Do people put money on this because 4:1 odds are pretty good. If definition of fall is a mission accomplished type photo op I’d take those odds. If it’s prolonged stable holding then I probably would not
https://www.metaculus.com/about/
It's well recognized, including my Metaculus users and admin, that money can provide a powerful incentive for accuracy which they do not use (presumably because this would be a very different, more legally encumbered platform). However, they attempt to make up for this by having many more predictions and, crucially, but weighting more heavily the predictions of people whose predictions have been more accurate in the past.
> This question will resolve positively if it is publicly reported by at least three reputable media sources or from direct statements from at least four Permanent UNSC members that the majority of Kyiv's raions are under Russian military control by April 1, 2022.
Just saying that the prediction market shall resolve because three reputable news agencies report something is completely devoid of any insight into the nature of issue. It's as logically absurd as claiming that you have cancer because a Doctor told you that you have cancer, or claiming that you killed Jack because a jury delivered a guilty verdict. No, you don't have cancer because a Doctor said so and no you didn't kill Jack because of a jury's verdict; you have cancer because of an actual condition involving the rapid and abnormal cell growth and you killed Jack because you took a knife and stabbed him.
You are certainly justified to believe you have cancer because a Doctor told you so, and I am justified to believe you killed Jack because a jury said so, but a justification is not the same thing as an actual cause.
So going back to the original question: what is the criteria that determines that Kyiv has actually fallen to Russian forces as opposed to what is the justification for believing that Kyiv has fallen.
I'm not convinced assassination markets are practical. If you make a prediction that a person will be assassinated on a particular day, and put money on it, you'll make the odds for that day spike up, thus warning the target to take new and unpredictable precautions.
If you try to counter this effect with less specific predictions, then more people will take your side of the bet so you'll get worse odds.
Russians also think that most Ukrainians support Russia, it doesn't mean it's true. Same with believes that most Iraqis supported US.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/02/da...
> Petraeus: Ukraine is not only bigger but some 50 percent more populous than Iraq, and the Iraqi population included many millions—Kurds, Christians, Yezidis, Shabak, and many of the Shia—who broadly supported the coalition forces throughout our time there. Only a minority of the Iraqi population comprised or supported the Sunni extremists and insurgents and Iranian-supported Shia militia. Though they did, to be sure, prove to be very formidable enemies.
I'm not just posting this to be pedantic - there are strong comparisons between the US attitude that we would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq and the Russian attitude about Ukraine.
But Saddam Hussein's popularity doesn't even compare to Zelensky's.
is not supported by
> the Iraqi population included many millions ... who broadly supported the coalition forces
"Many millions" !- "most"
He is thinking about the pre-Tsarist Russian Empire. Which included a few countries that were not in the USSR.
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[1]: But, hey, don't despair: Belarus will join in any day now.