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

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

#601

Post by stefan_ » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:37 PM UTC

senderista wrote: post #587

DrProtic wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And ISW is tied to Victoria Nuland.

Not sure why you're being downvoted, you're absolutely correct. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/russia-ukraine-war-isw/

They are being downvoted because Nuland is an utterly insignificant diplomat, but serves well as a dog whistle for people who subscribe to the belief that the Maidan revolution in Ukraine was really some Obama organized coup. This is a story peddled by the Russian government, which of course is where Yanukovych promptly fled after having protestors shot. At the same time Russia was busy staging troops and material for the actual coup they were planning.

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

#602

Post by jbxntuehineoh » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:38 PM UTC

OutOfHere wrote: post #355

bagacrap wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

"Everyone I disagree with is Not A Real American and should just leave the country. Who's a Real American? Well, someone who agrees with my personal political views, of course."

utterly idiotic worldview

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

#603

Post by Zambyte » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:38 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #437

Zambyte wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the risks involved with the newspaper versus the risks involved with Polymarket? Answer this and I think you'll discover that "no different" is actually quite different. Regarding the stock market: nobody sane uses the stock market as an indicator for the future. People predict the stock market, not the other way around.

> What are the risks I don't have the slightest idea what point you're trying to make with this. Journalists make lots of people unhappy with their reporting, if you're referring to risks to journalists? Indeed that's part of the job of being a truth teller. > nobody sane uses the stock market as an indicator for the future I don't think you understand. If you think you can do a better job of predicting the future th…

Making people unhappy doesn't cause them to declare bankruptcy and become homeless. People may lose their reputation by reporting falsehoods in the paper (though probably not). People might read incorrect information in the newspaper. People may directly lose access to food and shelter due to gambling. The risks are no where close to equivalent.

> I don't think you understand. [...]

I don't think you understand. Let's imagine a scenario: the market valuation of NVIDIA is high and has been trending up YTD, with some sizeable dips every couple of weeks. What does that tell you about the future?

Let's imagine another scenario. The odds on Polymarket of GPT-5.5 releasing in April just jumped from 40% to 95%. What does that tell you about the future?

You can try to derive information out of a stock market price, but it is not a prediction tool. The newspaper and Polymarket are more directly comparable in the context of prediction tools, because they both tell you exactly what they predict.

The risks of the stock market are closer to the risks of Polymarket (and the former has tons of regulations for obvious reasons, as demonstrated in the article), but the function is completely different.

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

#604

Post by scoofy » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:39 PM UTC

waffletower wrote: post #588

scoofy wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, it's not the point your making, but Adam Smith was not a laissez-faire capitalist. If you want to do the "capitalism bad" thing, I would suggest learning a bit of history, or at least understand that the " laissez-faire " in laissez-faire capitalism is a political ideology, not an economic ideology. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/11/the-gu... More to your point... I don't think economic theo…

Pendantry -- unhelpful and qualitative particularly when we largely agree -- as you clearly reveal in your 2nd paragraph.

You're connection between an economic system with some kind of an amoral political view is a non sequitur. You could trivially operate gambling institutions in a socialist system. The gambling existing has nothing to do with the economic system itself. It has to do with the political climate.

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

#605

Post by gus_massa » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:41 PM UTC

keeda wrote: post #432

Conspiracy theory: the missile hit an unpopulated area. Would it have been possible for someone in charge of intercepting incoming missiles to have been in on this bet? I know these things are automated, because human control would be too slow... but I wonder if there's an angle here. Won't be the first time someone on the inside made money on classified Israeli plans: https://www.timesofisrael.com/two-indicted-for-u…

My unsupported non-conspiracy opinion:

A) They notice that it would land in the middle of nowhere and decided to not destroy it. It's better keep the interceptors for one that is going to hit an important target.

B) They partially intercepted it, perhaps only broke the motor or a fin, but the explosive head was intact. So instead of going to an important target, it crashed and exploded in the middle of nowhere.

