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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't betting on winning/losing demographic groups just a bet on exit polling? Or will it resolve based on county/precinct level voting data correlated across the country?
It just feels like betting on an NFL players PFF grade.
Correct.
Depending on the question, some questions are more predictable than how players are rated because even good players have bad matches, and even a rare bad year, while some scenarios are more likely than that. I am not sure if PFF grade is about how an NFL player is rated over the year.
I have no idea about anything NFL related so I would never even consider betting anything on it but I have some knowledge about politics. Seems that 30% of black men voting for Trump, isn't that likely.
Same with Harris increasing the % of unmarried women over Biden after roe vs wade which has a 79% for yes but actually gives 22.55% return.
Sport results can be more unpredictable than some scenarios about what will happen.
But this is indeed gambling, and it there are comparisons to be made with betting on sports. It even has an option for sports betting. Since most people using the platform lose money, I am not going to counter too much your skepticism. Most questions are going to involve things that aren't predictable. The most predictable possible choices give little return. And if you think that something is predictable while it gives a decent return, you might be missing something. But markets aren't perfect, and people might be underestimating how likely something is too.
Sorry, should have explained more.
PFF is a company that puts together a numerical grade indicating the performance of every player based on experts subjective viewing of each game. It is meant to bridge the gap between the mostly objective stats (the QB threw the ball for X yards, the LB made Y tackles) and the totally subjective eye test which fans can only apply while watching the game, and even then only to players they pay attention to. PFF grades are meant to capture things like "the linebacker didn't make the tackle, but he filled the A gap forcing the running back to cut back and get tackled for a loss." It's a tool used to compare players, based on expert opinions.
If one bets on the outcome of an NFL game, one is mostly safe from match fixing short of a real serious operation, because the stakeholders all value the outcome of the game greatly, and the product is visible on the field so there's a good chance people might pick up on obvious point shaving over time. Betting on an objective stats, like catches or yards or sacks, is riskier for point shaving because it's somewhat possible for a team to force or allow certain statistical outcomes to occur without impacting the outcome of the game.
But betting on PFF grades, you have no protection against PFF just getting the grade wrong. Or theoretically of PFF just fixing the result. And certainly not from PFF being biased, liking the vibes of one player instead of another.
In the same way, when you bet on Trump winning 30% of black voters, you're betting on an exit poll showing that Trump got 30% of the black vote. Especially when you get deep into smaller samples like minority vote count. So much depends on the pollsters secret sauce, how they weight different sample sizes to balance it towards what they think the truth looks like. You have no protection from the pollster making an error, or just shrugging and saying "idk maybe it's an outlier."
Now probably the market for those bets is small enough that it won't matter, it won't make sense to put the fix in. But it wouldn't be hard to do, and the bettor would have zero protection against it.
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