Monday
Tradesports.com runs an over-the-counter derivatives market with contracts covering various events.
Those of you who like a market solution for any problem will be pleased to know it quotes quarterly futures style contracts on the likelihood of Saddam being President of Iraq in December, March and June.
Market prices currently imply that he has an 83 percent chance of being the Mother of all Dictators come Christmas, but only a 48 percent chance of opening Easter Eggs as President and a 37 percent chance of seeing in the second half of the year in power.
Early optimism that Saddam would take an early bath has declined as time has progressed. Being an unregulated market there is of course nothing to stop Dubya doing a bit of insider trading...
This is just amazing. I don't know how accurate these probabilities are, but in any case it seems some people will bet on anything.
I'd give Saddam about a 99.99% chance in Christmas, but it drops off sharply after that. 48% by Easter is probably a bit low, given Powell's statments yesterday about regime change not being the central issue at the U.N.
Posted by Lucas Wiman at October 21, 2002 05:19 PM
In the UK this kind of Spread betting is commonplace, I used to get involved heavily in betting on cabinet reshuffles.
Stuart Wheeler's IG index declined to take my political bets after I sold John Smith for PM - 2 mins after he died.
Posted by Paul Staines at October 21, 2002 06:04 PM
This is very similar to Robin Hanson's concept of Idea Futures, based on market assessments of risk.
THe URL is http://hanson.gmu.edu/ideafutures.html
Posted by Philip Chaston at October 22, 2002 10:35 AM
there is an article on cnn money about this
http://money.cnn.com/2003/01/14/markets/saddam/index.htm
Posted by heywood at January 17, 2003 11:25 PM
