The University of Buckingham Press Journals
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WITNESS ANONYMITY AT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: DUE PROCESS FOR DEFENDANTS, WITNESSES OR BOTH?
Get PDFThe question of how far and in what way to extend protection to witnesses in trials has manifested itself in institutions as diverse as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the Committee of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the ad hoc criminal tribunals (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone), and most recently the International Criminal Court (ICC). This is not surprising; as David Lusty has pointed out in his seminal analysis of the use of anonymous accusers, the question has arisen in almost every legal deliberative body for the past two thousand years
THE TRADESPORTS NFL PREDICTION MARKET: AN ANALYSIS OF MARKET EFFICIENCY, TRANSACTION COSTS, AND BETTOR PREFERENCES
No full textWe investigated 1,587 Tradesports point spread contracts for NFL games during the 2005/06 season. Differing point spreads create differing odds, meaning we could test for the traditional favorite long shot bias in NFL betting. We found that there was no favorite long shot bias. However, the market underestimated the chances of the favored team winning by about 10% across all odds categories, and this bias persisted throughout the season. We found relatively low transaction costs. For a price-taker, the Tradesports “Vegas-line” point spread had a 2.2% total takeout including exchange fees, about half of the 4.55% takeout of traditional legal bookmakers. Contracts with a price around 50, creating even money returns to bets on both teams, and higher volume contracts, had lower transaction costs. Participants were found to prefer the Las Vegas line point spread contract followed by the straight-up contract. Trading volume during the game (in-running) was about twice the trading volume leading up to the game. Teams with better season records and from cities with larger populations generated a higher volume of trades. Sunday night and Monday night games generated about four times more volume than regular Sunday games.Helpful comments were provided by Adi Schnytzer and participants of the 2007 University of California-Riverside Growth of Gambling and Prediction Markets Conference, and an excellent anonymous referee. We thank Jared Hunt for computer assistance
PREDICTION MARKETS: AN EXTENDED LITERATURE REVIEW
Get PDFThis paper presents an attempt to study and monitor the evolution of research on prediction markets (PM). It provides an extended literature review and classification scheme. The former consists of 155 articles, published between 1990 and 2006. The results show that an increasing volume of PM research has been conducted in a very diverse range of areas. The articles are further classified and the results of this classification are presented, based on a scheme that consists of four main categories: description, theoretical work, applications, and law and politics. A comprehensive list of references concludes this literature review. It is the authors’ intention to provide an expedient source for anyone interested in PM research and motivate further interest
EVIDENCE ON THE FAVORITE-LONGSHOT BIAS AS A SUPPLY-SIDE PHENOMENON
No full textThe favorite-longshot bias has been referred to as the most longstanding empirical regularity in literature concerning decision-making under uncertainty, as well as a central theme of the literature on betting. However, it has defied authoritative explanation to date. Several attempts have been offered to explain the bias. They can be divided to two main categories: demand-oriented and supply-oriented explanations. This article argues in favour of supply-side explanations. The study is based on comparison of bookmaker odds to betting exchange odds in three betting markets. The data obtained illustrate that the disparity between bookmaker odds and betting exchange prices increases rapidly as the implied probability of the event decreases. This provides an explanation of the favorite-longshot bias which is consistent with earlier empirical research, showing declining expected returns on bets as odds increase. In addition, this explanation is consistent with the evidence concerning the volume of bets actually received by bookmakers
FORECASTING ACCURACY: COMPARING PREDICTION MARKETS AND SURVEYS – AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
No full textPrediction markets are viewed as the most accurate instrument for collective forecasts. However, empirical studies, mostly based on political elections, deliver mixed results. An experimental study was conducted to avoid certain biases and problems and to better control conditions of eliciting information from individuals. One typical problem is for example comparing prediction markets that focus on judging the public opinion in the future with polls asking for individual election preferences at a certain point of time. Therefore, our study compared forecast accuracy between prediction markets and a simple survey for the same forecasting item.The results showed roughly the same accuracy for all employed methods with the survey delivering slightly better results at lower costs, which was surprising. The experiments demonstrated also that it is possible to gain highly accurate forecasts with a relatively small number of participants (6-17) taking part continuously
