Say you're a die-hard Bears fan and you just KNEW CHicago would make this year's super bowl. But you're broke and there's no way you could compete with America's wealthy elite for a $2,500 ticket. With TicketReserve.com, you could have had your ticket for the price of dinner for two at TGIFriday's.

TicketReserve.com uses predictive markets to build a business out of fan's pursuit of affordable tickets. In a kind of futures market, fans are able to make predictions on which team will make it to any number of big games. If they're right, users get to buy tickets at price much lower than through a ticket scalper, auction service or ticket broker. If they're wrong, they're only out a few bucks.

Maybe I should buy now for the Oakland Raiders (my favorite team and the NFL's worst team in 2006-07). Their price is probably cheap. ... Um, I should probably stick with a USC 2008 BSC championship game prediction.

(Learned about the site from this article)




Another example (I think) of using prediction markets in sports is ESPN SportsNation (wikipedia entry here). This online community asks members to vote and answer questions on the "important" sports matters of the day. From this site, we might know that...
- The Colts will win the super bowl.
- Fans are not particularly excited about this matchup

Make your voice heard on Super Bowl XLI here. And check back in the next week or so to see which team is predicted to win, who will be MVP, etc. My guess is that the community becomes a bit of an echo chamber with the expert-favored team getting most of the votes. That said, I remember seeing a year or two ago that the SportsNation had much better predictions on the NCAA tournament than did the so-called experts.


My questions...
- If you gambled on sports (which of course NONE of us would ever do), would you use either of these predictive markets to your advantage?
- Do you think you can outguess the sportsnation community? The Ticketreserve.com market?
- We've seen these predictive markets now at play in sports and entertainment. Of course, they are used in business. What other uses do you see in other fields? politics? non profits? (I personally can see an interesting project of predictive markets for say a political primary season. The site would generate a lot of activity by passionate users, and have a real effect on campaigns as the futures market might affect fundraising. We might see candidates adopt positions that increase favorable market activity. *For the record, i think this last idea is interseting but probably bad for democracy and debate.)