Poll: The EU Referendum: How Will You Vote? (May Poll)

[Burnsy2023]

Same here , everyone I know is voting out, are any of the national newspaper polls showing genuine results I wonder?
This forum is populated by all age groups from teenagers to pensioners & I come under the latter, and yet the leave vote is storming ahead further with each monthly vote so how can we trust any of the other polls that all apparently show remainers in the lead

The plural of anecdote is not data.

 

[Zethor]

Remind me, what odds did the bookies give Leicester again?

A victory for Remain is far from the sure thing I'd like it be. More likely than not, I'd think, but there is time for it to swing either way.

Bookies had Leicester down at 5000-1 to win the league. Bookies odds aren't the odds of something happening by the way either, it's a risk balance based on the money being spent on the two options - they want to minimise their payout in the event of the winning outcome being the most backed by punters.

4 weeks before actually winning the title, they were at ~85% chance to win.

Remind me how long we have until the referendum?

 

[Jokester]

4 weeks before actually winning the title, they were at ~85% chance to win.

Remind me how long we have until the referendum?

*completely ignores how bookies work*

 

[Caged]

Yes erosion of national sovereignty is well worth not having to fill out a form when the plane lands.

If they are a professional photographer then they can't just fly to another country and work. Voting for the option that doesn't make your job harder to do seems pretty sensible.

 

[n111ck]

*completely ignores how bookies work*

 

[Zethor]

*completely ignores how bookies work*

How they work does not make bookies an ineffective prediction tool. On the contrary:

We do know the following: Before polling, election outcomes were not the major surprises we might think they were. Late in the campaign, betting market prices reflected the final outcome with remarkable accuracy

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/governme...onandWlezienElectoralStudies2012published.pdf

 

[Andr3w]

Out!

 

[Jokester]

How they work does not make bookies an ineffective prediction tool. On the contrary:

We do know the following: Before polling, election outcomes were not the major surprises we might think they were. Late in the campaign, betting market prices reflected the final outcome with remarkable accuracy

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/governme...onandWlezienElectoralStudies2012published.pdf

Our results are provocative. First, we find that market prices are far better predictors in the period without polls than when polls were available. Second, we find that market prices of the pre-poll era predicted elections almost on par with polls following the introduction of scientific polling. Finally, when we have both market prices and polls, prices add nothing to election prediction beyond polls

It would be wise to quote the actual conclusion.

 

[Mulder]

How they work does not make bookies an ineffective prediction tool. On the contrary:

We do know the following: Before polling, election outcomes were not the major surprises we might think they were. Late in the campaign, betting market prices reflected the final outcome with remarkable accuracy

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/governme...onandWlezienElectoralStudies2012published.pdf

Keep posting, we're almost at 60%!

The bookies got it spectacularly wrong with the last general election, and people made good money betting on a Tory majority, which they did not foresee.

But nice random academic report, those guys must be real smart.

 

[Jokester]

But nice random academic report, those guys must be real smart.

And one, just to be clear, he has misrepresented their findings:-

We do know the following: Before polling, election outcomes were not the major surprises we might think they were. Late in the campaign, betting market prices reflected the final outcome with remarkable accuracy

He's not empahised the part about bookie odds being a good indicator before the days of polls.

 

[Tefal]

I'd assume that in 10-20 years time Syria would be a very different place, and the refugee crisis coming from Syria would be at a very different stage... Why are you projecting what is happening today on something that may or may not happen in a couple of decades?

Why would you assume that?

Unless something drastically changes in the worlds aproach to syria nothing much will be differnt in 10 years.

Look at iraq we were there in force for over 10 years.

The war in syria has been going on for over 5 years.

 

[Zethor]

And one, just to be clear, he has misrepresented their findings:-


He's not empahised the part about bookie odds being a good indicator before the days of polls.

I didn't edit anything out. You need to read more carefully.

Late in the campaign, betting market prices reflected the final outcome with remarkable accuracy - competitive with the election odds we would assign today based on careful readings of late polls.

That doesn't say bookies are irrelevant, it says they are as good as polls. The bookies give Brexit 20% which is similar to the odds Brexit would have when using only telephone polls.

There was a similar situation before the Scottish independence vote:

https://scotfes.com/2014/09/15/whay-are-the-opinion-polls-and-the-bookies-odds-so-different/

 

[Jokester]

I didn't edit anything out. You need to read more carefully.

