So ... there is a market in killing me. At 99c on the dollar means (I think) that if I lay a bet that someone will assassinate me (by xmas) I sill have to pay 99c to get a dollar payout.
At 1c to get 1 dollar - That to me implies no-one thinks I will be killed (either I live in the Oval Office so it's very hard or frankly no-one wants to waste the bullet)
At 99c to get 1 dollar it's a near certainty. I am already tied up in a basement somewhere.
This is the discussion around prices/exposure swapping/speculation I wanted to occur.
If someone has the ability to buy yes exposure at 1 cent, subsequently kill me, and then collect 100 cents that's pretty high pay out odds. The potential hitman has 99 cents of margin to use to kill me and still be profitable.
If the hitman buys at 99 cents, he looses the majority of the bet if he doesn't kill me. The person who took the other side has significant margins to protect me (from their prospective they bought no at 1 cent).
at 50 cents we both loose or gain the same amount of money.
I think I'd be more concerned for my safety in case A,B than in case C.
The other dimension of derivatives is how much "Open Interest" (OI) -- or the quantity of contracts/exposure -- that exists for a contract. I think I'd be concerned for my safety if there was any appreciable "yes" OI for the contract that wasn't me. So my strategy would be to buy up all "yes" contracts -- e.g. the people who want exposure to me dying or believe I will die -- so no one has an incentive to kill me.
