I really don't want to be a prick about this, and I have nothing personal against the user who created these questions, nor against questions about Asia in general, but I do have a problem with this question (and the four others which are suspending about now on the same topic, and the fact that they are part of a weekly series of such questions).
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/How_ma...
All of these questions are multiple choice, they have low amount of activity, the bets at closing are all 90%+ on one option (does that mean the suspend time is late?), and given previous issues regarding the question creator, I'm afraid I'm more than a little suspicious about the intent here. But regardless of intent, questions of this type are just easy ways for a very small few to make money in a fashion that appears more like a loophole than a legitimate prediction market. Since most or even ALL of the $ wagered are on one option, the winnings are coming directly from Hubdub (no-one wagers on a losing choice).
If these Roadies questions (it's a show on MTV India) are being followed by a sizable community, I sincerely retract my above comments. If not, I feel that we are missing some rule to discourage week upon week of easy-for-very-few, impossible-for-the-majority questions. And how does the editor in question judge these (especially with regard to the appropriate suspend time)? [In an earlier such question, which was voided, a claim was made that a video clip on you tube had the pertinent evidence in Hindi! What if the judge doesn't speak Hindi?]
In general, I'm thinking that it might be an idea to have a minimum number of predictors on a question before it can be settled (say 20?). If it's a tough question and people don't want to wager much, that's fine, but there's something wrong with questions that only have 1 or 2 people wagering (fairly heavily) on them. Liquidity (which translates, I assume, to activity $s) is not the only issue here. So is actual participation by a significant percentage of the community (say at least 1-2 %).
And on a related topic: in particular, in-running (ie financial markets) questions with very few players allow someone to bet heavily on one option (thus keeping others out of the market), watch the charts unfolding, and then if required change horses in midstream with little loss and fairly guaranteed payout. This is nothing like the risk and up-and-down of the Dow questions, nor the "guessing" involved in "normal" questions (such as US primaries, sports events, etc.), and seems a little like a personal licence for one or two players to print their own H$.
To repeat: this is not an attack on Roadies or non-American questions, or on the person who created the questions. But it brings up a very important issue about what distinguishes a legitimate question (and the money paid out on it) from a currently-legal-but-actually-unfair one.
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InfernalMachine
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on April 03, 2008 16:07
sd
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Skipper (Employee)
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Nigel Eccles (Official Rep)
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