For updates to this site, mediocre wit, and rare insight, do follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/jipkin

About Me

I’ve played PredictIt since May of 2016.  For about the first five months I was a win-some, lose-some kind of player.  I eventually worked my way into a +$4k profit position only to lose $2.5k of that on election night.  After that I decided that I was no longer going to suck at this – I started playing with a group of friends I met on the boards, I actually focused on what I was doing, and reasonably quickly I became consistently profitable.

I’m far from the best at PredictIt, either all-time or on a weekly basis.  But I do alright!  I averaged about $780 a week in 2017 and I’m doing about $900 a week so far in 2018.  Consider me a second-tier trader – one step below the best, but pretty dang far from the worst.

I’m also biased – politically I’m liberal, and financially I’m conservative.  I make smaller bets than I should most of the time, and my decision-making, commentary, and analysis are surely biased by my political views as well.  You should consider everything I publish on this site to be fundamentally corrupted in some way both by my political biases and by my financial incentives in the markets.  While I do not knowingly lie here, I will frequently knowingly omit information that I think gives me an edge.

About PredictingPolitics

What’s the purpose of this blog?

Firstly, I enjoy writing.  I enjoy politics.  I like doing things that feel like they might be useful.

Secondly, I like making money.  I remember when I was a new trader many markets would seem like entirely foreign entities to me.  I used to watch the swings in the Obama Approval markets and could only conclude that voodoo magic was at play.  I figure a lot of you must feel that way too.  Maybe you understand election markets, but not tweet markets.  Maybe you love tweet markets,  but find polling markets impossible to crack.  Maybe you only come to play on election nights, but are interested in finding out more about what PredictIt has to offer.  If you fall into one of those categories, this blog is designed for you.

I want to offer my (albeit limited) insights and share useful resources like my guides, and election night previews to give you traders out there enough of a foothold in a market to feel like you might be interested in making a bet there.  No one plays a market they don’t understand, or bets in an election they know nothing about.  And if some of you do end up placing a bet somewhere I am also betting, then great!  May the best trader win!