Comment Text:
I hold a PhD in Political Science and have participated in PredictIt for many years. I have found it to be a great basis for political dialogue, with people of all political stripes particating (posting comments putting their money where there mouth is). Unlike a poll, people have a personal interest in the result that they are predicting, and this drives a certain honesty that may not be found in polls or other predictive tools. Polling also has a lag period; when people really want to have a good idea of the likelihood of a political outcome, there is no substitute for a realtime estimate based on people investing their own money. In this way PredictIt provides information to a wide variety of stakeholders that is in some ways more timely and more useful than other sources. These other sources also have their own value, but PredictIt and similar operations should seen as part of a package of information sources that citizens, politicians, journalists and others can take into account to best understand current and future political outcomes. I would really like to see these sources maintained, and not seen primarily as gambling, especially given the dollar limits placed on the predictions made (which most "gamblers" would shy away from).
