PredictIt.org is a website where people can put their money where their mouth is when it comes to politics. Many of the markets on PredictIt are based on polling averages. You can make money by 'predicting' the polls. Unfortunately, PredictIt is currently tied to a third party aggregator called Real Clear Politics. PredictIt does not have any control over what RCP does, and for this reason, RCP has an incredible amount of control over the outcome of polling markets.

In the last couple months, we have witnessed the below behavior as examples:

-Ordering polls by end date in one aggregate and start date in another, as to avoid dropping polls that would change the outcome of a market.

-Waiting to add poll data from the same release until the last hours of a market which resulted doubt/fear and manipulated pricing.

-Removing polls from averages on final day of market, especially during off hours.

-Choosing to start/stop using pollsters without explanation, in one case on the final day of a market which caused the market to swing from under 10% to over 90%.

-In the case of a pollster called Gravis for Trump vs Clinton polling, they used an option with undecided voters one month, a forced option (no undecided allowed) the next and then they simply 'averaged' the two options for the third time. Same dataset provided 3 times by Gravis, different result used each time.

-They choose which questions to use for each pollster. For example, Gravis is used for H2H polling, but not for Obama Job Approval.

Getting back to the point, the problem here is not necessarily what RCP does. The problem is that PredictIt is reliant on a third-party to decide the outcome of markets that financially impact their customers. Customers continue to ask PredictIt to move from RCP to another platform, without success. At PurePolling.com, we have now created the solution.

At PurePolling.com, we will aggregate each dataset that PredictIt has a market for. Each question type will have the standard rules as well as any rules that are relevant to an individual market. The rules will be so clear that there will be no question as to when polls are added, dropped, etc. You will be able to act solely on the polls.

While all this sounds good, the burning question you should have is this…

“What if PurePolling.com pulls an RCP and changes rules on the fly to manipulate the markets?”

That’s a good question, and I’d question your sanity if you didn’t ask it. Luckily, we have a great answer.

We don’t want any control over the markets whatsoever. We simply want to be a visual aid. Once an agreement is in place between PurePolling and PredictIt, a set of rules will be drafted and agreed on by both parties. PredictIt would also display the same rules, either in each market’s rules section or on a page hosted on their site. A clause would be on each market that would stipulate that any discrepancy between the rules and PurePolling.com would result in the rules being followed.

What’s in it for us, you may say? Why have we paid to develop and host this website? The traders responsible for the creation of this site are very skilled at what we do, and that is predicting. We want to be able to make trades based on the polling data that comes out. We’d like to predict polls, and not humans at a third-party. We also want to make sure PredictIt stays around, and removing the feeling of insider trading/market manipulation from a third party is a step in the right direction.

We’ve done the work and will continue to do so, at no cost to anyone else. We ask you to support us by asking PredictIt to switch to us, the risk-free solution to market manipulation by a polling aggregator.

Thank you,

PurePolling.com Team