Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

derekthompson.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 741 posts

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

#201

Post by apsurd »

UqWBcuFx6NV4r wrote: post #127
bluetidepro wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. Can't say I agree with that specific take (and find it a bit naive to be honest), unless you're also not hiring anyone from companies like Amazon, Meta, and all the other tech companies that have also ruined/preyed on society in their own way just as much as any gambling app has.

[flagged]

Hmmm,

So my friend works for a sports betting app and I personally do judge him from a philosophical point of view. I would never! Same with Meta, I would never!

But since I never once thought to de-friend him, I thought more about it. I leaned in. And TLDR: we are all part of this machine. Literally, everyone's work output gets bundled up into public retirement funds invested in these baddie public companies.

What's really the difference? Guy earns his paycheck directly, must be worse than all of us complicit to make money on stock market go up? Yes stock-market metaphor is intentional. The original gambler's paradise.

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

#202

Post by JumpCrisscross »

slibhb wrote: post #150
pc86 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard people say this but it really only makes sense if you don't think about it for more than 10 or 20 seconds. Prediction markets by definition always resolve to one side being completely wiped out and losing everything. Stocks going to zero happens pretty seldomly, in prediction markets it's guaranteed to happen every single time.

That's only true if you leave your money in...which you don't have to do. You can play prediction markets by betting on a swing. E.g. I made a few hundred dollars betting on Harris in 2024 when Trump was at ~65% odds and then selling before the election when it was closer to 50%.

> can play prediction markets by betting on a swing

The outcomes are still capped. In that respect, it's more like a derivative market than the stock market. You can trade in and out of options. But the value in the system is tightly defined and, after fees, a net negative-sum game.

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

#203

Post by adamandsteve »

cubefox wrote: post #135
Gigachad wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prediction markets are just inside traders profiting off gambling addicts. If you are not an inside trader, you're the loser paying out.

Or you are simply better at predicting the future than most other people.

Being good at predicting the future will give you only a slight edge, so even a small amount of inside trading can make you unprofitable.

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

#204

Post by kelseyfrog »

mcmcmc wrote: post #142
kelseyfrog wrote: post #130

The real power in prediction markets is creating a market for what you want to occur - it's a tangible method to leverage hyperstition. If you want Polymarket to no longer exist, then simply create a pool for "Polymarket will no longer exist by Jan 1st 2027" on Kalshi, pump the price, and wait for one of these whales to do the job of making it come true for you. When done right, you get the satisfaction of the thing…

So are you advocating for the idea that the wealthy should be able to control history then, by nature of having the largest amount of betting capital?

I'm arguing for taking advantage of this before you can't.

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

#205

Post by socalgal2 »

mcmcmc wrote: post #132
bluetidepro wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. Can't say I agree with that specific take (and find it a bit naive to be honest), unless you're also not hiring anyone from companies like Amazon, Meta, and all the other tech companies that have also ruined/preyed on society in their own way just as much as any gambling app has.

I think the difference between the two is Amazon and Meta do provide some utility to balance it out, whereas gambling is purely a net negative on society. You can be young and naive enough to believe you're "making the world a better place" in big tech. You can't work on pure gambling products without being a scammer at heart; you know what you signed up for.

You can, because the definition of gambling is loose. Magic The Gathering is gambling. You by a pack and hope you get a valuable card, no different than buying a lottery ticket and hope you win. Pokemon Go is also gambling. You pay to hatch eggs and hope you get a rare pokemon. I'm pretty confident the people who made these games don't consider their design to be evil or wrong. In fact, I'm sure they see themselves has having provided millions of people with fun entertainment.

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

#206

Post by amarant »

jackfruitpeel wrote: post #88

The 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 worked in it? Like someone who needed a salary took a job, and now due to your grandstanding they're locked in to keep working in that industry because they can't get a job elsewhere?

I'm not sure your virtue signalling has the effect you want it to have. In fact I think it has the exact opposite effect

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

#207

Post by beachy »

bluetidepro wrote: post #104
jackfruitpeel wrote: post #88

The 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'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. Can't say I agree with that specific take (and find it a bit naive to be honest), unless you're also not hiring anyone from companies like Amazon, Meta, and all the other tech companies that have also ruined/preyed on society in their own way just as much as any gambling app has.

Or the young person who needs a job and doesn't yet have OP's fully formed understanding of exactly where the line is - apparently gambling bad/ ad tech OK.

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

#208

Post by hermannj314 »

themafia wrote: post #176
hermannj314 wrote: post #83

I got into weather betting markets earlier this year since I figured those can't possibly be rigged, it is automated weather station data yet some groups in the market know the truth a few minutes before everyone else based on the way the markets move. BUT, I stopped on the day that the PHL airport preliminary report said the low of the day was 17 and then later than day the low was raised to 18. The way the market w…

> said the low of the day was 17 People are gambling on the "low of the day?" Might as well make back alley chicken fighting legal.

I'm not going to lie, it started as a fun thing to do on a boring and cold Saturday night after a snow storm, I was looking at weather underground map of stations around central park praying it would drop a few degrees and I'd make 4:1 on my bet. I learned a lot about weather stations in the next few weeks and it was cool looking the historical data from the Central Park weather station (I think the longest running in the US) and see how it added features and new reporting values over its long 100+ year life. It was a fun winter side quest.

I don't think this needs regulated if the people involved are responsible and having fun. No chickens died for sure, which is probably why these articles focus on the more serious bets where people are dying (and not weather).

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

#209

Post by pixl97 »

testaccount28 wrote: post #39
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."

Hence why we drastically reduced the number of wagers/addictive risk taking because of its cost on society.

The libertarians here will say "oh yay, we've won". Then a few years later they'll cry about your mom losing her house to a gambling scam with no recourse. Then they'll cry again when the voters finally rid themselves of the gambling scourge years later.

Post reply on HN