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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

#531

Post by LargeWu »

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…

I think the differentiating feature is that capitalism used to be tethered to producing things that were useful. The current model of wealth acquisition, so called "late-stage" seems to have shifted more towards rent seeking and extraction.

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

#532

Post by AlexandrB »

nusl wrote: post #516
tootie wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's gambling which has been a bane forever. It poisoned the NBA even before the internet.

People are getting death threats for writing news articles as part of their job. How is this comparable?

Profession athletes get threats for winning games which is part of their job. It's exactly the same.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/09/sport/athlete-abuse-betting-s...

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

#533

Post by logicchains »

xvector wrote: post #411
redeeman wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KYC is nothing sane. in what world does anything give you or anyone else the right to decide to probe people up their rear end just because they want to do business? people like you are extremely dangerous. loads of banks all over the world now demands to know what you plan to spend the money on just to withdraw a bit cash. Some will even deny you saying "well.. you shouldnt buy a new car anyway". all the KYC shit. h…

> in what world does anything give you or anyone else the right to decide to probe people up their rear end A world in which these people bet on heinous things while insider trading/influencing those very things. Privacy in gambling or insider trading is not a constitutional right.

Insider trading itself is only a crime when someone's betraying their fiduciary juty to an organisation, e.g. their employeer. There's nothing morally or legally wrong with using one's private information to make informed bets on other things, and economically speaking it produces better market prices/predictions because they reflect more information.

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

#534

Post by logicchains »

nusl wrote: post #374

Polymarket and similar platforms are a cancer and need to be shut down. This is an early symptom of something that will become much, much worse in an increasing manner. Stories like these make more people aware of the platform, adding users and further degrading humanity.

It's impossible to shut them down without implementing completely totalitarian internet controls that would make even the Chinese government blush. That's the nature of the defi ecosystem.

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

#535

Post by munk-a »

logicchains wrote: post #529
xvector wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polymarket's founder is Shayne Coplan, 27-year old "youngest self-made billionaire" (why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics?) A sane system would just throw him in jail until his illegal betting market implements KYC.

>A sane system would just throw him in jail until his illegal betting market implements KYC. There's nothing sane about KYC, it's a fundamental assault on the right to financial privacy. And the people with power can always bypass it; only the little people suffer.

I think it's important to look at the context of the discussion around this comment. Someone has received credible death threats - clearly the current situation is one where the little people are already suffering.

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

#537

Post by gosub100 »

Projectiboga wrote: post #399
gosub100 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roulette uses a physical process and is not compromised.

I know roulette is random enough but here is a fun book by some physics whizzes who tried to make money off the game. The Eudaemonic Pie is a non-fiction book about gambling by American author Thomas A. Bass. The book was initially published in April 1985 by Houghton Mifflin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eudaemonic_Pie The book focuses on a group of University of California, Santa Cruz, physics graduate students…

Yes if you hold a camera and capture the speed and position of the ball and wheel you can gain an edge, people have tried it. Good point.

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

#538

Post by munk-a »

xvector wrote: post #56
TheDong wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but how do you find the person making the threats? Polymarket accounts are more-or-less just a crypto address. Whatsapp accounts are somewhat easier to link to a real identity, but still not hard to at least obscure a bit. The arm of the law struggles to reach across borders, and on the internet, it's quite plausible all those involved are in different jurisdictions.

Polymarket's founder is Shayne Coplan, 27-year old "youngest self-made billionaire" (why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics?) A sane system would just throw him in jail until his illegal betting market implements KYC.

> (why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics?)

Because no ethical person would accumulate a billion dollars. An ethical person would share the wealth they're creating with those around them instead of hording that wealth.

What can you do with 100 million that you couldn't do with 10?

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

#539

Post by malfist »

sam0x17 wrote: post #459

I really wonder whether privacy would actually be the answer here --- prediction markets as they are now where the odds are public really shouldn't be called prediction markets, they should be called "outcome-shaping markets" because largely that is what they do, they let people shape real-world outcomes with massive amounts of liquidity. If instead these were privacy protocols where you can see how much liquidity is…

Why would anybody make a bet if they don't know the odds or payout?

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

#540

Post by danny_codes »

JohnMakin wrote: post #458

This is a major example why we can't have these things, unfortunately. It sucks because they can be powerful tools, but you're never going to be able to fully police this behavior as one of these platforms.

Gambling has a heavy association with criminality. By allowing open gambling we must also accept the externalities.

Or we could, you know, not legalize gambling.

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