Wisdom of the Crowd Accurately Predicts Supreme Court Decisions
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FantasySCOTUS is an online fantasy league in which contestants compete by predicting decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court. Players are ranked as in any fantasy league, and the best performers can win prizes such as a “Golden Gavel” and even $10,000 in cash.
Since 2011, some 7,000 players have made over 600,000 predictions about the outcome of over 400 Supreme Court decisions. These people do not need any special qualification and entry is free, although prizes are limited to U.S. citizens. Players can come and go as they please, taking part in some predictions but not others.
All that makes this an interesting group. Social scientists have long been interested in the wisdom of crowds—the phenomenon in which large numbers of individuals, seemingly acting independently, can together make surprisingly accurate decisions, sometimes even better than the smartest among them.
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