17. At the end of 2023, will prediction markets say Donald Trump is the most likely Republican nominee for President in 2024?
50%
chance

We will use Polymarket to resolve these questions looking at 00:01 Jan 1st 2024. If Polymarket stops existing or by our judgment is no longer credible, we will use whichever Manifold market on the question has the most traders. If neither Polymarket nor Manifold exist and are credible, we will use our judgment to select an alternative source.

This is question #17 in the Astral Codex Ten 2023 Prediction Contest. The contest rules and full list of questions are available here. Market will resolve according to Scott Alexander’s judgment, as given through future posts on Astral Codex Ten.

Sort by:
LukasTilmann avatar
Lukas Tilmannbought Ṁ20 of YES

I think more and more people will start seeing that DeSantis is a short weird nerd while Trump is a funny cool guy, making him the most likely candidate.

Mason avatar
GPT-PBot

The markets predict Trump's return,
As the GOP's nominee to burn.
2024's race will be a sight,
With Trump leading the right.

camelwrangler avatar
Camel Wranglerbought Ṁ10 of YES

It is hard to believe people making the same mistake as with 2016. Desantis, the only real contender here, is popular with pundits and high IQ types who understand he is an effective governor; if he is known at all by 'deplorables' it is with strong indifference. The message that Desantis, as a Trump protege, 'betrayed' him, will resonate far more strongly with the base than any rhetoric on policy.

Anyway the Trump vs DeSantis race has yet to become official, but new levels of cringe are being unlocked with each passing day. If you're a conservative who keeps up with American politics, you will likely be suicidal in a year from now.

AaronKreider avatar
Aaron Kreider

Using Polymarket to resolve a market about Trump and expecting it to be credible... lol

AaronKreider avatar
Aaron Kreider

@AaronKreider Polymarket currently has a 11% (absolute - eg. 48%-49% vs 37%-38%) bias over PredictIt which is arguably already biased in favor of Trump. PI has two biases: 1) the summation of Yes contracts tends to hit 110 cents - so the typical Yes contract is 10% above the actual odds (though possibly as low as 5% for the main contracts) and 2) the user base is biased towards Republicans and especially Trump.

So my estimated (based on PI) odds for Trump are approximately 36%.

ACXBot avatar
ACX BotBot

As of writing this it is a dead heat with DeSantis at 38% each, Haley at 11% having announced. It seems clearly more likely that Trump is the most likely single nominee on 1 January than that he wins the nomination. Here the two scenarios can be ‘Trump or DeSantis wins the nomination’ or ‘someone else wins the nomination.’ In the first scenario, I think Trump is close to 50% to be the favorite going in. In the second scenario, I’d still have to give him at least 25% to be on top that long.

So I have to put the fair price here according to real money markets at something like 45%, and if you forced me to bet one way or the other on Trump vs. DeSantis I’d likely still pick Trump although it does seem close. Alas, the market is not very liquid, so I only bought M250 of YES here which already moves it to 41%. If it rebounded and I noticed I’d take more, potentially quite a lot more.

- Zvi Mowshowitz

CromlynGames avatar
Patrick Barryis predicting NO at 46%

@ACXBot desantis is rising, trump falling. 50/50 now is likely to shift hugely to desantis in coming months.

BrendanFinan avatar
Brendan Finan

binary swaptions

StevenK avatar
Stevenis predicting YES at 34%

I'm considering making some markets that are like "Will Trump be the Republican nominee? NO MANIPULATION VARIANT - By participating in this market, you promise to not manipulate it with the intent of changing the answer to Scott's question. Scott, please use this one to resolve your question." But enough people don't care about their reputation, or are willing to use alts, to make me think that probably wouldn't work. It might work if it were possible to restrict betting to particular users, but I don't think there's any way to do that. Maybe it would also have to be a free response question, but posting those seems to be counted against profit even if you never bet on them.

jack avatar
Jackis predicting NO at 34%

@StevenK I don't think the manipulation is a huge concern, because if it is being obviously manipulated then it will be deemed not credible and therefore Scott won't use it. Subtle manipulation is a possible concern but that could happen on any prediction market including polymarket.

StevenK avatar
Stevenis predicting YES at 34%

@jack Ah, yeah, I read that as talking about whether Manifold as a whole is still credible, but I guess he'd probably apply it to individual markets, though it would be nice to be sure. Subtle manipulation on Polymarket seems hugely more expensive than on Manifold.

StevenK avatar
Stevenis predicting YES at 34%

@StevenK I think manipulators may well be able to get away with a 5-10% mispricing, which is significant enough to affect bets here.

StevenK avatar
Stevenis predicting YES at 34%

@StevenK Anyway, Polymarket seems to favor Trump a lot compared to Manifold, so a lot of this market is about how likely Polymarket is to continue to exist, which I have no idea about.

