Early Intrade prices for 2016?

[Mr. Morden]

Intrade might open markets for the 2016 within a few days.  Should certainly happen just after the November election, at the latest.  Anyone care to make any last minute predictions about the early prices will be, either for Dem. nomination, GOP nomination, winning individual, or winning party?  It'll probably take at least a few weeks for there to be enough transactions to get anything resembling reasonable prices, but anyone want to guess where those prices will end up in a few weeks?

Here's the 2016 Intrade prediction thread from last year:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=143297.0

and here are some of the early 2016 odds offered by Ladbrokes:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=155492.0

The latest "winning individual" odds offered by Ladbrokes are:

Romney 4:1  (This obviously hinges on Romney winning this year)
H. Clinton 5:1
Ryan 10:1
Rubio 12:1
Biden 16:1
J. Bush 16:1
Cuomo 25:1
O'Malley 25:1
Jindal 25:1
Rice 25:1
Christie 33:1
Walker 33:1
Warren 33:1

That should at least give a clue as to where the Intrade prices might start.  Looks like Clinton will lead the 2016 Dem. nomination market, and (if Obama is reelected) Ryan will most likely lead the GOP market.  Christie seems too low here.  We'll see if that happens on Intrade as well.

[Mr. Morden]

OK, if no one else is going to take the plunge, I'll take a crack at it.  Here's my new guess for what the Intrade prices will be in a few weeks (assuming enough trading volume to make any such prediction viable….which might not happen):

Dems

Clinton 28
Biden 15
Cuomo 10
O'Malley 8
Warren 6
Schweitzer 5
Warner 5
Gillibrand 4
Kaine 4

GOP

Ryan 20
Rubio 16
Christie 12
Bush 10
Jindal 7
McDonnell 7
Rand Paul 6
Santorum 5
Walker 5
Palin 4

(The above of course assumes that Obama wins the election next week.  If Romney wins, then there's no real contest on the GOP side.)

Winning party: close to 50/50.  Might be a slight advantage for the GOP, simply because people will figure that after 2 terms of the Dems, the pendulum will swing back.

[Mr. Morden]

Intrade hasn't started its 2016 contracts yet, but futures on the 2016 election are being traded at several other betting markets now:

http://www.oddschecker.com/specials/politics-and-election/us-presidential-election-2016/winner

Consensus odds seem to be:

Dems:
Clinton in 1st place, at ~3:1, or 25% chance of winning the nomination.
Biden, Cuomo, and O'Malley in the next tier, each at around 10:1, maybe O'Malley a bit behind the other two.
Warren in 5th place, and then everyone else.

GOP:
Ryan in 1st place, ~20% chance of winning the nomination, though there's disagreement about his general election potential.
Jeb Bush, Christie, and Rubio populate the next tier, all with ~10-15% chance.
The next tier after that looks like it includes Portman(!), Jindal, and Rice.

Winning party: Slight advantage Dems.  Around 50-55% chance of winning, depending on which oddsmaker you believe.

[Mr. Morden]

I think Rubio would be around Zero, since he will run for re-election instead of the President.  He won't be able to do both in Florida.

I looked up the filing deadlines at one point.  I think both Florida and Wisconsin have filing deadlines for US House and Senate that are fairly late.  Like June or something.  So for both Rubio and Ryan, they could, in principle, run for president until at least Super Tuesday or so, and then, if it looks like they're going to lose the nomination, quit the presidential race and jump into reelection campaigns.  If, OTOH, they're likely to win the nomination, they'd stay in the race to the end and give up their seats in Congress.

Kentucky has a much earlier deadline, IIRC.  So I don't think Rand Paul would be able to run for reelection and president at the same time.

[Mr. Morden]

Intrade still hasn't opened markets for 2016.  They're being much slower than last time.

However, there are more and more other betting sites listing odds for 2016 now.  One of the higher volume ones, Betfair, currently lists these prices (translated into Intrade-like probabilities) for winning individual:

Clinton 12.6
Rubio 8.3
Ryan 7.5
Bush 7.0
Christie 7.0
Biden 6.1
Portman 6.1
Cuomo 5.5
O'Malley 4.3
Rice 4.3
Martinez 3.4
Warren 3.4
Jindal 3.0

Oddly, most of the betting sites are rather bullish on Portman, even though he's boring and has done nothing to suggest he's interested in running.

[Mr. Morden]

Still nothing from Intrade, but I'll give the updated numbers on winning individual from Betfair, now that there's a bit more volume:

Clinton 15.7
Christie 8.7
Rubio 8.3
Ryan 7.2
Bush 6.5
Portman 5.6
Biden 5.5
Cuomo 4.8
O'Malley 3.7
Rice 3.4
Martinez 2.9
Warren 2.9

[Mr. Morden]

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed a complaint against Intrade in D.C. Federal court, and Intrade has  requested that users in the United States immediately begin closing their accounts. I expect this will have a large impact on the US election markets on Intrade.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-11-26/feds-charge-intrade-with-illegally-selling-bets

Yeah, doesn't sound good.  Read some speculation on Intrade's forum that they might try to shift to doing futures markets with play money.  In other words, it would just be a game, with no actual money at stake, making it useless as a prediction market.

Either way, there'll still be other futures markets out there that allow bets on US politics, like Betfair.  But it'll primarily be non-Americans placing the bets.

[Mr. Morden]

Still no Intrade, but here's the latest top 10 on "winning individual" from Betfair:

Clinton 16.4
Rubio 11.6
Christie 7.1
Ryan 6.0
Bush 5.6
Cuomo 4.2
Biden 3.7
Portman 3.3
O'Malley 3.0
Jindal 2.3

[Mr. Morden]

Hopefully by 2016 another site emerges or Intrade allows Americans again to trade.

Can you bet on Betfair or other similar futures markets sites, or are those also closed off to Americans?