Prediction markets seem useful in many decision making contexts where there are experts or crowds of people who knowledge, as opposed to large piles of machine-learning accessible data.
In many industries and across the world more generally, prediction markets are not well-known and they are treated with skepticism and a fog of illegality due to their association with gambling.
I think that launching more trendy prediction markets could help remedy these issues, e.g. royalwedding.metaculus.com
Relevant posts by Zvi Mowshowitz.
Augur is a decentralized protocol using the blockchain which allows anyone to setup a prediction market about anything. Although I’m not sure about the legality, the fact that no one individual/institution owns or runs Augur suggests to me it might be easier to build niche/specific prediction markets on top of it.
Hmm… I think the legal thing is a big one. If they were legal, then entrepreneurs could get them going and increased trendiness and accessibility would likely follow. For example, some of the effort people put into sports betting could be put into prediction markets.
I don't have any definite answers to how to make them more legal, other than activism/lobbying.
Another way to approach the goal of improved decision-making is using other mechanisms to improve predictions. We're trying a simpler variant at Empiricast. This is similar to Metaculus, but (currently) for internal use in organizations.
https://www.predictit.org/