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We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

derekthompson.org

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Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#31

Post by nlawalker »

echelon wrote: post #13

Assassinations markets are what's next. eg. someone will bet $1M that Elon Musk will be assassinated in 2026. But these don't themselves even have to be legal. Second order wagers will be placed on SpaceX and Tesla stock prices, bets that "a hundred billionaire will die in 2026", etc. A bet that Putin will be assassinated could be encoded in, "there will be regime change in Russia."

Ah, you beat me to it. I learned about assassination markets in a previous post about the overall gambling/prediction markets topic a few weeks ago; the concept is so coherent that it has its own Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#32

Post by owlninja »

hydroflame7 wrote: post #4

'Predictions' market is the silliest loophole for gambling. Honestly, more surprised Fanduel, DraftKings and the like who have spent millions on lobbying and buying licenses, are not fighting tooth and nail on this.

Actually I believe DraftKings just added a prediction market...

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#33

Post by slopinthebag »

echelon wrote: post #13

Assassinations markets are what's next. eg. someone will bet $1M that Elon Musk will be assassinated in 2026. But these don't themselves even have to be legal. Second order wagers will be placed on SpaceX and Tesla stock prices, bets that "a hundred billionaire will die in 2026", etc. A bet that Putin will be assassinated could be encoded in, "there will be regime change in Russia."

Is it actually illegal to bet on an assassination?

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#34

Post by echelon »

tptacek wrote: post #29
echelon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forest fires Fire bug > earthquakes Dynamite the fault > hurricanes Crazy, but, hear me out: mirrors in space warming the Atlantic, mirrors in Africa warming the atmosphere ("solar power"), Trump wanting to nuke a hurricane, etc. Pandemic? Go harvest bats and put them in a cage with chickens. You don't even need a molecular bio lab. Stock market crash? Bombs. Terrorist attacks. Energy prices? Derail a train carryin…

"Dynamite the fault"? What are you, a Bond villain?

The Bond villain would be the person running the betting market.

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#35

Post by GenerWork »

sghiassy wrote: post #12
GenerWork wrote: post #9

[flagged]

It’s the insider betting that’s the problem. Not the intrinsic nature of gambling

You're always going to have some sort of insider leaks, and quite frankly I don't care if they make money off of it in a betting app. This isn't like the stock market which is a vehicle for wealth for hundreds of millions. Gambling/prediction markets are 100% optional to participate in and you should go in with the expectation that you're going to lose.

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#36

Post by IncreasePosts »

echelon wrote: post #13

Assassinations markets are what's next. eg. someone will bet $1M that Elon Musk will be assassinated in 2026. But these don't themselves even have to be legal. Second order wagers will be placed on SpaceX and Tesla stock prices, bets that "a hundred billionaire will die in 2026", etc. A bet that Putin will be assassinated could be encoded in, "there will be regime change in Russia."

Someone would need to take the opposite side of that bet. And who would do that knowing someone might try to assassinate him in order to win that bet?

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#37

Post by yieldcrv »

warkdarrior wrote: post #30
yieldcrv wrote: post #23

> I don’t think people have thought hard enough about how bad this could get. given that the crypto anarchist papers from the 90s that these markets are built on are very well thought out instruction manuals about how bad it could get, this title implies users are gullible idiots as opposed to the creators and power users An individual's susceptibility to a vice is an individual problem. So I take issue with all the…

> An individual's susceptibility to a vice is an individual problem. That ignore the societal influence on an individual. If everyone around you gambles, you are more inclined to take up gambling.

Not ignoring, deterring the state from involving itself in anything except the individual.

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#39

Post by testaccount28 »

kevinsync wrote: post #15

Assuming everything physical gets tokenized (as occasionally gets predicted), people could soon literally lose their house on a bet! Maybe even a bet placed by their swarm of agents. The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades!

as a wise guy once said, "a grown man made a wager; he lost."

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#40

Post by Jblx2 »

cowpig wrote: post #17

Just game-theoretically, suppose you bet $100 on some disaster. That disaster causes $10,000,000 of harm, but only causes you $90 of harm individually. You've gained $10, but your $10 gain is a millionth of the harm caused. Generally-speaking, there's an enormous asymmetry between the cost to create/build and the cost to destroy. So now we have a mechanism by which individuals have a financial incentive to cause harm…

How is that different from regular old insurance?
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