Over three years ago, I made the following bet with my friend Ben Haller:
I therefore offered Ben 2:1 odds against Warren being elected, and he’s accepted. The bet gets called off if Warren doesn’t run… The stakes are my $100 against Ben’s $50.
Since Warren didn’t even get the vice-presidential nomination, Ben had just conceded the bet.
This brings my cumulative public betting record to 21 wins, 0 losses.
As I’ve conceded many times in the past, every bet contains signal and noise. You can win via superior insight, or via luck. A consistent track record of wins, however, is almost all signal. If an unbroken streak of 21 wins on an immense variety of topics does not confirm the winner’s superior sagacity, what would?
That said, none of my “superior sagacity” let me foresee the pandemic, the global shutdown, or the baffling full recovery of the stock market. So while none of the outcomes of my bets greatly surprised me, the world still deeply confuses me. At least I can draw a little comfort from the old adage, “If you’re not confused, you don’t understand what’s going on.”
READER COMMENTS
Lucas
Aug 20 2020 at 9:46am
I am sure I could never win 21 bets in a row like you did. But from the beginning I believed that the market was being irrational about covid and that the stock market would recover quickly, and so I redistributed my investments accordingly. The recovery was even faster than I expected, though, so I guess I was wrong in good way. It surprised me when you said you thought stocks wouldn’t recover quickly, since I used knowledge I learned from you to make my judgement.
robc
Aug 20 2020 at 11:22am
Homo Economicus would make more bets to maximize profit at the cost of a perfect record.
Maybe. Or homo economicus values being right more than making money.
Hoosier
Aug 20 2020 at 12:10pm
Hmmmm….
Would love to hear what side you come down regarding the following propositions:
Some form of medicare for all/universal health care will be implemented by 2028.
The US will engage in a foreign conflict with troops deaths to exceed 500 soldiers by 2024.
The Republicans will take back the house in 2022 (this can wait until we see if Biden wins or not in November).
My $100 would be ‘yes’ on the first item and ‘no’ on the second and third.
Yaakov
Aug 20 2020 at 7:42pm
Brian does not bet on such close propositions. The point of bets is to call out propositions with very low chances, not to gamble on propositions having close to even odds.
That said, I would personally guess no on the first two and say I do not know as to the third.
mark
Aug 21 2020 at 12:33pm
The point of Briyan’s bets, yeah. That said, I would bet 10.000 on the 2nd (no) – esp. if Biden wins. Not sure about the third – esp. if Biden wins. The first? Needs much clearer definition. “Some form” might already exist in the US of A. Complete “universality” (everyone gets max-healthcare) exists nowhere on earth.
David D Boaz
Aug 23 2020 at 8:42pm
How often do you accept bets proposed by others, as opposed to being confident about a prediction and offering to bet?
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