play around with PredictIt, I decided that if I thought about it in these terms I was going to have a real bad time. As soon as I put money in there, I consider it gone. It's entertainment money. Obviously not everyone here plays it that way, but if losing $100 really hurts, it's probably better for you if you do.
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Jun 30, 2016 15:44
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Haha I did consider it entertainment money blown, absolutely, but I still want it back!!  It just feels really bad because it's like, much more than many other people could make in a while or comfortably lose, plus it's the most I've ever lost. Hurts, man.
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Jun 30, 2016 15:56
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Nice humblebrag
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Jun 30, 2016 16:23
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Michael Scott posted:Thanks, guys. All very good points. Polls are so random sometimes it really was just like throwing my money to chance (I understand the irony given this is the whole point of PredictIt). I would def never go "all in" on here. I try to split my pot so I never have more than 15% in any market, and NEVER more than 25%. I also try to never have less than 5-10% in any market, because it becomes a waste of time to follow that many Also - just my perspective: deposit limits change EVERYTHING on PI. When I first joined i figured the easy way to make money would be with math - polls, county-by-county breakdowns in primaries, arbitrage opps, etc - but after playing for a while, I've found betting on here to be the completely disconnected from all other gambling (and investing) where math is the key. On PI, math still helps, but the easiest way to make money, imo, is to just be quick - follow relevant reporters on twitter and being the first person to load the app This is bc the $3500 limit keeps smart money, hedge funds, algorithmic traders, etc out - it's just a lot of small-time gamblers like all of us. Low volume markets are great for this - a story, poll, etc can come out, and it could be 2 hours before anyone even notices lot of ways to make money on here, but I focus more on just being plugged in than devoting any real time to the math
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Jun 30, 2016 17:17
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Michael Scott posted:I thought I had good math. I got hosed by about .1% on the RCP margin. loving polls. Yup. Even if you play it exactly right, a poll can come out at the last second and screw you. Happened to me when Clinton dipped in May. Market flipped in seconds and I could smell the smoke from the burned money. That was right on the heels of the Oregon fiasco so that was a pretty bad couple of weeks for me.
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Jun 30, 2016 17:18
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Just curious and I know it didn't change the market itself, but did RCP post that Fox News poll before the market closed? e: nm I found a screenshot, yes they did EngineerSean has issued a correction as of 17:39 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 17:36
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I didn't realize there was a deposit limit, interesting. When you all say you lost, I still don't know how bad I should feel about mine. Did you lose a few hundred bucks or just a few bucks? I've seen PI screenshots where people make absolute bank, thousands of dollars. I'm not sure how much time they invested in following everything, though, or if they have a real job otherwise.
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Jun 30, 2016 17:54
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Michael Scott posted:I've seen PI screenshots where people make absolute bank, thousands of dollars. I'm not sure how much time they invested in following everything, though, or if they have a real job otherwise. You need money to make money, unfortunately. So they probably do have some sort of inheritance, job, or stolen credit card. I lost 13 bucks on the polls yesterday, and I do feel stupid as gently caress, because I had a ton of shares on the correct answer but I got scared and thought it would be better to lose 13 than to lose 30. I even made a program that checks every minute and texts me if there are any changes in RCP polling / averages, and I still panicked and made a hasty decision. I won money until I started reading the comments. Be patient and don't read the comments. People will absolutely lie to you, and manipulate the market if they can. VVVVVVVV gently caress, the primary must have been a goldmine. Wish I would have got in sooner. Bullfrog has issued a correction as of 18:05 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 18:01
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Bullfrog posted:You need money to make money, unfortunately. So they probably do have some sort of inheritance, job, or stolen credit card. I'm at $4000 from a $200 initial deposit in February (after I withdrew all my previous winnings). It's an enormous time suck, though.
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Jun 30, 2016 18:03
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Bullfrog posted:
I personally have 6 disqus accounts that routinely get in fights with one another. It's like my own little soap opera.
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Jun 30, 2016 18:04
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edit-----ahhh wait thats some new zealand site, ipredictit with an i? Still looking for the deposit limits on predictit. I'm not seeing anything besides the 850/market. Someone said a few weeks ago that he put 10k in for the primaries, so I dunno if that 3500 figure is right. It does appear to be easy as hell to get 20%+/year until you run out of markets. Which beats anyplace else you can put money. In a non-election year there probably aren't many non-poll markets closing each month though? Baddog has issued a correction as of 18:45 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 18:27
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Baddog posted:It does appear to be easy as hell to get 20%+/year until you run out of markets. Which beats anyplace else you can put money. In a non-election year there probably aren't many non-poll markets closing each month though? Yeah I largely play it safe and I'm up 70% for the past year. If you're willing to be a junkie like Vox Nihili your ROI can get stupid high. Once the elections are over they'll probably revert to what they were doing before the primaries started which was opening 'hot topic' markets in response to whatever the news cycle was focusing on at the time. The money was just as easy here because they'd almost always be front-loaded with people buying the hype from a media frenzy and the topics were usually extremely easy to call as long as you were remotely connected to reality. The Putin remain market and thermo-NKorea were two that gave me a ton of easy money.
