The Future Events Trading Market resumed operation yesterday following a two-month shutdown due to a lack of resources.
Tung Chen-yuan (童振源), director of National Chengchi University’s Prediction Market Center, said the trading house was funded by the National Science Council and Swarchy Inc, but the center took advantage of the opportunity to raise funds and established a company, the Future Events Trading Co Ltd.
Prediction markets are speculative exchanges, with the value of an asset meant to reflect the likelihood of a future event. Members can tender virtual bids on events, with the bidding price meant to reflect probability.
Currently, the company is run by three full-time staffers, including one technician doubling as the manager, Tung said. To sustain the company, Tung said they must develop the trading platform into a moneymaking operation.
However, the company will not trade in real money, as that would be against the law, Tung said. Nevertheless, traders will be required to pay certain amount of maintenance fees in the future and only traders making certain profits will be allowed to trade in special contracts, he said. Participants will also be screened to prevent them from using phony or multiple accounts.
In the meantime, the Prediction Market Center will remain as an educational institution, he said.
Yesterday’s trading showed that the races in Taipei City and the soon-to-be-named Sinbei City remained tight.
The likelihood that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) mayoral candidate for Taipei Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) would win in next month’s election was NT$53.6 against NT$46.8 for Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
For Sinbei, currently still known as Taipei County, the probability that DPP mayoral candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) would win was at NT$49, while that of her KMT opponent Eric Chu (朱立倫) was NT$51.
Tung, however, said that the prices could not reflect the real prospects immediately after trading resumed and that it might take two or three days for the situation to stabilize.
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