Chris Masse - Always Finding Fault

Chris F. Masse, over at Midas Oracle wrote a post criticizing a Financial Times article which was about betting on U.K politics. The FT article discusses Intrade as one of many possible places to bet on politics and gives readers a small description about the site.

Masse's criticisms are three fold.

[*] The Financial Times never mentions that InTrade has been breaking US laws by providing its betting services to US residents —whereas BetFair abides by the US laws. Will the Financial Times mention that InTrade CEO John Delaney fears to be arrested at a US airport, as soon as he lands the plane?

Well, I wouldn't expect the Financial Times to tell it's readers this, especially when the article discusses betting on politics in general and isn't just about Intrade. Not to mention that the Financial Times is a British newspaper and most of it's readers are not American.

[**] Total bullshit. The liquidity of InTrade’s prediction markets on finance has been thin since the CFTC fined InTrade with a $150.000 penalty —which is something the Financial Times never told its readers about.

I guess Chris Masse doesn't look at Intrade very often. The Daily DJIA Close. Fri Sep 25 2009 (Market Maker) Market on Intrade already has over 3,000 contracts traded just for today. I certainly wouldn't call that a "thin" amount of liquidity. There are also thousands of contracts that have been currently traded in the 2009 Year End Dow Jones Industrial Average market, the How far will the Dow fall before the end of 2009? market, and the US Economic Growth by Quarter market.

[***] So what, baby? At one time in the future, when the US legalize real-money prediction markets, BetFair will have more liquidity than InTrade on the US political prediction markets.

This isn't even really criticism, it's just a prediction (without much evidence to back it up) about what might happen in the future. I guess Chris Masse finds fault with the Financial Times because they don't agree with his predictions.

Basically, Chris Masse used the Financial Times article to try and take Intrade down a notch or two, even though it didn't reveal any new negative information. I expect better from a blog that claims to be the "#1 source of information on prediction markets."