I also didn’t understand it. I researched it, and I think this is the more in-depth explanation:
Long-term markets with very low or very high probabilities aren’t correctly priced because of opportunity-cost dynamic. For example: events that should trade at 2% stay at 5% OR events that should be at 98% stay at 95%. Everything gets pulled toward the middle because the opportunity cost of tying up money for years makes it not worth fixing the mispricing.
For a low-probability event priced at 5%, a trader who thinks the true probability is 1% would have to bet “No” and lock up their money for, say, four years to make a small profit (on a market at 5% they invest 95 cents to maybe win 5 cents profit over four years). This small return is often less than what they could earn from safe interest elsewhere or from betting on shorter-term markets.
I also didn’t understand it. I researched it, and I think this is the more in-depth explanation:
Long-term markets with very low or very high probabilities aren’t correctly priced because of opportunity-cost dynamic. For example: events that should trade at 2% stay at 5% OR events that should be at 98% stay at 95%. Everything gets pulled toward the middle because the opportunity cost of tying up money for years makes it not worth fixing the mispricing.
For a low-probability event priced at 5%, a trader who thinks the true probability is 1% would have to bet “No” and lock up their money for, say, four years to make a small profit (on a market at 5% they invest 95 cents to maybe win 5 cents profit over four years). This small return is often less than what they could earn from safe interest elsewhere or from betting on shorter-term markets.