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Jun 30, 2016 18:48
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People were betting against Putin staying in power? smh
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Jun 30, 2016 18:49
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SurgicalOntologist posted:People were betting against Putin staying in power? smh It was a very popular opinion among the serious talking heads when oil was crashing simultaneously with the Crimea sanctions.
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Jun 30, 2016 18:51
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I feel like the new Johnson fundraising market has a few opportunities: https://www.predictit.org/Market/2239/What-will-Gary-Johnson's-monthly-fundraising-be-for-June I expect his number to jump dramatically from the $300-whatever last month, given Trump's comments on Judge Curiel happened on May 27th/28th and the fallout was all during June, the delegate revolt stuff happened during June, Trump's numbers in the polls started collapsing in June, the libertarian town hall was during June, etc. That said, getting to >$1M seems like a total pipe dream (currently 18c/22c bid/ask) and less than $250 seems similarly crazy (currently 10c/15c). Not a big haul betting against those two, but it feels fairly secure to me, and it seems like it'd be easy to add on the 2nd or 4th ranges if you felt strongly that he wouldn't get all the way to $750K-$1M or if he'd blow $250K-$500K out of the water, whichever way you lean... volume is very low, so watch out (though not nearly as low as the Stein fundraising market, in which I've been making bank on random 20c swings that seem to happen every day with no rhyme or reason)
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Jun 30, 2016 18:58
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pathetic little tramp posted:I personally have 6 disqus accounts that routinely get in fights with one another. It's like my own little soap opera. There was a loving amazing one for 6/29 Hillary where someone had an account named "RealClearPolitics Intern" set to private, saying he had a new unreleased poll to unleash that would flip the market. People were offering to profit share $10k+ with him. Sooo many people fell for it.
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Jun 30, 2016 19:35
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My ROI is around 6100% since February, mostly from the primaries. I was super intense then, now I check it occasionally outside of big nights like Brexit.
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Jun 30, 2016 19:36
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Do you all tend to make bets when the price is tiny (.01-.1)? How can you manage such huge ROIs without PI feeling like a giant timesink? :/ Do you typically bail out when it's say, .9 or 9x your investment and sell rather than wait until the conclusion of the market? Can someone explain what arbitrage (arb) means in the context of PI? Simply buying low and selling high before market conclusion I assume? Lots of newbie questions I know, I just want tips since you guys really seem to know what you're doing. Myself I seem to be buying things that are $.5 or .6 because I like the good chances. But the payoff is much lower. And I already lost big. Michael Scott has issued a correction as of 19:52 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 19:39
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Michael Scott posted:Do you all tend to make bets when the price is tiny (.01-.1)? How can you manage such huge ROIs without PI feeling like a giant timesink? :/ i basically just find things that i think are priced incorrectly based on current info and bet accordingly, and I'm not afraid to go big when i'm confident. I've taken a $2000 hit on a (multi contract) market and made over 3k on a market twice, so as my account has scaled up so has my risk, but I've continued going up overall. Tend to be two steps forward one backwards. My latest wins were i had 2k shares of boris no, and 2k of may yes which i flipped this morning in the 70cent range (boris unintentionally, i had sell orders), and i bet on the 2 lowest poll brackets on the 7/6 clinton vs trump because i suspected rasmussen would pull down the average. I've never bet my whole account or even close or anything, I've scaled up my betting size as my account got larger but stayed at similar percentages in any given market. But in short you have to be willing to lose to win. edit: Or more or less, in a stock market if you're retail you're probably never going to have an edge or know more than the market does, on predictit, there isn't enough smart money to prevent mispriced markets from happening frequently, and there's tons of bias (see - bernies), and new polls or news can result in rapid shifts. If you have a better idea of where prices should be and play the odds you win over time. G-Hawk has issued a correction as of 19:58 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 19:52
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G-Hawk posted:i bet on the 2 lowest poll brackets on the 7/6 clinton vs trump What does this mean? You bet yes on two different brackets, and the math works in your favor? Also at what point did you get into the Brit PM, what were the prices like at the time you bought?
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Jun 30, 2016 19:55
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Michael Scott posted:Do you all tend to make bets when the price is tiny (.01-.1)? How can you manage such huge ROIs without PI feeling like a giant timesink? :/ But low sell high. That's literally all there is to it. Arbitrage means the same as it means anywhere else: finding markets that are linked either explicitly or implicitly where placing a bet in both guarantees a return no matter what happens.
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Jun 30, 2016 19:59
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If you're not a politics junkie you absolutely should not be playing with this site if you're looking to make money.
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Jun 30, 2016 20:01
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Michael Scott posted:What does this mean? You bet yes on two different brackets, and the math works in your favor? https://www.predictit.org/Market/2257/Who-will-lead-in-Trump-vs-Clinton-polling-on-July-6 I bet b4 and b5 yes and b3 no last night, when the average was 6.2, because between the new PPP poll and a likely new rasmussen poll i suspected the rcp average would move to the lower 5 or 4, which would cause b3 to go down and b4 and b5 to go up. All 3 happened, I flipped all 3 on sell orders. I got into boris no the day after brexit at around 40c on average, got into uk PM market as soon as it opened and I could get shares at Boris no 55~ and may yes 40.