SPORTSBOOK BEHAVIOR IN THE NCAA FOOTBALL BETTING MARKET: TESTS OF THE TRADITIONAL AND LEVITT MODELS OF SPORTSBOOK BEHAVIOR
No full textThe predictions of the traditional balanced-book sportsbook model and the alternative Levitt model of sportsbook behavior are tested using actual betting percentages on the favorite/underdog and over/under for NCAA Football. Sportsbooks are found to not balance betting dollars, which is in contradiction to the assumptions of the traditional models of sportsbook behavior. In the pointspread market, more bets are placed on the favorite in contests with road favorites and in games with higher pointspreads. In the totals market, more bets are placed on the over as the total increases and in games on television. Some support is found for the Levitt model of sportsbook behavior, as sportsbooks appear to price to maximize profits when the behavioral biases of bettors are clear, such as games with road favorites and games with the highest pointspreads and totals. In all other contests, however, the sportsbook appears to price as a forecast, as each proposition wins half of the time, even in the presence of betting imbalances
LONG-TERM FORECASTING WITH PREDICTION MARKETS – A FIELD EXPERIMENT ON APPLICABILITY AND EXPERT CONFIDENCE
No full textWhile prediction markets have become increasingly popular to forecast the near-term future, the literature provides little evidence on how they perform for long-term problems. For assessing the long-term, decision-makers traditionally rely on experts, although empirical research disputes the value of expert advice. Reporting on findings from a field experiment in which we implemented two prediction markets in parallel to a Delphi study, this paper addresses two questions. First, we analyze the applicability of prediction markets for long-term problems whose outcome cannot be judged for a long time. Second, by comparing trading behavior of an expert and a student market, we analyze whether there is evidence that supports the assumption that experts possess superior knowledge. Our results show that prediction markets provide similar results as the well-established Delphi method. We conclude that prediction markets appear to be applicable for long-term forecasting. Furthermore, we observe differences in the confidence of experts and non-experts. Our findings indicate that, in contrast to students, experts reveal their information well-considered based on what they think they know. Finally, we discuss how such analyses of market participants’ confidence provide valuable information to decision-makers and may be used to improve on traditional forecasting methods
THE HIDDEN BEAUTY OF THE QUADRATIC MARKET SCORING RULE: A UNIFORM LIQUIDITY MARKET MAKER, WITH VARIATIONS
No full textFor some applications, prediction markets that rely entirely on voluntary transactions between individual participants may provide insufficient liquidity to aggregate information effectively, especially where the number of participants is small. A solution to this problem is to rely on an automated market maker, which allows participants to buy from or sell to the house. Robin Hanson has described a class of automated market makers called market scoring rules. This Article examines a member of this class that has received little attention, the quadratic market scoring rule. Its prime virtue is that it provides uniform liquidity across the probability or prediction spectrum. Market participants will thus have the same incentive to do research that is expected to produce an expected change in the market prediction, regardless of the current prediction. Formulas are provided for implementing the quadratic market scoring rule, as well as variations, for example to implement conditional markets
OVERCONFIDENCE IN JUDGEMENTS: THE EVIDENCE, THE IMPLICATIONS AND THE LIMITATIONS
No full textThis paper examines the degree to which individuals tend to be overconfident in their judgements and identifies the implications for those trading in prediction markets. The findings from laboratory-based psychological studies of overconfidence are compared and contrasted with those from financial market studies. The broad conclusion from this literature survey is that overconfidence is a widespread phenomenon which is influenced by a number of factors, such as, the difficulty of the judgement task, the amount and nature of outcome feedback, and the gender and culture of the decision maker. It is also clear that there are a number of limitations of the existing research and a suggested methodology for further research in this area is examined
RESTRAINT OF TRADE DURING AND ON THE TERMINATION OF A CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMENT
Get PDFRESTRAINT OF TRADE DURING AND ON THE TERMINATION OF A CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMEN