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Comment by niggler | Hacker News Reader

Slightly OT: what's the current status of online gambling? There were talks of nevada and new jersey loosening restrictions, but most of those were reported by financial analysts and not by the technical community.

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Both Nevada[1] and New Jersey[2] have legalized though there's still quite a bit undecided, especially re: regulations.

1. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57570664/nevada-legalize...

2. http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/03/nj_moving_at_di...

It's booming in some circles, millions a month probably:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Category:Gambling

sealswithclubs.eu should be mentioned here too.

The problem is that currently the closest thing to a prediction market is Bets of Bitcoin, and they use probably the bizarrest set of rules you have ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on. So.. not really an alternative at all except for the most wildly mispriced bets on it (where you can be sure to come out with a profit regardless of how much the rules screw you).

I see the wiki lists 2 other prediction markets, but they seem to handle sports only.

Thanks for exposing a market opportunity! Sounds promising, in the right jurisdiction.

Yeah. I keep hoping someone will do a bitcoin version of Intrade as a Tor hidden service. It's the logical next step.

There's also https://icbit.se for actual futures.

Prediction markets don't necessarily have to be real currency and it's a misconception that they are only accurate if you're using real money. We have run a prediction market using fantasy currency for years: http://home.inklingmarkets.com. We also run run private markets for companies...

How are you determining the accuracy of your market predictions?

Here's a blog post we wrote a few years ago about it: http://blog.inklingmarkets.com/2008/05/judging-prediction-ma...

You don't specify when you are sampling the market. It often wouldn't be surprising, or useful, that a market correctly predicts an event the day before it occurs.

Of course they don't have to use real money. But if you're happy with playmoney, nothing stops you from, say, just writing down predictions and checking how they ultimately do. (I do just this; great practice and useful in many ways.)

However, we shouldn't forget that many people aren't going to contribute their time and expertise without a concrete reward. Nor do I blame them.

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