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

#606

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:42 PM UTC

jkaplowitz wrote: post #590

scoofy wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, it's not the point your making, but Adam Smith was not a laissez-faire capitalist. If you want to do the "capitalism bad" thing, I would suggest learning a bit of history, or at least understand that the " laissez-faire " in laissez-faire capitalism is a political ideology, not an economic ideology. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/11/the-gu... More to your point... I don't think economic theo…

> generally speaking, gambling more than a token sum (say, less than $100) should not be legal exactly because any benefits of gambling is far outweighed by the mountains of externalities it brings. Yes, this includes the obvious incentives to threaten random people. It's bad for society, so it should be effectively banned. I agree with you in theory, but remember that people frequently do illegal things, just illega…

[deleted]

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

#607

Post by sentrysapper » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:43 PM UTC

tgv wrote: post #577

gzread wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polymarket runs on Polygon, which, like most blockchains, has public history. If the user wasn't very careful about how they got their money into the system, it traces back to a public cryptocurrency exchange with KYC records.

That's the BS reply that always comes when (in particular) bitcoin is associated with crime: that it is traceable. Well, it hardly is. And for the average policeman/woman, even less so. And when the owner has taken some care, as you admit, practically impossible even for experts.

It's not BS though? That's what companies like Chainalysis professionally. This was covered in graphic detail as to how they caught a pedo ring in Andy Greenberg's book Tracers In The Dark.

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

#608

Post by Terr_ » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:43 PM UTC

jkaplowitz wrote: post #590

scoofy wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, it's not the point your making, but Adam Smith was not a laissez-faire capitalist. If you want to do the "capitalism bad" thing, I would suggest learning a bit of history, or at least understand that the " laissez-faire " in laissez-faire capitalism is a political ideology, not an economic ideology. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/11/the-gu... More to your point... I don't think economic theo…

> generally speaking, gambling more than a token sum (say, less than $100) should not be legal exactly because any benefits of gambling is far outweighed by the mountains of externalities it brings. Yes, this includes the obvious incentives to threaten random people. It's bad for society, so it should be effectively banned. I agree with you in theory, but remember that people frequently do illegal things, just illega…

> If we assume that people will in practice gamble whether or not it's legal

Except it's not the same gambling in both cases, they have qualitative differences beyond simply where they're happening. My unhinged neighbor who'd threaten a journalist probably doesn't have an invite to the Underground Gambling Den.

Even if he did, when a court case happens there's no presumption of normalcy. He can't say: "Pshaw, everybody legally gambles on all sorts of things there, the fact that I bet big on the journalist not having his fingers broken is just coincidence."

The immediate illegality of the gambling is also a check on corruption, since it's already disqualifying for Judge Stickyfingers McBriberson to be on the platform, let alone "betting" on the outcome of cases he presides over.

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

#609

Post by happyopossum » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:45 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #535

logicchains wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> Someone has received credible death threats

2 points - 1) “credible” is carrying a lot of water in that statement, and 2) your implication is that any activity which could eventually or conceivably involve a lunatic making a death threat is not compatible with any level of privacy.

The second is incredibly disturbing - people have made death threats over E2E encrypted chat channels, therefore we must remove any privacy built in to such a model?

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

#610

Post by swid » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:45 PM UTC

notepad0x90 wrote: post #592

waffletower wrote: post #552

[flagged]

On one hand, it isn't all that different than derivatives and other established securities. On the other, the extremes of gambling are deterimental. You can either take the libertarian view that it should be allowed until someone is put in harms way, or take the prohibitionist view that it should all be illegal. With the latter approach, you will be doing more harm than good potentially, because it will just become a…

> I see no problem with betting on who will win a sports match...

I do wonder - what if the sports teams or politician loses intentionally; which could either be to profit off the loss or due to threats from an actor who seeks to profit?

I heard that Kalshi paid out for when Khamenei was killed in Iran (the bet was for when he would go out of power), so murdering people could be another way to win such a bet on who will lose. Even injuring a sports player could easily change a game result. With so much money on the line, it doesn't seem like a good mix.