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Chinese Military Action against Taiwan?
Resolved
NO
Aug 1
S$69,591 bet

💬 Proven correct

jack
Jack bought S$200 of NO
Hanlon's razor: the person who bought up to 99% is probably just someone who is unfamiliar with how betting on manifold works, and someone else cashed in on it.
Jack made S$56!
MarkIngraham
It will happen in 2027 and only bombardment. This is all public statements.
riffraffselbow
riffraffselbow bought S$100 of YES
I think the true odds are lower but the idiotic $5000 bounty incentivizes betting against my true beliefs.
ThomasStearns
Thomas Stearns is betting NO at 29%
does anyone seriously believe this market is fairly priced right now?
JosiahNeeley
Josiah Neeley is betting NO at 22%
@ThomasStearns No, but it’s not worth parking money here until the end of the tournament to be proven right.
ThomasStearns
Thomas Stearns is betting NO at 22%
@JosiahNeeley the only thing that matters is returns at the end of the tournament. shorter term markets are more likely to be correctly priced than longer term ones, so i don't know why "parking money" at a longer term market is bad.
CharlesPaul
Charles Paul is betting NO at 22%
@ThomasStearns because in a game like this, where rewards don’t pay out linearly with profits, taking added risk, so long as its fair or even close to fair, is beneficial. So the optimal strategy is to bet large amounts of money of the lowest timeline market you can find, take your payout, and repeat, and while knowing if you screw up you’re done for.
CharlesPaul
Charles Paul is betting NO at 20%
anyone know what’s with the recent spike?
LorinElijahBroadbent
Lorin Elijah Broadbent is betting YES at 21%
By the time I saw it, it was already far too late to sell at the price of a lifetime…
CB
@LorinElijahBroadbent curious if anyone knows the mechanics of large purchase/sales? So for example, "SD bought S$900 of YES from 17% to 60%". What price did SD's position get executed at, on average? Is his $900 all at 60%? Or is it more like ~38.5%? (the average of 17% and 60%, meaning his order was executed over the range of 17%-60%?)
MichaelWheatley
Michael Wheatley is betting NO at 21%
@CB It's across the whole range, except if someone had a limit order to buy NO shares at a certain price, in which case it bought that many at that price until the limit order was filled. I'm not sure if the average is exactly in the middle, since at the low prices more shares are bought for each dollar.
del
deleted is betting NO at 21%
@MichaelWheatley There is some more information available on the trade with the API. @SD got 2445.4 shares of YES, so in expectation they’d be even at a 900 / 2445.4 = 36.8% probability. Of the S$900 bet, S$563 was traded against the automated market maker. The other S$337 completely matched four different limit orders, by far the biggest one being by @Patrick for S$400 at 41%.
MusterTheSquirrels
What if it's a Chinese fishing vessel? On rare occasions, rival fisherman ram each other.
JaredFrerichs
Jared Frerichs bought S$100 of YES
February 2023 begins the year of the Water Rabbit for China. A beneficial omen for conflict in the Pacific.
BTE
BTE bought S$75 of NO
@JaredFrerichs it's actually the year if the Female Black Water Rabbit so no you're are wrong, it's actually indication of peace in the region.
RobertMecca
Robert Mecca is betting NO at 23%
Manipulation can also be done on these message boards. It is an interesting experiment. I bought this Taiwan in error but will hold it for the heck of it. Don't stress, it is not real money and chances are you won't win. LOL
BTE
BTE is betting NO at 41%
This market is stupid. 40% is ridiculous. This contest is more about market manipulation than predicting anything. Total waste of time.
OftenWash
Often Wash is betting NO at 23%
@BTE Yeah the contest is failing, it's all market manipulation. The right way to do this would be to partner with Metaculus an to minimize Brier score. Instead it's wait for some idiot and do a limit order.
BTE
BTE is betting NO at 23%
@RyanAlweiss personally I find Manifold to be much more fun than Metaculus but I think for this contest you are right. Brier score makes a lot more sense based on what they seem to be looking for.
BTE
BTE is betting NO at 23%
There is no way to make enough to catch the people who got lucky that first day. Even a 20 percent move in this market barely changes the value of my position. Too much liquidity and too easy to manipulate.
GeorgeVii
George Vii is betting NO at 23%
@BTE I don't know if that's quite the case. I joined a day and a half ago and am now 10th on the leaderboard (I imagine the the top two or so accounts are way ahead of everyone rn, but I doubt insurmountable in the full length of the competition)
BTE
BTE is betting NO at 23%
@GeorgeVii they don’t show the total profit anymore. The leading accounts made 1000 profit the first day. It’s hard to fuck that kinda lead up.
MichaelWheatley
Michael Wheatley is betting NO at 21%
@BTE They rolled back all first-day profits. See Hanania's post with the rule changes. Also, the people running this contest are not idiots. They're using this contest to find a good forecaster. If they see someone has placed as a finalist by landing a lucky trade, munchkining the ruleset, or Goodharting the ranking criteria, they'll just not pick that person when it comes time to handpick a winner from among the best traders.
