Since I joined the Augur team I have learned many new facts about prediction markets and the various case studies that have occurred in the past to prove the “Wisdom Of The Crowd” theory. I knew a little before joining the team, but as I keep learning and digesting knowledge, my excitement for what the team is building continues to grow.
I wanted to share this Bloomberg news piece from the past week that illustrates how prediction markets beat pollsters in predicting David Cameron as the winner for Prime Minister in the United Kingdom. The prediction market forecasts used in the piece came from Ladbrokes, a prediction market platform operating exclusively in the United Kingdom. This example of accuracy is derived from data gathered exclusively within a finite region, excluding those with expertise in the subject from outside of the UK.
The example given here is just one of many case studies that have proven the increased efficacy of prediction markets over traditional political polling. Augur exists to open these kinds of questions up to anyone in the world which will further increase said efficacy.
FiveThirtyEight.com’s Nate Silver once made the following statement in this piece, it’s one of my favorites when expressing the potential for Augur to others:
“it would be useful to have a dozen FiveThirtyEight-like models in the public sphere. The consensus of models or forecasts is very often better than even the best-performing members of the group.”
Augur’s goal is to be the first truly global prediction market and with that, create the most accurate forecasting tool in human history. The recent UK election has given another example of why Augur will be a powerful tool in predicting election outcomes.