Late in the campaign, betting market prices reflected the final outcome with remarkable accuracy - competitive with the election odds we would assign today based on careful readings of late polls.

That doesn't say bookies are irrelevant, it says they are as good as polls. The bookies give Brexit 20% which is similar to the odds Brexit would have when using only telephone polls.

There was a similar situation before the Scottish independence vote:

https://scotfes.com/2014/09/15/whay-are-the-opinion-polls-and-the-bookies-odds-so-different/

Even when the polls were inaccurate (e.g., 1948) the market followed the polls. If there was information beyond the polls in 1948 to suggest that Truman might win, bettors in the election markets did not see it coming.

Stop misrepresenting the study, it's not saying what you want it to say.

In theory, the promise is that election markets, informed by polls plus other information, will perform better than polls alone.

Betting markets do not offer anymore insight into the outcome of the vote itself and both are just as wrong when they are wrong.

Another possible explanation is that , rather than betting dispassionately, some punters are influenced by their support for one or other outcome. Further, some of our polling evidence shows that No voters are, on average, more affluent than Yes voters. They may therefore be able to place larger bets that Yes supporters, which will cause the betting odds to favour a No outcome, not because it is more likely in reality, but rather because No voters are more able to place large bets.

The money the bookie takes in on a result influences the odds they offer for that result.

 

[Mulder]

Austria on the verge of electing a nationalist president, could be confirmed on Monday. Nationalism continues to surge across Europe.

Will the EU sit up and listen? Unlikely. "More countries, more powers, further and faster integration", will no doubt be their continued focus.

Interesting list of polls here - https://ig.ft.com/sites/brexit-polling/.

Funny how project fear now includes supermarket bills going up. The EU by its very nature is a protectionist block, the Common Agricultural Policy has led to food prices going up, not the other way around.

 

[Insanties_birth]

Caught up with another friend (frontline police officer) yesterday and got on the subject of the ref. When I asked her about the ref she just replied "Out". No indecision, just an instant Out reply. The funny thing about her in particular is that 5 years ago before joining the police she was a loony lefty, and creeping ever closer to delusional SJW territory - that changed overnight when she joined-up.

Close friends and family who are voting Out:

Frontline police officer
Career NHS nurse
Tax lawyer
Self-employed graphic designer
Self-employed kitchen fitter
Career NHS midwife
Self-employed consultant
Retail regional manager
Network engineer
Self-employed builder
Motorcycle mechanic
Primary school teacher
Secondary school languages teacher
5 retired people

The people above have said that they also find it rare to know someone personally who will vote Remain.

The only close friend on the fence is a guy on benefits due to long-term illness. And he's one of those people who will just vote Labour because his parents did, and their parents did etc.

Even a bunch of my online gaming friends from all over Europe think we should vote out, and want their own refs so they can do the same.

Well that's the thing, most lefties are typically out of touch people like celebrities or generally want simple answers like treat everyone the same (even when you know it's wrong such as gender inequality in effectiveness of female vs male soldiers, religious cultural deficincies, some regions having more crime prone residents due to education levels in poorer countries or some countries simply having more extensive crime netwroks etc.) but when you actually work in real world environments and you see who does what particular crime then it usually just ticks and the simple answer is different groups do different crimes or have different likelihoods of it at least.

You'd think police would want more funding from voting in but there are other problems than top down economic benefits of course.

 

[Zethor]

Stop misrepresenting the study, it's not saying what you want it to say.

The conclusion of that paper was that they are as good as polls.

Here's another one:

Betting markets appear to be a more consistent, reliable and accurate
predictor of political outcomes.

http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4642&context=utk_gradthes

And another:

We have shown that while our final forecasts and the betting markets on the morning of the election did equally well in terms of individual seat predictions, the betting market probabilities were slightly better calibrated as predictors of probability of victory in individual constituencies.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/if-not-polls-then-betting-markets/

And another:

That is, the market outperforms even the best forecaster who bases his/her prediction on the polls

http://www.rmi.nus.edu.sg/aboutus/profile/stevenkou/files/KouSobel.pdf

Betting markets do not offer anymore insight into the outcome of the vote itself and both are just as wrong when they are wrong.


The money the bookie takes in on a result influences the odds they offer for that result.

Betting markets don't 'offer insight', whatever that means, they are just good prediction tools which is why I brought them up.

 

[Tunney]

Well that's the thing, most lefties are typically out of touch people

Most right-wingers are typically thicko racists.

Am I doing this right?