MichaelWheatley
Michael Wheatley is betting NO at 21%
Oh, I misspoke here. They removed first day profits from the leaderboard, but didn't "roll them back," in that those traders get to keep their winnings.
MichaelWheatley
Michael Wheatley is betting NO at 14%
FWIW, I've made a lot of fake money on Manifold by being the first to notice when a new user placed a huge bet without regard to price slippage.
OftenWash
I don't like this market, a bunch of sketchy alt accounts pushed this up past 90% and people made big profit. I suspect fraud.
SalemCenter
Salem Center is betting NO at 6%
@RyanAlweiss The way to solve this is to place limit orders, which will stop individuals from pushing markets in unnatural directions. We'll investigate cases of fraud and disqualify those responsible.
OftenWash
@SalemCenter Very good, I placed a limit order. But already people who have placed limit orders before me (including people just playing honestly) doubled their money. It still puts huge noise in the market.
AdrianKelly
Adrian Kelly bought S$14 of NO
For sure, @arj definitely looks like an alt, why would you buy to 99% and then sell to 3%? Maybe you can check the ip and see if it matches any other traders. It really demotivates you from trading if people can just create fake accounts and transfer the starting money to their real account.
arj
arj bought S$999 of YES
@RyanAlweiss I caused the spike with a single order by accident because I was just playing around with the site and not taking it seriously as a competition. I learned something about liquidity in the process though.
del
deleted is betting NO at 5%
@RyanAlweiss Hey! So I made a lot of money here. There certainly was no fraud on my part at least, though I can appreciate my name looks like a bot. I hava already been active on the normal Manifold website for a while (https://manifold.markets/1941159478?tab=bets). That’s also how I knew putting up pretty absurd looking limit orders can be good business.
jack
Jack bought S$200 of NO
Hanlon's razor: the person who bought up to 99% is probably just someone who is unfamiliar with how betting on manifold works, and someone else cashed in on it.
jack
Jack is betting NO at 13%
I've seen the buy a massive amount and then sell a massive amount pattern on Manifold tons of times, it's a common mistake.
OftenWash
@1941159478 Right, see what I said about "people who have placed limit orders before me (including people just playing honestly)". It's still kind of annoying that even though you did nothing wrong, you now have a huge advantage because of this idiot. The Salem Center should have started the market by placing huge limit orders.
rainman
rainman bought S$100 of YES
@RyanAlweiss Agreed, the fact that one account could generate that much noise seems like bad design for a competition with real stakes
del
deleted is betting NO at 7%
@RyanAlweiss Though to defend @arj here on the "idiot" part: On my first day on the regular Manifold, I bet a market on Elon Musk buying Twitter down from 81% to 1.2%. It’s a common thing.
BTE
BTE bought S$25 of NO
@SalemCenter Seems like the Salem folks fixed this issue by adding significant liquidity to every market. This will keep spreads tight, not even $1000 bet should move the market more than 10 percent either direction. Kinda wish I had gotten here a few hours earlier though because the advantage given to those earliest traders will not be available again, volume is already too high. Making 80 percent on the initial float with current spreads is hard enough, catching the current leaders under such conditions is close to impossible. Gonna try though!!
Quincy
@SalemCenter I agree it's not cheating to game the market like this and while it feels unfair to people who miss the opportunities presented by big swings caused by large bets, we should expect people who watch for it / catch it to act this way and we would probably do the same thing in their position. Having said that, if the goal of the project is to find the best forecasters, this does not seem like the setup to accomplish it. A few days ago you could see the bets each person had placed on their profile. The two people at the top of the leaderboard had both made a majority of their winnings by placing limit orders at 1 and 99 and selling as the market corrected from massive swings. It might be better for there to be a strong incentive to hold bets to maturity, limit the amount one person can bet at once, implement ban standards and include bets that move markets > x%, or even reject those bets altogether.
OftenWash
Often Wash is betting NO at 25%
@Quincy Yeah exactly
del
deleted is betting NO at 25%
@Quincy Yes, I also agree that there is a problem here when the goal is good forecasting instead of having fun market making. Another idea for a solution: Have more markets resolve on a short timeline, like a month or so. That way, good forecasters could compound their earnings. Even with higher liquidity, I think it’s still possible to accumulate earnings by buying low and selling high, just slower. Still hard to compete with by betting on questions that will resolve at the end of the tournament.
OftenWash
Often Wash is betting NO at 30%
@1941159478 Fair enough on the "idiot" bit

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