[wordup] TradeSports.com bettors think Saddam will be alive past 3/31

[Adam Shand]

Does it bother anyone else that people make profit off of war?

Adam.

Via: politech at politechbot.com

Previous Politech message:
"TradeSports.com lets you bet on Saddam's survivability"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04538.html

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Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 22:48:16 -0800
To: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
From: Richard Pauli <rpauli at speakeasy.net>
Subject: Interpreting sudden price drop in Saddam's demise contracts
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Declan -

This may be of interest to Politech subscribers...

A sudden price drop seen in the market for predictions on Saddam's date of
demise - might indicate gamblers suddenly think he may make it past 
March 31st.

The Web trading/gambling on the future of Saddam has taken a big drop
recently.  Check http://www.tradesports.com/ where you can gamble/trade on
all kinds of future events (mostly sports).

If you click on IRAQ.SADDAM.MAR03 you can see a chart on the history of how
money has been invested on whether "Saddam Hussein is not President/Leader
of Iraq by 31st March 2003".   In the last few days the graph there shows a
sharp decline in the percentage chance that he will be gone soon - from up
in the 70's to around the teens now. Market saying he is way less likely to
be gone by then. These are like day traders, buying and selling for the
changes in the price of the contract.  Saddam contracts now go out to the
end of June even. Their numbers change by the minute, if you want to note
such things.

Dig around and you can trade on the colors red, orange, yellow, blue and
green for "Security Alert Level March 2003" - which has not moved as much
recently.

Another
article: 
http://www.who2beton.com/articles/tradesports/tradesports-saddam.php

Richard Pauli
Seattle, WA

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