The polling fiasco in the 2015 UK general election is just the latest in a string of high-profile failures over the last few months. This contrasts with the good performance of prediction markets, and Hypermind in particular.
Let’s start with the referendum on Scottish independence in september 2014. In the final weeks before the referendum, the polls consistently announced a cliffhanger with Yes and No tied within the margin of error. Yet the actual results gave “No” a large majority of 55%, 10 points ahead of “Yes” (45%).
The betting markets on the other hand clearly favored the “No” vote throughout. Witness for instance how the “Yes” vote on Hypermind always stayed below the 50% likelihood threshold, and was given a low probability just before the referendum took place on September 18th.
Then came the midterm congressional elections in the U.S., in november 2014. The big question then was whether the Republicans would recapture control of…
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