WiseQ

• Deep Dive into Math
• Math Part 2
• Math Part 3
• WiseQ
• Results

The Pitch:

1. A market intrinsically provides insight

2.   Combinatorial 

• ​Mitt Romney would win Ohio yet lose election.
• Same party would win both Ohio and Pennsylvania

WiseQ

The Design:

• ​Standard Interface
• Fake money 
• 400 users: 3000 trades
• 514 distinct types bought
• (261 by single user...)

Results

• "Three quarters of users never sold any securities". 10% had -100% return.
• Top performer had 1.8k profit and ~100 buys+sells
• 11:1 buy:sell ratio, most happening immediately before election night
• "The game was featured on Yahoo News, the Huff Post, RealClearPolitics, and NYTimes"

• "The users who performed best...non-presidential races....our priors (initial prices) were least accurate for these races".
• Evaluation based on cherry-picked election results and counterfactual analysis

PredictIt

• Totally not gambling
• Market
• Inspirational stories

Totally Legal

PredictIt

The Pitch:

• "academic research"
• New Zealand "non-profit".  For-profit takes 10% commission.  
• "no action letter" -> each question is limited to 5,000 traders, and there is an $850 cap on individual investments per question

The Design:

• In 2017, PredictIt users traded more than 300 million shares
• Thousands of comments per bet

Investigative Journalism

No Results, Just Inspirational Personal Stories

• Variations of "I am smart so I am investing not gambling" -> proceed to win until they lose all
• Banker wants to work from home

Text

Text

Is this any different?

Behavioral economics

• Experiment 1
• Experiment 2
• Experiment 3

Which of the following would you prefer:

1. A) A certain win of $250, versus
   B) A 25% chance to win $1000 and a 75% chance to win nothing?
2. How about:
   C) A certain loss of $750, versus
   D) A 75% chance to lose $1000 and a 25% chance to lose nothing?

Experiment 1

Risk-averse

Certain gain is great.  Let's risk the loss.

Experiment 2

Leave a bowl of nuts/chips/guacamole/etc in front of a bunch of people

• How much will you spend per year in retirement?
• How much do you plan to make per year for the 30 years of your career?  
• How long are you planning to live?

Experiment 3

Nudge

• 401k
• Vaccination
• Midway Project Update