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Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

timesofisrael.com

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Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#201

Post by Bender »

caminante wrote: post #171
Bender wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

echo -en 'Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile story' | wc -c 107 HN also forces editorializing to less than 81 characters. I too sometimes struggle to editorialize the title to something that fits and ideally does not lose context.

Fair point. I'd trim the bit about Polymarket to get under the cap. > Gamblers [...] are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile story You'll lose a little topical/karma sizzle (with no "Polymarket" keyword), but it's higher fidelity.

The submission is currently still under 2 hours old so defly could edit if they see your comment. After that it would be up to dang.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#202

Post by venusenvy47 »

kasey_junk wrote: post #120
ipaddr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The insiders ruin a market like this. Unlike in sports/stocks there are no rules / punishment for insider trading.

Prediction markets as a useful tool are predicated on insider information. The punters without edge are the bait incentivizing the insiders. And in the US prediction markets are regulated like commodities which have much more lax insider rules, because again, insider trading is the point.

Why would we want insiders to profit on a public decision like war? If some general has money on Iran's leader being taken out by March 1, he might not be acting in the best interest of the country.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjwz8051y0lo

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#203

Post by MiddleEndian »

bhouston wrote: post #166
MiddleEndian wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not much of a gambler, but I bet on an MMA match once when I was in Vegas. I was informed that the payouts (or lack thereof) were determined by whatever the judges stated at the end of the night, even if the call was controversial and later invalidated. So this sort of thing does affect other forms of gambling, although obviously on a less significant scale.

Interesting. What would happen if it was found later that the match was thrown on purpose by either the judges or the fighters? This sort of suggests that the best trading strategy would be if you had a guy inside of the censorship bureau who could help you define reality as you want it.

>Interesting. What would happen if it was found later that the match was thrown on purpose by either the judges or the fighters?

This was over a decade ago so I don't remember the exact details, but I'm sure this was covered by the wording of the agreement and I'd have been out of luck with the bookies.

Can't comment on unrelated legal penalties, but in Japan there was match fixing in sumo and nobody got arrested (couldn't prove gambling) but a lot were fired: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match-fixing_in_professional_s... https://factsanddetails.com/japan/cat21/sub138/item1779.html

Unfortunately, combat sports are relatively easy to fix because you only have a few people involved in the live action at a time.

>This sort of suggests that the best trading strategy would be if you had a guy inside of the censorship bureau who could help you define reality as you want it.

As far as I can tell, it seems like the betting market sites explicitly encourage insider activities, and I would not be surprised if this happened for real. See:

https://www.rawstory.com/leavitt/

>Gamblers cry foul after White House briefing ends seconds before key betting cutoff

A slightly different example because if true, the insider would be changing her behavior rather than changing the reporting of the facts. But it still shows that a small number of insiders (or a single insider) can change betting results.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#204

Post by dangus »

hersko wrote: post #187
dangus wrote: post #88

[flagged]

I think you need a break from the internet.

Excellent job criticizing the content of my comment.

I see you’ve decided to use the strategy of an ad hominem attack. This is a really great classic one! I applaud your efforts. Since it’s too hard to refute the substance of my comment you can just point out how I’m some crazy person.

If you’re open to it I invite you to pick just one point I made and see if you can find some kind of logical flaw in my reasoning.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#205

Post by Hammershaft »

epolanski wrote: post #9

Prediction markets need to be banned globally ASAP, but it would've helped the article to bring proof of: - the emails - the whatsapp messages - the discord messages - the X messages Mind you, I'm not stating the journalist is lying or overblowing, in fact I suspect this is all more widespread than we think, but it's odd that the journalist puts emphasis on the sources of his information in the case of the missile, y…

I disagree.

Prediction markets have value for people as a source of reliable information because they tend to be very accurate compared to any other human mechanism for creating forecasts.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/10/pr...

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#206

Post by _wire_ »

When "the best way to predict the future is to invent it" is combined with crime it seems clear that betting on crime is acting as an accessory. A business facilitating betting on crime is a criminal enterprise, in the sense of RICO.

Polymarket bets on war overshadow a more basic concern:

War prosecuted by a unitary executive without the express consent of the governed is a criminal enterprise.

Trading in such an enterprise is corrupt regardless of its mechanism.

In a global society, the governed are a world-wide body politic, making war fundamentally a racket.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#209

Post by twodave »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #158
twodave wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting aside this is sort of a knee-jerk reaction, if this was actually implemented you’d just see the role of the CEO change to basically be a highly-paid fall-guy. People in those positions today would vacate them for quieter roles behind the scenes, and corporations would put greater effort forth to hide their decision making processes. I don’t think it would be a better system.

Why would anyone sign up to be the fall guy? Perhaps because the payoff is worth the the punishment. So make the punishment algorithmically outweigh the payoff, for example by seizing everything they were paid to be the fall guy plus jail time. Doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve if politicians were actually interested in holding CEOs and corporations accountable, the problem is the politicians themselves are b…

This already happens with professional athletes, so we have a model to look at. Look, I don't disagree that all people should be held accountable for their actions, but sometimes the solutions people fire off half-cocked (throw a CEO in jail until they de-anonymize their platform, for example) are not going to be used in such a naive way.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#210

Post by pindab0ter »

I think time and time again that incentives are most important in determining how a market and by extension a society behaves. These prediction markets incentivize the absolute worst in humanity.

These markets allow you to bet on when the invasion of a foreign country or the demise of a person happens. There comes a point where one bets against someone to die and you will see themselves incentivized to make that happen.

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