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Jun 30, 2016 20:01
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Necc0 posted:Arbitrage means the same as it means anywhere else: finding markets that are linked either explicitly or implicitly where placing a bet in both guarantees a return no matter what happens. Can I get an example? Some people seem to make $ on arb so easily it's confusing to me. Sorry if I'm coming off retarded, by the way. I don't think there's any huge gaps in my knowledge, but I'm new to this. Necc0 posted:If you're not a politics junkie you absolutely should not be playing with this site if you're looking to make money. I am a politics junkie but unfortunately I have a 9-5 job where I can't search polls much. Michael Scott has issued a correction as of 20:06 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 20:01
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Necc0 posted:If you're not a politics junkie you absolutely should not be playing with this site if you're looking to make money.
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Jun 30, 2016 20:03
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So: Obama approval. Ride the swings or play it out all the way till tomorrow in 50.0% - 50.4%?
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Jun 30, 2016 20:09
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There really aren't a lot of arbitrage opportunities due to the 10% rake on winnings. There's really only buying something when you think the price is too low, then selling when you think the price is too high and buying the other side.
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Jun 30, 2016 20:14
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God dammit I thought we weren't supposed to play those loving things.
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Jun 30, 2016 20:14
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G-Hawk posted:yeah, pretty much. Or stay in the lane you know the best. Between the politics junkies and the sharks that basically just make money by finding a new poll's pdf the quickest, its rough if you don't know a lot. man, I miss goodtimes on trying to find primary polls early. We found a couple! and really, Don't Bet On Polls, especially if you're new to a particular poll market. there are sharks in each of them that have studied and spreadsheeted out poll releases and have things down to a science, more or less, and know when things are likely to come out. not to mention some of the regulars/sharks can manipulate a market pretty good. on top of that: a.) there are still some surprises. just the other day, there was Direction of Country that was basically at .95 to .05 - a poll on the last day swung it back the other direction. some guy got there first because he had the hookup on twitter, but it was still a crazy flip. b.) your Betting Includes RCP. i think it was Hil Approval the other day? man, the salt in there was real - commenters were salty that RCP unexpectedly dropped some polls which threw the whole thing off. edit: also you can ABSOLUTELY turn a small starter into a decent amount with patience/luck/skill. went in with 60, got up to about 750 at one point. (withdrew 200) - came within 5 minutes of getting up to 1500, but panicked and sold too early in indianna and RIP me. so close!! Social Studies 3rd Period has issued a correction as of 20:24 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 20:20
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Bullfrog posted:So: Obama approval. Ride the swings or play it out all the way till tomorrow in 50.0% - 50.4%? I don't touch those hyper-narrow polling markets but if you do, you should not hold for long.
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Jun 30, 2016 20:34
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Michael Scott posted:Can I get an example? Some people seem to make $ on arb so easily it's confusing to me. Linked market with three possible yes/no outcomes. Only one can resolve yes so whichever goes yes it guarantees the other two will resolve no. If you buy a single share of NO across the board you're guaranteed a payout of $2 no matter what. Can you buy all three no shares for less than $2? Do you still come out ahead considering the 10% winner's fee? If so- purchasing is a guaranteed win and places a pressure on the market to correct. This is called arbitration.
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Jun 30, 2016 20:50
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C7ty1 posted:
Same. I started a year ago and put in a total of $110 from myself and friends. Got up to $1800, then ate it on successive bets against Bernie. I'll be worth $12 if Bernie doesn't drop out today, and all of that is tied up in GOP nominee penny stocks. It's been a fun year, totally worth it, but I haven't logged on in weeks.
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Jun 30, 2016 21:03
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Aliquid posted:Same. I started a year ago and put in a total of $110 from myself and friends. Got up to $1800, then ate it on successive bets against Bernie. I'll be worth $12 if Bernie doesn't drop out today, and all of that is tied up in GOP nominee penny stocks. It's been a fun year, totally worth it, but I haven't logged on in weeks. same! plenty of entertainment for a political junkie like me, and even came out a bit ahead. my big break was the Yats market and pushing my entire tiny bankroll into it at one point - then again when his resignation wasn't accepted, bought at like .06? and sold at .27, .28? thanks #predictit for that sweet tip. there's plenty of opportunities like that to be found on the site, you just need to be in the right spot/time for 'em.
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Jun 30, 2016 21:08
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Necc0 posted:This is called arbitration. eh, arbitration and arbitrage share a root, but have different definitions today. arbitrage is already a noun
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Jun 30, 2016 21:15
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You can make a pretty decent return on investment without obsessively watching the site. You just have to be willing to sit on the longer markets where you know what is going to happen but the pay off is a ways away. Or bet on shorter markets with the goal of picking the position to ride until the market closes instead of playing the swings. There's a lot less gain, but if you do it right there's not too much risk either. It also has the advantage of keeping you from maxing out on a position only to see it evaporate in the time it took you to drive home.
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Jun 30, 2016 22:30
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