Long Bets: An Arena for Competitive, Accountable Predictions

Over the weekend I happened across Long Bets – a website featuring competitive predictions, sponsored by The Long Now Foundation.

The Rules for the site are pretty interesting. Anyone (well, anyone who is a current member of the Long Now Foundation) can go in and create a prediction. All predictions have a 2 year minimum time period, must be “societally or scientifically important,” and should have clear arguments supporting the outcome.

To ensure you’re pretty serious about what you believe, there’s also a $50 fee for any prediction. So you’d better be pretty confident that your outcomes are favorable. That said, once your prediction passes moderator approval, it gets published onto the site for all to see.

If another member disagrees with your prediction, they can turn around and challenge it – turning your prediction into a bet. The minimum amount of a bet is $200 (required from both parties, though the original predictor pays $50 less due to the original fee). All money is paid at the time the bet is made, and is held in a long-term investment portfolio until the bet is resolved.

Want to see a pretty serious example of this? Check out the bet by Warren Buffett that has $1,000,000 riding on the outcome.

Other interesting bets include the one Ted Danson won, as well as a really awesomely nerdy bet accepted by MetaFilter found Matt Haughey regarding the very URL of the bet itself.

A few funny tidbits from the site:

I love the Long Now Foundation for stuff like this. I was a member for a year, but let my membership lapse… strongly considering joining back up again. I am still incredibly moved by the 10,000 year clock, and originally joined specifically so I could be on the waitlist to physically visit the clock upon its completion.

Related:
The Clock in the Mountains
SpitShake: Free Contracts for Ridiculous Wagers
ThePresent: Annual Clock That Measures Time in Seasons, Not Seconds