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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

#351

Post by bryan_w »

frumplestlatz wrote: post #333
Retric wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odds of winning are rather meaningless for negative sum games, you’re going to lose anyway. While I find most forms of gambling rather boring, if you like the experience it’s little different than spending 50$ at an arcade. My game of choice is the big state lottery and it’s simply for the fun mental space of the possibility of winning, actually checking your ticket is kind of depressing because the odds are so low.…

How is this not degenerate? You know you’re going to lose. You know the money is wasted. You do it anyway — and knowingly just pretend those first two facts aren’t true. Then you lose your money. Which you knew was going to happen.

How would you define degenerate?

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

#352

Post by ceejayoz »

mapt wrote: post #301
Balgair wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Never go to Nevada.

But you have to go to Nevada for that.

You don't have Nevada 24/7 in your pocket. Or you shouldn't.

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

#353

Post by hrimfaxi »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #317
hrimfaxi wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> insider trading is the point Says who?

> Robin Hanson, the economist who’s commonly known as the godfather of modern prediction markets, thinks that using inside information to place bets like this is actually necessary for these markets to work—making “insider trading” a feature, not a bug. > “The point of these markets is to get information, so the only reason you should ever be trading on them is if you think you have some information,” said Hanson, a…

How is it at all a prediction if someone has insider knowledge? That's not a prediction that is knowing the facts. If I'm Trump and decide to capture Maduro tomorrow and then I bet on that happening, what did I predict? If someone close to me who knows my plans bets on it, what did they predict? That I will follow through on my word?

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

#354

Post by pfortuny »

empath75 wrote: post #224
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…

As a sibling says, the story is for ships, other insurance has existed for millenials.

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

#355

Post by OutOfHere »

bagacrap wrote: post #305
OutOfHere wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There exists a sensible way to handle this. It is to require at least three independent news outlet reports of an event (as defined in the bet). A related issue is that war news is heavily censored in Israel; it's difficult for news outlets to report it.

Or y'know, ban this betting activity to begin with.

It already is not accessible in the US, although ideally it should be in the same of freedom. If you are from the US and don't value personal freedom, you are free to leave it, as it is a core tenet of what is American.

Making death threats to a journalist or anyone already is illegal. There is zero reason to ban betting considering the sensible mitigation that was noted.

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

#356

Post by EGreg »

Waterluvian wrote: post #43
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.

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…

Here is a much more moral and useful prediction market: https://unblockers.org

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

#357

Post by xhkkffbf »

Retric wrote: post #326
chimeracoder wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Odds of winning are rather meaningless for negative sum games, you’re going to lose anyway. While I find most forms of gambling rather boring, if you like the experience it’s little different than spending 50$ at an arcade. My game of choice is the big state lottery and it’s simply for the fun mental space of the possibility of winning, actually checking your ticket is kind of depressing because the odds are so low.…

I have one friend who likes to gamble. I've tried the old math argument with him and he dismisses it out-of-hand. He says that, yes, he knows it's a negative sum game but sometimes he wins and that makes it worth it. Then he says, "You spend money on a symphony or an art museum or an expensive restaurant, right? Those are guaranteed to leave you a little bit poorer at the end of the night. Same thing as gambling, but with a bigger guarantee."

And I didn't have a response.

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

#358

Post by tptacek »

GolfPopper wrote: post #341

Why is everyone assuming at face value that the threats are actually coming from gamblers, and not from the Israeli government trying to downplay the domestic impact of the war?

Probably because it's 100% par for the course for online betting, unless you think it's Israel sending death threats to French tennis players for blowing people's prop bets.

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

#359

Post by basisword »

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.

We need to stop with the "prediction markets" bs naming. They're gambling websites with a larger variety of things you can gamble on.

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

#360

Post by Balgair »

uncletammy wrote: post #228
Balgair wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He just kinda hustled I think. I don't know him all that well. But from what I do know, he started announcing for his buddies who referred him to other people and so on. Eventually he had a website going and would schedule when he was available for announcing (dude has a family and day job so not all the time). Made a niche in online basketball games and was open to really anything.

If your buddy is somewhat famous, then get on the socials and network with the players in the files already, they all seem really open as it's still a big and unaddressed market. Payouts are gonna be small at first, think beer leagues and largeish friends groups. And from what I can tell the competition for big gigs is tougher as you go up in the field.

Honestly give it a try, seems like a great side hustle.

Edit: be a great idea for AI in the low end, but it's the human touch that really makes it. The guy I know is pretty funny and I assume his wisecracks help him

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