Cameron Newland | Michael Bloomberg on Intrade

Michael Bloomberg on Intrade

Intrade, a prediction market where you can make money by correctly predicting outcomes in political races, awards shows — even the weather — has a tradeable contract for Michael Bloomberg (my choice for America’s next president). Bloomberg has repeatedly denied that he’s running in 2008 as an independent, but that’s normal behavior for someone who has yet to declare their candidacy. Hillary Clinton herself jumped around the issue of her candidacy for years, denying it right up until she announced she’d run.

Asked Monday at his regular news conference whether it’s too late for third-party candidates to be entering the race, Bloomberg gave a long answer that showed he is well-informed about the intricacies of ballot access rules.

In recent months he has sought the advice of ballot access experts like Clay Mulford, who served as campaign manager for another billionaire third-party candidate, H. Ross Perot.

These developments have been reason for the price of Bloomberg’s Intrade contract to rise in value, but most punters are still pegging the chances of his run at only about 10%. I think that’s an underpriced contract, and I’m considering buying some myself, though the low trading volume on the contract means I wouldn’t get far without drastically ballooning the contract price. Maybe I could find someone who’d enter a derivatives contract with me on this.

Here’s a historical chart of the contract’s price (if Bloomberg runs, each contract picked up now for $0.10 pays out $1.00):

(click to enlarge)