Forecasting is a skill, and most of it is unglamorous: reading the question properly, sizing a position, and keeping honest score. These are the guides we write for our own players — plus open documentation of how our markets are priced, written and resolved.
Filmfare and National Award predictions are not guesswork — there are observable patterns in who gets nominated and who wins. A guide to reading the pre-award signals before the ceremony.
Before making any prediction, ask: how often does this kind of thing happen in general? Most fans skip this step and anchor on the specific case. Base rates are boring, unglamorous, and more accurate.
The received wisdom is that sequels always do better. The data is more complicated. A look at which franchises have grown, which have declined, and what actually predicts sequel performance.
Opening weekend numbers are predictable — if you know what to look for. A guide to the signals that matter: advance booking, screen count, competition, and audience sentiment.
The same teams play differently across T20, ODI and Test. Understanding how format shapes outcomes makes you a better predictor, not just a better viewer.
Overs 17-20 decide more T20 matches than any other phase. They are also the hardest to predict. Here is why death overs are so volatile — and the few signals that give you a genuine edge.
The biggest mistakes fantasy cricket players make are not about picking the wrong players. They are about how the mind handles uncertainty — and the same errors show up in prediction markets.
India has an exceptional home record. But does home advantage mean the same thing in Chepauk, Chinnaswamy and Wankhede? A look at what the data actually shows about playing at home in India.
Prediction markets are not betting. They are information aggregators. This is how they combine crowd knowledge into a single price — and why that price is often more accurate than any individual expert.
Most people make predictions but never review them. The habit that separates improving predictors from stagnating ones is simple: record, review, and calibrate. Here is how to do it without it becoming a chore.
Most people think they are better predictors than they are. Here is the one metric that separates genuine skill from lucky streaks — and how to use it to actually improve.
Rs 500 crore means different things in 2010 and 2026. A guide to reading Indian box office figures with the context that makes them meaningful.
Every IPL auction reshuffles squads. But how much does a team's composition change its match-by-match predictability? What to look for — and what to ignore — in the squad sheet.
A practical guide for new predictors: what factors actually move IPL outcomes, and how to price your first match call without relying on gut feeling alone.
Indian music charts are influenced by film releases, IPL season, and social media cycles in ways that are more predictable than they look. A guide to reading the signals before making a call.
Some films go straight to streaming. Others fight for theatre screens. Understanding what drives that decision makes you a better predictor of box office and streaming performance both.
KGF, RRR and Pushpa changed what a blockbuster looks like in India. Pan-India releases behave differently from traditional Bollywood films — and require a different prediction framework.
Pitches are described in vague language — 'good batting surface', 'expected to assist spinners'. Here is how to turn a pre-match pitch report into something you can actually use before making a call.
You do not need to be a statistician to think more clearly about sports predictions. Five probability concepts — base rates, independence, regression to the mean, sample size, and calibration — cover most of what matters.
The team that won last week feels unstoppable. The team that lost three in a row feels broken. Recency bias is the most common error in sports prediction — and the easiest to identify once you know what to look for.
Dew changes T20 matches more than almost any other variable — and it is consistently underweighted by predictors. A practical guide to factoring weather into pre-match calls.
Prediction markets are good aggregators — but they are not oracles. There are specific, identifiable conditions where market prices are systematically wrong, and knowing them is a genuine edge.
Every prediction eventually has to be settled Yes, No or Void. Here is the exact pipeline that decides — the sources it reads, the confidence bar it has to clear, and what happens when the evidence is thin.
A prediction price is not a prediction. It is a probability, and probabilities have rules that intuition breaks. Here is how to read one, when to trust it, and how to spot the price that is wrong.
There is no bookmaker on the other side of your call. There is an algorithm that always quotes a price, gets more stable as a market grows, and cannot be cornered by one large player. Here is how it works.
Most losing calls are not wrong about the world. They are wrong about the question. A five-point checklist for reading a market's terms before you commit a single Star.
Before a market reaches you it has to survive a set of checks: is it answerable, is the window sane, is the source real. Here is the authoring process, including the questions we reject.
Team quality is the part everyone prices correctly. Pitch, dew, dimensions and weather are the parts the crowd skips — and that is where the edge lives. A seven-point checklist to run before every call.
The same question is easy in one format and near-random in another. A guide to where skill beats noise in each of cricket's three formats — and which markets to leave alone.
Opening weekend is the most forecastable number in Indian cinema — and the most commonly misread. The six inputs that decide it, in the order they matter.
Knowing more about a team, a star or a franchise reliably makes people more confident. It does not reliably make them more accurate. Six biases that cost fans their Stars, and the habits that counter each one.
Win rate is a terrible measure of forecasting skill. Here is what to track instead — calibration, Brier score and a prediction journal — and how to read your own numbers without flattering yourself.
Good calls sized badly still lose. A practical framework for deciding how much of your balance a prediction deserves — and why the answer is almost always less than it feels.
The daily Movie Chain puzzle asks you to link two stars through the films they share. There is a method to it — hubs, era bridges and language crossovers — and it turns a ten-minute struggle into a two-minute solve.
Fans have always made calls. What changed is that the calls are now recorded, priced and settled. What that does to how people watch — and the honest limits of the format.
Four clues, one cricketer, and a lot of people guessing famous names at random. Here is how to actually narrow the field — what each clue rules out, and the order to use them in.
Everything a new player needs: what the markets ask, how Stars work, which cricket questions are worth your first calls, and the five mistakes that cost beginners their opening balance.
Most people predict awards by deciding what deserves to win. Awards are decided by a specific group of people under a specific set of rules — and that is a much more tractable question.
Stars are the scoring unit for every prediction on Standom. They cannot be bought, and they cannot be withdrawn as money. Here is exactly how they work and why the design is deliberate.
Everyone in the group chat has opinions about films. Very few can turn them into calibrated calls. The specific kinds of film knowledge that convert into an edge — and the kinds that don't.
New to prediction markets? Read these three in order.