The NYTimes recently profiled Intrade, a site that acts as a prediction market by allowing trading on political, financial, entertainment, and other events. The Iowa Electronic Markets didn't do so hot in the '04 election, as I recall, but I still have a fair level of confidence in the accuracy of prediction markets.

Intrade's most traded contracts are those for the '08 election, and as of today, the odds look like this:

Chance of being the Democratic Presidential Nominee:

51.5% Hillary Clinton

22.0% Barack Obama

11.7% John Edwards

7.0% Al Gore

0.7% Mark Warner

0.3% John Kerry

Chance of being the Republican Presidential Nominee

34.0% John McCain

26.8% Rudy Giuliani

18.6% Mitt Romney

1.1% Condoleeza Rice

As for the Oscars, according to Intrade it doesn't appear there will be much suspense on Oscar Night in any major categy except Best Picture, perhaps. The other categories seem locked up already (best actress and actor having been decided so long ago that to cut down on the runtime of the show they should probably just have Helen Mirren and Forrest Whitaker on stage to present themselves with the trophies):

Best Director - Scorsese is trading at 79.1%

Best Actor - Whitaker at 82.0%

Best Actress - Mirren at 91.5%

Best Supporting Actor - Eddie Murphy at 60.5%

Best Supporting Actress - Jennifer Hudson is around 77 or 78% in light trading

An Inconvenient Truth should have no problems in the Best Documentary category, either. The volume of trading on the Oscars is so light, however, that I'd take the absolute %'s with a grain of salt.

Technorati Tags: acting, economics, film, movies, politics, markets