Predictit.org is a site that allows people to trade shares on different “markets” revolving around various current events that are taking place. The site is “an educational purpose project of Victoria University, Wellington of New Zealand, a not-for-profit university, with support provided by Aristotle International, Inc., a U.S. provider of processing and verification services. Prediction markets, like this one, are attracting a lot of academic and practical interest (see our Research section). So, you get to challenge yourself and also help the experts better understand the wisdom of the crowd.” On predictit you trade “stocks” that are valued between 1 cent and 99 cents based on the value the public trading these stocks puts on them with your own money.
Examples of markets that people get involved with are ones around election results, polling data, or even how many times President Trump will tweet over the course of a given time period. These differences keep people interested and involved in the goings on in their country’s politics and even makes them feel a bit more invested. This feeling I think is very valuable and something that we need more of in the general population because people not being educated and involved in politics is bad for our nation.
Personally I love using the site because it allows people who do lots of research on political issues to gain a slight advantage over their fellow players. I think it encourages participation in the political process in a unique way. Personally it gets me to read a lot more articles about what is going on in congress, in the judicial courts and in foreign governments than I would be reading if I wasn’t on the site. So I think the members of Victoria University who created this should be commend on an interesting take on getting involved in politics that as a non-profit allows them to fund their research on how people think about politics.
I think it’s really cool that they took an existing market and used it as a way to teach the general public more about politics and current events in general. Overall, I really loved this idea.