Maybe we should build a prediction model of upcoming events based on volume of bets made on polymarket
We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
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Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
#112Americans may be shocked to hear that in the rest of the world gambling has been a thing for centuries. We also have people under the age of 20 drinking alcohol. I am not suggesting in any way that gambling is good - but it wasnt invented last week in america
In Norway, gambling is controlled by a state monopoly, same as our alcohol sales. Probably for the same reasons.
Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
#113[deleted]
Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
#114I've always said we should just legalize insider trading. Just make it painfully obvious to everyone that speculative trading is the loser's game.
Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
#115The craziest thing here is that online gambling has been legal in the UK and Ireland for many years, and it's been such an obvious negative for those countries — and had been optimized brutally like any other tech product. When I moved over to the US a decade ago, I remember thinking 'well at least they're smart enough to have banned online gambling'. I am very pro personal liberties, but this stuff is weaponized to…
i live in a small midwest town and had the privilege of watching it slowly atrophy into near nothing over time. the steel mill closing, 2008 market crash, fentanyl crisis, covid, both shopping malls turning into liminal spaces frozen in 1994.
The real nail in the coffin was watching the Sears in the mall turn into a casino about a decade ago. Having failed their people at all other prosperities and futures, politicians turn to the last grift in their arsenal and roll out legalized gambling before packing up and leaving town or retiring.
having failed the digital future, ransacked it for every last penny, politicians again in 2025 turned to the supreme court to legalize online gambling and in doing so obliterate a generation of young adults. in another decade i expect a political movement to "hold these scoundrels to account" similar to Facebook, long after any meaningful reform or regulation could have been made and the industry itself is on the decline. just one last grift for the government that enabled it in the first place.
Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
#116The craziest thing here is that online gambling has been legal in the UK and Ireland for many years, and it's been such an obvious negative for those countries — and had been optimized brutally like any other tech product. When I moved over to the US a decade ago, I remember thinking 'well at least they're smart enough to have banned online gambling'. I am very pro personal liberties, but this stuff is weaponized to…
> anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired
Respect for that. Everybody seems to give up to all-powerful corporations and greed for short term profits seem to blind many otherwise brilliant folks into amoral and/or outright stupid shortsighted behavior and moral 'flexibility'. Nice to see good reason to keep some hope for humanity.
I do myself just a sliver of this via purchasing choices for me and my family, its a drop in the ocean but ocean is formed by many drops, nothing more.
Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
#117The craziest thing here is that online gambling has been legal in the UK and Ireland for many years, and it's been such an obvious negative for those countries — and had been optimized brutally like any other tech product. When I moved over to the US a decade ago, I remember thinking 'well at least they're smart enough to have banned online gambling'. I am very pro personal liberties, but this stuff is weaponized to…
> made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired As in, even a dev, HR, etc person having worked for an online gambling company? I feel this may be a slippery slope..
Prediction markets are far, far more slippery. Anyone working at one of these places had other options & chose to sell their morals so I think it's perfectly reasonable to not hire them.
Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
#118> 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.
libertarianism is a cancer
Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
#119Just 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?
Insurance is usually for things that primarily affect the purchaser?
Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it actually illegal to bet on an assassination?
I am not sure, but you don’t have to technically bet on assassination. You can bet on an event which would happen as a result of said assassination. X won’t get re-elected. Company Y CEO will change in 2027. This is artist Z last tour. Athlete K won’t participate in this event etc.
It's the inverse, here how you have to bet (unless you plan to be doing the hands on assassination works) :
X will get re-elected. Company Y CEO will not change in 2027. This is not artist Z last tour. Athlete K will participate in this event etc.
Like I said elsewhere in this thread the bet have to be lost if you want your target dead.