We Got Bookies To Predict The Future Of Tech
Want to wager on Google Glass or Amazon drones? These guys will be happy to place your bets.
Christina Lu/BuzzFeed
Over the past few months, tech news has been dominated by breathless reports about massively ambitious projects started by some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley. These so-called “moonshots” represent the wildest dreams of extremely wealthy people whose success at the Internet has enabled them to reinvest their fortunes into technology previously considered only by science fiction. Cynics view these moonshots as marketing ploys or hubristic attempts by powerful CEOs to secure their legacies; others see them as laudable, even plausible efforts to alter the course of human history.But are any of them actually going to, y’know, happen?
In the interest of getting a better idea of which of these projects could come to fruition, BuzzFeed decided to talk to people who actually know how to speculate: professional oddsmakers. While prediction markets are prohibited in America by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, they’re perfectly legal in Great Britain. So we asked Alex Donohue, an oddsmaker at the proud English gaming house Ladbrokes, to come up with some wagers for ten of the most hyped moonshots. The method Donohue uses combines quantitative and qualitative factors and an all-important “gut feel”*.
Here’s what Ladbrokes came up with:
Google Glass
What is it? A headworn computer, displaying smartphone-like information, attached to a glasses frame.The Bet: Google Glass to ship more units worldwide than the newest iPhone in any year running up to 2020.
The Odds: 100/1.
“Simply put, we don’t feel like this will catch on with the wider consumer base in remotely the same way as the iPhone since we feel the majority will still perceive it as something of a gimmick not relevant to their daily lives, especially for the cost. Therefore we are happy to make it a longshot that this item ever outsells the latest iPhone in any year until the end of the decade.”
Oculus Rift...MORE
What is it? A virtual reality, head-mounted display. The technology, designed originally for gamers, was acquired last month by Facebook.The Bet: Oculus to become the dominant videogame display technology by 2020.
The Odds: 8/1.
“We see this as something which has a distinct possibility of happening, largely due to the popularity of and appetite for VR among the existing gaming community. We’d have offered shorter odds about any VR headset to become the dominant display, with the Oculus Rift odds being slightly longer due to rival devices competing in this space.”...
