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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

The big problem here is that punters generally don't care about 'socially useful' markets. They want short term markets about things they care about like sports or elections. If socially useful markets are going to work then there is going have to be a new way compensating knowledgeable punters.

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Marc Geddes's avatar

John,

Proper betting exchanges (like 'Betfair') allow you to either 'Back' (bet for) or 'Lay' (bet against) an outcome. So in theory there should be equal numbers of fraudsters for and against an outcome, and they cancel each other out.

Also, where fraud is at work, there is often meta-betting on the fraud : sure a result may be fixed, but punters don't know which way, and they then bet on that ;)

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