[extropy-chat] Famous author self destructs in public! Film at eleven.

[Chris Hibbert]

On 6/6/05, Brett Paatsch wrote:
> Sure, one possibility is to make it legal elsewhere first, and
> then, point at the revenue the US is losing to freer, smarter,
> more capitalist countries.

Well, Brett, since you brought up my name (confusing me with Charlie 
Stross, whose work I like (I'm also President of the Libertarian 
Futurists Society, which gives annual awards for best Libertarian 
Science Fiction.  Stross' Iron Sunrise was nominated this year.))  I'll 
point out that I'm working on open source Prediction Market software at 
CommerceNet.  I gave a talk at the Workshop that Hal Finney mentioned.

To get back to your point, there are already legal Prediction Markets 
running offshore.  And to bring the circle around yet again, a couple of 
the biggest are running in Ireland.  Look up betfair.com (mostly sports 
betting), and tradesports.com.  TradeSports ran markets on the last 
presidential election that correctly predicted the state-by-state 
outcomes of the presidential race.  They currently have claims on the 
Michael Jackson trial, the host city for the 2012 Olympics, which 
supreme Court Justice will step down next, and quite a few more.  Not 
quite the claims I'd like to see (look at Ken Kittlitz' FX for better 
examples) but it's real money, and it's legal.

Chris
-- 
Currently reading: Thomas Barnett, The Pentagon's New Map; Neal
    Stephenson, The System of the World; James Wittenbach, Worlds
    Apart: Meridian; Alexandar Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Chris Hibbert
hibbert at mydruthers.com
http://mydruthers.com