Using Monday's before the election probabilities, will Manifold probabilities "feel accurate" in retrospective?
Using Monday's before the election probabilities, will Manifold probabilities "feel accurate" in retrospective?
7
1kṀ2202
Dec 10
15%
chance

I'll use a three-pronged approach, using the probability of victory of the candidate with best probabilities on the Monday prior.

  • 80+% probability: the candidate wins the election. even if you change the winner vote share in each state by 1.5 percentage points, giving it to the 2nd candidate, the candidate still wins.

  • Between 60 and 80% probability: correctly calls the election. even if you change the winner voter share in each state by 0.75 percentage points, giving those votes to the 2nd candidate, the candidate still wins.

  • Between 40 and 60% probability: correctly calls the result of the election. It If you remove 0.75 percentage point of the vote of the winner, the result flips, and the winner no longer wins!

  • 40% or less: this market resolves to N/A. 3-way election.

Basically, if we are predicting someone wins by 80%, it has to win by a big margin.

I obviously understand that it's not how probabilities work. It's just a fun exercise.

I'll use the following market.

It basically means that if we predict with near certainty, the result needs to be really strong, where even substantial swings in voters preferences maintain the result.

I'll consider the final and official tallies for each state. I might decide to resolve it early if there's little to no uncertainty on the correct solution for this market.

Fun
Math
Manifold
Manifold Users
Self-resolving
Get
Ṁ1,000
to start trading!


Sort by:

So,
If the favorite has >80%, this resolves yes iff the favorite ends up with a vote margin of 3+
if the favorite has > 60% but < 80%, this resolves yes iff the favorite ends up with a vote margin between 3 and 1.5,
if the favorite has > 40% but < 60%, this resolves yes iff the favorite ends up with a vote margin between 1.5 and 0.
Is this accurate?
Edit: multiplied vote margins by 2

8mo

Almost exact. The vote margins in each state. Therefore I'll move the vote margin in Kentucky and Pennsylvania by the appropriate margin and check whether the candidate still has 270 votes to win.

What is this?

What is Manifold?
Manifold is the world's largest social prediction market.
Get accurate real-time odds on politics, tech, sports, and more.
Or create your own play-money betting market on any question you care about.
Are our predictions accurate?
Yes! Manifold is very well calibrated, with forecasts on average within 4 percentage points of the true probability. Our probabilities are created by users buying and selling shares of a market.
In the 2022 US midterm elections, we outperformed all other prediction market platforms and were in line with FiveThirtyEight’s performance. Many people who don't like betting still use Manifold to get reliable news.
ṀWhy use play money?
Mana (Ṁ) is the play-money currency used to bet on Manifold. It cannot be converted to cash. All users start with Ṁ1,000 for free.
Play money means it's much easier for anyone anywhere in the world to get started and try out forecasting without any risk. It also means there's more freedom to create and bet on any type of question.

Related questions

© Manifold Markets, Inc.•Terms + Mana-only Terms•Privacy•Rules