At his teary-eyed press conference Monday afternoon, Rep. Anthony Weiner said he wouldn’t resign. But if the confessional-style presser was meant to give Weiner the last word, it’s done anything but. With increasingly embarrassing revelations emerging about the congressman’s extramarital sext-life, will Weiner reconsider his pledge to stay in office? Traders on the online prediction market Intrade were giving Weiner a 45 percent chance of resigning before the end of September, when Browbeat checked around 4 p.m. Tuesday. What’s 45 percent look like in context? According to other Intrade markets, the probability of Weiner resigning is:
- A little more than half the chance that Dominique Strauss-Kahn will be guilty of at least one charge against him (80%).
- Two-thirds the chance that Muammar Qaddafi won’t be Libya’s leader by the end of the year (67%).
- About the same chance that the Freedom Tower will open by the end of 2013 (45%).
- Only slightly more likely than Apple selling at least 30 million iPads in the 2011 fiscal year (42%).
- Fifty percent more likely than Mitt Romney winning the GOP 2012 presidential nomination (30%).
- Forty-five times more likely than Newt Gingrich being elected president in 2012 (1%).
But markets fluctuate, and Intrade’s predicted chance of Weiner’s resignation has already risen several times today. What odds do you give it?
