A person claiming to be the designated reporter for an Augur predictions market which asked the question “Which party will control the House after 2018 U.S. Midterm Election?” has posted to Reddit saying that he will be reporting that the Republicans control the house today. The market ends today, 12/10, and the Democrats, who won the election, won’t take control of the house until January.

A Twitter user said that this is an arguable case:

The Democrats won the election, but the market expiration date was 12/10/18. Because the date was not specified in the market & expiration date is 12/10/18, one could argue that Republicans is correct outcome. Democrats don’t officially take control until 1/3/19. — Nick Tomaino (@NTmoney) December 11, 2018

At issue, of course, are several things as regards prediction markets. The question is ambiguous – it doesn’t clarify who will win the election, but who will control the House after the election. However, one could argue that if we’re going to play semantics, then both parties are correct – Republicans control it now, and Democrats will control it in January, and both periods of time following the mid-term elections.

In fact, if the outcome is reported as it allegedly will be, then it belies a previous article on CCN.com where we said it correctly predicted the outcome. In fact, 90% of people probably did believe they were forecasting the election outcome, but according to the alleged market reporter, they were actually just predicting incorrectly who would be controlling the House on December 10th.

At the time of writing, the market report had not been finalized. The alleged reporter, who goes by the handle Poyo-Poyo on Reddit, wrote:

Regarding 0xbbbc0a8baa03535e0a680ee2f057162aaaafd570, I am sorry for any confusion or financial loss my gimmick house market may have caused. The intention is, and always has been, to measure the status of the House of Congress on the 10th of December, NOT the status after the new congress takes office. Thusly, I shall, and am required to, report as “Republican” when I submit my official selection for this market later today. Again, I am truly sorry for any damage to traders, or to the Augur Community as a whole for this ambiguity, and I hope the Augur World continues to thrive along toward the future, and I plan to continue to play my important role in its development over the coming years.

The Augur market allows reporters three days to report, and the market officially ended just under 24 hours ago. CCN.com will post an update at that time, regardless of the outcome. If the results go the way the alleged reporter says they will, then 90% of those who bet on the market will have lost their money, totaling around 3/4s of a million dollars in cryptos.