Best Of

Can't find any UK sources but US data indicates that it's those in lower socio-economic status neighbourhoods that tend to gamble. So if there is self-selection, you could argue that it was only certain voters in certain parts of G&D that took part. Add to the ethnic/religious mix (do Muslims gamble?) then the poll is about as useful as a Horoscope.

You can check yours here.

It’s good to be confident but don’t overdo it and think you can make a success of something that even experts are reluctant to attempt. If you insist on having a go, be sure to prepare well and have the support of friends. Don’t climb mountains without back-up.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/article-12694901/Horoscopes-stars-week-SALLY-BROMPTON.html

I don't know how much things like postcode lotteries get thought of as gambling (though they are).

It must be hard to adequately sample the young and those religious groups that do not gamble.

Demographic balancing of samples must be a real problem for them.

If my experience in Morocco are any kind of indication, quite a few Muslims drink. A lot.

IIRC the online lottery that FON uses is free, which can be used as an excuse to get round religious prohibitions. See “Vodka is made from potatoes, so isn’t ‘fruit of the grape’”

Muslim *men* as a lady Muslim friend said with disgust.

But yes, free to enter means it's not gambling. The early horseracing meetings in Dubai had no betting, obviously, but there were free competitions to pick all the winners. I do not know what they are like now.

Charging interest is forbidden. But service charges proportional to the loan are AOK.

Beavers are fish, did you know that?

Be fair. In the Middle Ages the Rule prevented talking when eating dinner in the refectory. So monks invented a second dining room, the misericord, where they'd chat to one another.

And thus began the legend of Second Breakfast

Can't find any UK sources but US data indicates that it's those in lower socio-economic status neighbourhoods that tend to gamble. So if there is self-selection, you could argue that it was only certain voters in certain parts of G&D that took part. Add to the ethnic/religious mix (do Muslims gamble?) then the poll is about as useful as a Horoscope.

You can check yours here.

It’s good to be confident but don’t overdo it and think you can make a success of something that even experts are reluctant to attempt. If you insist on having a go, be sure to prepare well and have the support of friends. Don’t climb mountains without back-up.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/article-12694901/Horoscopes-stars-week-SALLY-BROMPTON.html

I don't know how much things like postcode lotteries get thought of as gambling (though they are).

It must be hard to adequately sample the young and those religious groups that do not gamble.

Demographic balancing of samples must be a real problem for them.

If my experience in Morocco are any kind of indication, quite a few Muslims drink. A lot.

IIRC the online lottery that FON uses is free, which can be used as an excuse to get round religious prohibitions. See “Vodka is made from potatoes, so isn’t ‘fruit of the grape’”

Muslim *men* as a lady Muslim friend said with disgust.

But yes, free to enter means it's not gambling. The early horseracing meetings in Dubai had no betting, obviously, but there were free competitions to pick all the winners. I do not know what they are like now.

Charging interest is forbidden. But service charges proportional to the loan are AOK.

Beavers are fish, did you know that?

Be fair. In the Middle Ages the Rule prevented talking when eating dinner in the refectory. So monks invented a second dining room, the misericord, where they'd chat to one another.

Can't find any UK sources but US data indicates that it's those in lower socio-economic status neighbourhoods that tend to gamble. So if there is self-selection, you could argue that it was only certain voters in certain parts of G&D that took part. Add to the ethnic/religious mix (do Muslims gamble?) then the poll is about as useful as a Horoscope.

You can check yours here.

It’s good to be confident but don’t overdo it and think you can make a success of something that even experts are reluctant to attempt. If you insist on having a go, be sure to prepare well and have the support of friends. Don’t climb mountains without back-up.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/article-12694901/Horoscopes-stars-week-SALLY-BROMPTON.html

Exactly.

But hold on, what are the alternatives? Political obsessives who have signed up for every panel going (the early days of pb regularly had posts from those who had just completed questionnaires) are hardly representative. Or those desperate enough for money that they will spend half an hour answering hypothetical marketing questions before the political ones? A few years ago, it would have been those out and about during the day with time to kill, or those phoned at home by polling companies too stupid to realise their phone number randomisation methods could never work and who would take the call.

FON's approach seems be better than most of these, at least in principle. Ask one or two questions only to people already on a site for different reasons.

Here is my nailed-on prediction for the next general election. The day after, the polling companies will announce an inquiry into why the polls were wrong. They always do, because they always are.