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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

#621

Post by fwipsy »

Zigurd wrote: post #423
fwipsy wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prediction markets are a separate concept from cryptocurrency. You can run one on cash within the typical KYC regime. If the arguments in favor of prediction markets sound rational, maybe they are rational? I'd argue that prediction markets are more like stock markets. Very useful, but they also create opportunities for abuse which will need to be addressed. If they are eliminated later because the current administra…

Up to this point nobody has staked out a territory that exists between securities on the one hand, and wild anything goes betting markets on the other hand. Requiring the use of national currencies does nothing to prevent what are effectively tontines incentivizing murder, or other perverse outcomes.

Aren't death markets explicitly banned?

Stock markets also incentivize murder. Short a company, then kill the CEO. Boom, profit.

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

#622

Post by westk01 »

gac23 wrote: post #613
waffletower wrote: post #552

[flagged]

For some reason people tend to forget the most important part of "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law", I guess it because the words "Love is the law, love under will" doesn't sound satanic enough. If you take the time to actually read some of his material you'll be surprised how much he (the 'satanist' Crowley) talks about God and angels (as positive forces).

They won't understand friend.

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

#623

Post by happyopossum »

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.

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

Ban it where exactly? If you’ve got personal knowledge of where these knuckleheads reside, speak up. It’s entirely possible that it is banned where they are and they just got a VPN and did it anyway.

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

#624

Post by margalabargala »

As someone generally against gambling, I think there's a fair point to be made that Polymarket and similar sites are not fundamentally different from e.g. sports betting.

The issue of bribing/threatening a sports player to throw a game has existed for over a century. It's not a new problem. The only thing special about Polymarket is the expansion of surface area.

My preferred solution would be to just ban it all, or if you really want to allow sports betting only allow betting on the outcome of events happening in the venue one is physically in.

The existence of sports betting absolutely encourages people to throw matches and the existence of X betting absolutely encourages people to try to make X come about.

Strong regulation and legal consequences could potentially fix this. We don't see tons of people shorting a company and then bombing that company's HQ.

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

#625

Post by crystal_revenge »

scoofy wrote: post #575
waffletower wrote: post #552

[flagged]

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…

And "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law", does not mean "you can do anything you want", it's much, much closer in meaning to the famous quote from the Upanishads (Crowley largely felt that much of esoterism was basically, as Dion Fortune put it "Yoga of the West"):

> “You are what your deepest desire is. As is your desire, so is your intention. As is your intention, so is your will. As is your will, so is your deed. As is your deed, so is your destiny.”

But HN has increasingly been about having vigorous, opinionated discussion on a surface level understanding of topics (plus a growing number of AI participants), so I'm not sure there's much benefit to pointing it out.

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

#627

Post by irishcoffee »

kqr wrote: post #578
jacquesm wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could gamble on when Polymarket's operators die.

If I propose odds based on US insurance life tables for people of their age and gender, which side of the bet would you like to take?

The over. Rich people live longer.

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

#628

Post by fritzo »

scoofy wrote: post #589
pindab0ter wrote: post #210

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 happ…

>These prediction markets incentivize the absolute worst in humanity. Just call it gambling. They aren't "prediction markets," they're just gambling. Gambling incentivizes the absolute worst in humanity.

We're not talking about gambling-as-addiction. We're talking about gambling as big players paying participants to throw fights, paying referees to call shots, and the players are the real world and the referees are journalists.

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

#629

Post by kqr »

gosub100 wrote: post #349
pwillia7 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that different from roulette?

Roulette uses a physical process and is not compromised.

It literally has to be compromised to work. If the roulette machinery was perfect, you would be able to predict the outcome with Newtonian physics at the start of the spin. It has to have irregularities and asymmetries to trigger chaotic behaviour – and those same irregularities and asymmetries make the outcome biased!

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

#630

Post by casey2 »

waffletower wrote: post #552

[flagged]

Yes famous libertine Adam Smith, up there with Marquis de Sade and Ami Perrin

Your logical conclusion is a slippery slope. Lets follow your argument to it's logical conclusion, humans are evil therefore, regulate all their actions, imprison them, kill all humans OMG you are sooo evil I'm absolutely shook. How could you!

Why ought we take your misunderstandings to the"ir natural" extreme?

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