Canadian Federal Election Prediction

The Conservatives are almost sure to win the Oct.14 federal election. As of today, the Intrade prediction market shows a 77% probability that this will happen. People voting with their money in the market is as good as, or better than any CBC poll, in which only 55% of people thought the Conservatives would win.

There's another such market operated by the University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business called the UBC Election Stock Market. According to the CTV News article where I found the link, it's results in the last election in 2006 were right on. It's also saying the Conservatives will will handily and the numbers have gone up since the election call. You can "vote" your money by number of seats, whether there will be a majority, the proportion of popular vote, which of the Conservatives or Liberals will receive a plurality.

Update October 15 after the election.... The UBC market did amazingly well, finishing in the middle of the pack of professional polling outfits. That's especially impressive in that there were only 257 investors taking part over the whole campaign. It's Wisdom of the Crowd indeed.