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…
Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
681–690 of 1001 posts
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#682Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 pri…
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#683As 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…
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#684[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…
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#685As 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…
not fundamentally different as in "live or die" you mean? the whole point of sports is that you compete whilst appreciating each others' humanity.
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#686[flagged]
You argue that platforms like this encourage speculation about things like celebrity deaths. But celebrity culture is already heavily monetized—think Page Six, Access Hollywood, livestreamed royal weddings, or endless coverage of Taylor Swift’s personal life.
Conceding the point to you that death pool bets increases a significant security risk to celebrities (never mind the appeal to emotions), would that such a risk acceptable to have a more accurate and non-biased informational poll of who might be next U.S. president or who/when will US/Israel strike next made available to the wider public?
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#687Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But your comment very much reads like you think "Iran strikes Israel on March 10" at 25% odds is what in fact caused Iran to strike Israel on March 10 I don't know how you extrapolated that from the parent's comment. It literally said nothing about the cause and effect of this particular event. Knowing the odds in a prediction market IS a big part of the problem brought up in the linked article though (and the bets…
Their comment proposed something that would "be the answer here". What does "here" mean? It's logical to expect "here" to refer to a scenario that includes cases like the one in the article. If it's some scenario that excludes cases like the one in the article, then it's not actually relevant to the discussion. (Tangents are OK. It's just confusing if they're introduced with phrasing that makes them sound like they'r…
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#688As 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…
> Strong regulation and legal consequences could potentially fix this. There are regulations. E.g., in the US, 17 CFR § 40.11 prohibits contracts on "terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or an activity that is unlawful under any State or Federal law" [0]. The problem is that those responsible for enforcing those regulations are currently uninterested in doing so [1]. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/40.1…
If people can threaten journalists for money and get away with it, they will. If people who threaten journalists over money are sent to prison, then after a brief transition period it will mostly stop.
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#689It was said Australians would bet on two flies climbing up a wall. But this is madness.
Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story
#690I 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…
I'm not sure that sounds like such a bad world tbh. I just don't like how it gets there