I don't think all right-wingers are thicko racists before anyone takes my comment out of context.

 

[Jokester]

The conclusion of that paper was that they are as good as polls.

That isn't the conclusion of that paper! It states that bookies offer nothing over polls where polls exist!

Here's another one:

Betting markets appear to be a more consistent, reliable and accurate
predictor of political outcomes.

http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4642&context=utk_gradthes

You know this guys refers back to the other study where the original author stated:-

Another possible explanation is that , rather than betting dispassionately, some punters are influenced by their support for one or other outcome. Further, some of our polling evidence shows that No voters are, on average, more affluent than Yes voters. They may therefore be able to place larger bets that Yes supporters, which will cause the betting odds to favour a No outcome, not because it is more likely in reality, but rather because No voters are more able to place large bets.

And completely ignored this statement for further study?

And another:

We have shown that while our final forecasts and the betting markets on the morning of the election did equally well in terms of individual seat predictions, the betting market probabilities were slightly better calibrated as predictors of probability of victory in individual constituencies.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/if-not-polls-then-betting-markets/

Consequently – and bearing in mind the poorer performance of the betting markets in 2010 and the systematic failure of the polling industry in 2015 – it would be premature to declare that either method of deriving probabilities of election outcomes is clearly superior to the other.

****ing hell man, stop cherry picking quotes out of the study and ignoring the final conclusion.

And another:

That is, the market outperforms even the best forecaster who bases his/her prediction on the polls

http://www.rmi.nus.edu.sg/aboutus/profile/stevenkou/files/KouSobel.pdf

We have focused on theoretical issues in this paper

Although we have also given reasons to expect actual market prices to predict better than poll-based forecasts, the case for using the market price as a predictor is clearly strongest when the market is in equilibrium.

In future work, we intend to show how this issue can be empirically addressed

This paper deals with mathematical modelling, not actual (empirical) real world derived poll/betting data.

Betting markets don't 'offer insight', whatever that means, they are just good prediction tools which is why I brought them up.

*shakes head, backs off slowly*

 

[Aldav]

That's a pretty decent reason to be honest.

Only if that single issue is the only one he cares about, or it's so important as to outweigh every other issue.

I currently do business in France, Italy, Spain and several non-EU countries. I don't expect my business in the three EU countries to change much, whether the UK leaves or not. If it does look like changing, nothing much is going to happen for at least a year or two, and that gives me plenty of time to adapt.

And while my voting decision isn't made for definite, nothing I've heard yet changes my inclination to vote to leave, and for reasons several of which are nothing to do with trade or business.

If leaving means I have to get business visas, so be it. It'll be a minor irritant, but no more so than doing business in the rest of the world. If the EU decided to be obstructionist and put up so many non-tariff barriers as to make operating in the EU unattractive, it still leaves the rest of the world and at least for me, that's where the growth is anyway.

Given the economic state of several EU nations, and I don't just mean the obvious basket case, but also the ones I do operate in (France, Italy and Spain) the viability of continuing to operate there is very much in doubt for me anyway. If the EU makes it even more awkward out of petulance or spite over leaving .... okay, bye.

What it doesn't amount to is good reason for me to not vote leave.

 

[Zethor]

That isn't the conclusion of that paper! It states that bookies offer nothing over polls where polls exist!

The full abstract:

First, we find that market prices are far better predictors in the period without polls than when polls were available. Second, we find that market prices of the pre-poll era predicted elections almost on par with polls following the introduction of scientific polling. Finally, when we have both market prices and polls, prices add nothing to election prediction beyond polls. To be sure, early election markets were (surprisingly) good at
extracting campaign information without scientific polling to guide them. For more recent markets, candidate prices largely follow the polls.

If bookies are not good prediction tools how were they getting it right before polls? Magic? How do you interpret the last sentence?

You know this guys refers back to the other study where the original author stated:-

And completely ignored this statement for further study?

Send him an email, maybe he will correct the whole thing?

Consequently – and bearing in mind the poorer performance of the betting markets in 2010 and the systematic failure of the polling industry in 2015 – it would be premature to declare that either method of deriving probabilities of election outcomes is clearly superior to the other.


****ing hell man, stop cherry picking quotes out of the study and ignoring the final conclusion.

So we agree that bookies are a good prediction tool, although it's not clear if they better than polls.

This paper deals with mathematical modelling, not actual (empirical) real world derived poll/betting data.

There's plenty of empirical date in the other links. The only debate is whether bookies make better predictions than polls.