One thing I've done with myself is taken up the hobby of playing prediction markets, and which I now do for a living since the pandemic (though I really want to get back to 'normal' coding job).
It involves a wide set of skills and approaches. The subject matter is basically anything that exists. It doesn't require money and you can play for free on sites like gjopen.com. I recommend the book Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock as a good introductory read.
You may find you're good or terrible at it, but most people can get better. I'm biased, but I do think more fields/levels of leadership could benefit from understanding how to get better at probabilistic thinking---or at least to have a respect for the arts of prediction and seeking out better counsel.
One thing that might be good to learn is how to find the interesting aspects of any subject, and how even within fields there can be quite a lot of breadth to the knowledge. Because to do useful work often you're going to have to focus on some area for a long period of time. If you can also develop good people skills, then being able to appreciate a bigger picture can make management another path to remaining stimulated.
I’m interested in these as both a consumer and a contributor. However I haven’t found many interesting markets. Often are just markets on elections. Additionally many seem to have very small max bet size.
What markets have more interesting breadth of coverage + have decent betting limits? I had the impression cftc or sec limit this to avoid become a regulated security.
If your goal is making money, then that's different. I personally don't encourage people to get into the betting aspect unless you don't mind paying my rent, know what I mean? It's one of those "if it was easy everyone would be doing it" things. The limits on bet sizes only matter once you can demonstrate long-term profitability, IMHO. Since prediction skills are still applicable to basically everything, you're not 100% wasting your time just by testing your abilities on gjopen.com.
If you want intellectual engagement and don't prioritize money, then you can find markets on any topics. Which is why I suggested gjopen.com, and if you are good enough then they will try to recruit you to their analytics platform.
But, yes, politics via PredictIt has been the standard CFTC-approved platform. They're rumored to be working on a more general uncapped platform due to competition from Kalshi (next paragraph).
A new YC startup, Kalshi.com, got CFTC approval for uncapped markets with no topic limitations. They only got up and running last year, so often the markets don't play as large with no betting limits even compared to PredictIt. We're hoping they get momentum, but they could be ahead of their time and give up before more widespread adoption takes off.
There is also Polymarkets.com, but it's trying to operate the markets via blockchain. It's often not the greatest user experience for that reason, but they get more leeway on markets and are uncapped.
which prediction market platform(s) do you use in order to make a living? As noted previously, the breadth of the topics and bet size caps seem to limit potential payouts.
It's not so much the caps that are a concern to me than the fact that these platforms haven't been around for a long time. There's no guarantee they will continue to always exist and also be as lucrative. As more money enters I'd expect ROIs to decrease and for it to take more capital to make the same amount of money.
I prefer it more as a side hobby than something I have to do every day. It can be fun, but it's missing the satisfaction of building things or delivering something of value to customers that I'd get if I were still working for a company coding.
No, there were flaws with the implementation that kept many of us away. We all felt vindicated when Poyo, a sketchy character we all knew about from PredictIt, tried scamming people who bet on the outcome of the 2018 elections.
It involves a wide set of skills and approaches. The subject matter is basically anything that exists. It doesn't require money and you can play for free on sites like gjopen.com. I recommend the book Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock as a good introductory read.
You may find you're good or terrible at it, but most people can get better. I'm biased, but I do think more fields/levels of leadership could benefit from understanding how to get better at probabilistic thinking---or at least to have a respect for the arts of prediction and seeking out better counsel.
One thing that might be good to learn is how to find the interesting aspects of any subject, and how even within fields there can be quite a lot of breadth to the knowledge. Because to do useful work often you're going to have to focus on some area for a long period of time. If you can also develop good people skills, then being able to appreciate a bigger picture can make management another path to remaining stimulated.