Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by iamacyborg » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

civvv wrote: post #215

iamacyborg wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> late-stage internet capitalism This isn't a thing. Capitalism is just capitalism.

I don't know. Certainly the underlying mechanisms of capitalism remain the same, but it does not hurt to clarify the context that it exists within. The world is very different today, than say the 1960's, but the "rules" were the same. Capitalism has been accelerated a lot by the rise of information technology, specifically the internet, and today it is a whole different beast with unique "opportunities" and consequen…

The only things that's true now is that there's more laxity around consolidation of power in big business. The core tenets of capitalism haven't changed in thousands of years.

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

#222

Post by caminante » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

Bender wrote: post #201

caminante wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's thoughtful of you to point out, though, not a big deal.

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

#223

Post by Pay08 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

EcommerceFlow wrote: post #208

Same thing has been happening with sports bets for years, this particular point (threats) isn't unique to political betting.

Good news, Polymarket also does sports betting, but since it's a "prediction market", it's not covered by gambling laws.

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

#224

Post by empath75 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

fzil wrote: post #3

Man the moral degradation is off the charts. Prediction markets are easily the worst things to grace the internet by far and its not even close.

So, a fun historical fact is that insurance markets started with people in coffee houses betting on whether or not ships would sink for fun. Eventually ship owners realized that if they bet on their own ship sinking, that it reduced the financial risk of travel, then betters realized that ship owners were doing that and decided to research before taking the other side of the bet, and so on until you end up with ship insurance.

In a sense, prediction markets are all forms of insurance. A "war market" is just an insurance market against war. If you do business in someplace that is at risk at war, placing a huge bet on the war happening mitigates the risk of doing business in that place.

There is a reason that insurance has taken the shape that it has -- incredibly detailed contracts, requirements that the insured have an interest in the thing being insured, etc, and the reason is exactly that pure prediction markets went through this exact cycle hundreds of years ago which lead to laws being passed banning the practice. That is why LLoyd's of London exists. It started as a pure gambling and became insurance through regulation and business evolution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Insurance_Act_1745 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Assurance_Act_1774

I'm not incredibly against the concept of prediction markets, per se, but running them _globally, _at scale_ with _no regulations_ is going to lead to really awful outcomes, up to and including murder.

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

#225

Post by Forgeties79 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:48 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #109

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A sane system would just throw him in jail. A capricious system that interprets based on whim, politics and influence is a large part of how we got here. People like this and their less than moral path in which they further their endeavors succeed specifically because of this environment. Polymarket is basically a platform to monetize petty stuff while also being able to monetize bad stuff. There is soooo much press…

It is not capricious to hold C-suite legally accountable for their choices. Lots of corporate scandals would simply not have happened if decisionmakers had skin in the game. If CISOs can have personal liability for data breaches, CEOs can have personal liability for intentionally creating an illegal platform. Instead we reward these people with billions for degrading the fabric of society.

We need either a “corporate death penalty” of sorts, more personal liability for c-suite execs, or some combo of the two. Too many people fail upwards to trust the system to sort out the “bad ones.”

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

#226

Post by chimeracoder » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #212

Waterluvian wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea behind a prediction market is pretty interesting, especially from an economics dataset point-of-view. And there's probably a lot of fun, harmless things to bet on. eg. "Will Conan lead an extravagent musical number at the Oscars?" But we're in an era of less and less responsible government oversight, so the whole thing naturally gets ruined if there's no guardrails to prevent peoeple without souls or…

Friend of a friend does announcing online. Like, you pay him a little ( So, he got a gig to announce the opening of loot boxes at some show. I think it was Fortnite loot boxes. I guess it gives you the total value of the loot box spree you opened. So, 2 people buy a bunch of loot boxes, then open them up, then whoever has the higher value wins and takes both of the people's total haul. Sounds like a strange thing to…

> It is the most Degenerate form of gambling out there. There is no skill, no human factor, no nothing. Just pure random numbers.

While I wouldn't use the word "degenerate", in terms of gambling, this isn't anywhere close to as bad as it gets.

At least this form is (psuedo)random, and the odds are statistically fair and published (by law).

Contrast to slot machines, which are not random, but are in fact preprogrammed to provide payouts in ways which maximize the earnings for the house and the addictive value for the player.

The house always wins, but there is no form of gambling where that is more guaranteed and manipulated than slot machine games (which includes the video arcade-style slot games).

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

#227

Post by amelius » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #115

ambicapter wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is sophistry, the nature of gambling is that gamblers over-leverage themselves compulsively.

So... no, it's not? You're saying everyone who makes a bet on anything is doing so compulsively? Literally everyone has bet on something . The absolutely overwhelming majority of "bets" placed (via whatever definition you want to give them) are basically benign and don't reflect mental illness. But even so, you're missing my point: even compulsive gamblers don't as a general rule resort to criminal extortion to cover…

Gambling is bad anyway because it increases the wealth gap. And wealth is increasingly used to take away wealth from the less fortunate. (See e.g. housing market, where price pressure is caused by wealth).

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

#228

Post by uncletammy » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #212

Waterluvian wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea behind a prediction market is pretty interesting, especially from an economics dataset point-of-view. And there's probably a lot of fun, harmless things to bet on. eg. "Will Conan lead an extravagent musical number at the Oscars?" But we're in an era of less and less responsible government oversight, so the whole thing naturally gets ruined if there's no guardrails to prevent peoeple without souls or…

Friend of a friend does announcing online. Like, you pay him a little ( So, he got a gig to announce the opening of loot boxes at some show. I think it was Fortnite loot boxes. I guess it gives you the total value of the loot box spree you opened. So, 2 people buy a bunch of loot boxes, then open them up, then whoever has the higher value wins and takes both of the people's total haul. Sounds like a strange thing to…

How does someone break into that field. I have a buddy who used to announce pro sports ( he's sort of famous for it ) that wants this kind of work.

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

#229

Post by KPGv2 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #58

Waterluvian wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea behind a prediction market is pretty interesting, especially from an economics dataset point-of-view. And there's probably a lot of fun, harmless things to bet on. eg. "Will Conan lead an extravagent musical number at the Oscars?" But we're in an era of less and less responsible government oversight, so the whole thing naturally gets ruined if there's no guardrails to prevent peoeple without souls or…

>And there's probably a lot of fun, harmless things to bet on. eg. "Will Conan lead an extravagent musical number at the Emmys?" I cannot fathom what could be fun about that.

> Will Conan lead an extravagent musical number at the Emmys?

Does the lamentations of women count as a musical number?

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

#230

Post by Pay08 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

jrjeksjd8d wrote: post #14

pydry wrote: post #2

The level of censorship in Israel right now is off the charts: https://www.972mag.com/israel-media-censorship-iran-war/ I suspect the gambler probably would have won on the basis of what happened but lost on the basis of what the times reported.

I think it's the opposite - the censorship has made the Israeli public believe they're safer than they really are. The US is lying about their stockpiles and frantically moving resources from East Asia to try and shore up missile defense in the Middle East. These people believed that no Iranian missiles could possibly get through and instead of accepting they were misled they're shooting the messenger

You're plainly misinformed. Both the USA and Israel running low on munitions has been all over the media for months.