Forecast, prediction, bet
Three words used as if they meant the same thing. They promise different things, and Predictly does exactly one of them — here is which, and what that changes for you.
Three words, three promises
The confusion is not about vocabulary. It is about what you are being promised, and what you can do with it.
A prediction announces
“PSG will win.” A prediction names an outcome and stops there. It expresses no uncertainty, so it cannot be half wrong: it is right or it is not. That is the register of the tip, the hunch, sometimes the fortune teller.
It is also why nothing about it can be measured. A prediction that never says how sure it is gives verification nothing to hold on to.
A forecast puts a number on its uncertainty
“PSG win, about 60 %.” A forecast names the same outcome but attaches a degree to it, and admits the other outcome is still possible. The statistician Bruno de Finetti pressed this distinction: to predict is to assert; to forecast is to spread your expectation across everything that could happen.
A number makes it checkable. Across many forecasts at 60 %, you can count how many came true and say whether the 60 meant anything. That is calibration, and it has its own page: understanding probabilities.
A bet stakes money
A bet adds a stake. On a prediction market the price of an outcome forms because people buy and sell, and that price reads as a probability. It is no longer an estimate: it is a price, with a counterparty on the other side and money at risk.
Predictly forecasts
The second of the three, and only that one. You ask about something that has not happened yet; Predictly identifies the event, goes and reads what is being reported today, weighs it, and returns a probability rounded to the nearest 5 points, a confidence level computed on the server from the evidence gathered, what argues each way, and the documents actually consulted.
- It takes no stakes, offers no odds, and there is no counterparty. Predictly is not a betting service.
- No source is invented: every document shown is one a research provider actually returned.
- Three questions are refused rather than answered badly — an event already settled, a subject whose name means two things, and a dossier too thin to call.
The calculation itself is on the methodology page.
What Predictly is not
Several tools answer “how likely is this event?”, by different mechanisms. Knowing them helps you work out which one you want.
- A prediction market
- Participants buy and sell positions on an outcome, and the price stands in for a probability. Polymarket and Kalshi work this way. The number comes from money committed rather than from reasoning shown — and the market has to be active enough for the price to mean anything.
- A forecasting community
- Many people forecast the same question and their answers are aggregated, often weighted by track record. Metaculus works this way. The number comes from a human crowd, and the question has to interest enough of them to be taken up.
- A general assistant
- It answers from what it has read, sometimes searching as it goes. Nothing obliges it to give a percentage, to date its sources, or to decline when it has nothing to go on.
- Predictly
- One engine, one question, research run at the moment you ask. The number comes from what was found, the confidence from how solid it is, and the sources are shown. Any question can be asked, without waiting for a market to open or a crowd to take an interest.
None of these is better in the abstract. A busy market on a major election is a formidable source. Predictly is for the questions nobody has priced and no crowd has looked at.
Why Predictly publishes no accuracy figure
Because it has none that has been checked. Predictly does not today publish a record of its forecasts against real outcomes, so no accuracy number would be honest — a flattering one least of all.
That is a limitation, and it applies to any tool claiming a precision it does not publish the workings for. A rate given without a method, a period and the list of questions counted is not a measurement: it is a sales argument. When you meet one, ask across how many forecasts, which ones, and who decided what counted as right.
Which one you need
- You want to stake money on an outcome: a prediction market, not Predictly.
- Your question is a major event everyone is watching: an active market or a crowd will give you a very well-worked number.
- You want an estimate on a specific question, now, with the sources in front of you: that is what Predictly is for.
- You want certainty: none of the three can give it, and whoever promises it is the one to distrust.
For how to write a question Predictly can answer, see how it works.