StevenK avatar
Stevenis predicting YES at 34%

@StevenK (Trump vs DeSantis is 53.5 vs 33 on Polymarket and 34 vs 43 here. Maybe by the end of the year it will be obvious enough that it won't matter, maybe not.)

StevenK avatar
Stevenis predicting YES at 34%

@StevenK (Sorry, by 53.5 I meant 52.5)

StevenK avatar
Stevenis predicting YES at 34%

@StevenK Also, this is a less likely case, but if at resolution time Manifold favors candidate X and other prediction markets favor candidate Y, then people who have bet on Y will probably manipulate the relevant Manifold markets to get Scott to reject them as no longer credible and consult the other prediction markets. So the "no longer credible" clause only offers limited protection.

jack avatar
Jackis predicting NO at 34%

@StevenK True. Well, it's pretty unlikely for Polymarket to die in the next year: https://manifold.markets/IsaacKing/will-polymarket-still-exist-and-hav

StevenK avatar
Stevenbought Ṁ100 of YES

Polymarket has Trump at 53-54% right now, so NO buyers should consider trading there.

AlexPower avatar
Alex Poweris predicting NO at 34%

@StevenK The signup flow says: "I do not reside in, are incorporated in, and do not have a registered office in the United States of America or any restricted territory, as defined in the Terms of Use and will not use a VPN or any other measures to circumvent restrictions on my use of the Site and underlying protocols."

While that is legalese that might not be enforceable, the point remains that I would be breaking some rule if I were to sign up while in the United States.

StevenK avatar
Stevenbought Ṁ200 of YES

If Polymarket stops existing or by our judgment is no longer credible, we will use whichever Manifold market on the question has the most traders.

This may end up being a disaster because of manipulation.

jack avatar
Jackis predicting NO at 34%

@StevenK Obvious manipulation would fall into the case "If neither Polymarket nor Manifold exist and are credible" so Scott wouldn't use it.

BTE avatar
Brian T. Edwardsis predicting NO at 30%

How do you win an election when you can’t get over or stop talking about how you lost last time?? It’s not a trick question, you can’t.

Mira avatar
Mirabought Ṁ0 of YES

@BTE

A nice juicy M$10,000 limit order for you if you want it. He whines in every election and every rally, and it doesn't matter. He'll still get picked, since he was a former president.

My opinion on politics is maximum cynicism: They'll make a show about competing, and talk a lot about policies and scandals, and none of it will matter because politicians are picked based on social proximity to winners and not because of merit:

Trump is a former president.

Biden was a VP of a president.

Hillary Clinton was a wife of a president.

George Bush was the son of a president.

Jeb Bush was the top primaries competitor to Trump in 2016 and is the son of a president.

etc.

There's some exceptions(Obama, Trump), but it wouldn't surprise me if in 8 years one of Trump's kids wins a nomination. It doesn't matter how unqualified any of these people are - they aren't picked based on merit anyways.

I'm hoping you win this market - it would be sad if my view was proven right.

BTE avatar
Brian T. Edwardsis predicting NO at 30%

@Mira Hilary Clinton lost to Barack Obama. Jen Bush lost to Donald Trump. Your theory doesn’t standup to recent historical scrutiny.

BTE avatar
Brian T. Edwardsis predicting NO at 30%

@Mira Plus you are neglecting the criminal liability. He can’t even campaign if he is defending himself in court.

BTE avatar
Brian T. Edwardsis predicting NO at 30%

@Mira I hear you though, cynicism is not a bad take these days. I just think there is only about 20 percent of the GOP that would burn the country to the ground for Trump and that ain’t enough.

BTE avatar
Brian T. Edwardsis predicting NO at 30%

@Mira I think Donald Trump Jr has a better chance than the former guy. Which is sad on many levels.

BTE avatar
Brian T. Edwardsis predicting NO at 30%

@Mira I will say that I don’t think Desantis is gonna be the man everyone is hyping him to be. I think he will flop hard when everyone realizes he has no charisma.

BTE avatar
Brian T. Edwardsis predicting NO at 30%

@Mira Ted Cruz is up next by historical standards.

Mira avatar
Mira

@BTE I can tell a lot of them want to ditch Trump. So you'll see a lot of noise over the next year while they test if they still need him. But I don't know who any of these competitors even are, and I doubt many of the Republican voters will either. So they'll keep Trump.

If I was going to bet on anyone else, it'd be Pence since he's a former VP of a president and I think Trump ditched him. People would at least recognize Pence's name.

BTE avatar
Brian T. Edwardsis predicting NO at 30%

@Mira I find the idea that Pence is the next best candidate strange because he has never campaigned for president before. Sure he was VP, but that is very different. He has never declared himself a candidate or faced voters in a primary. Ted Cruz will crush him like a bug.