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

derekthompson.org

321–330 of 741 posts

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

#321
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There are no fees on Polymarket. Not sure about others.

Depends on the event:

https://docs.polymarket.com/trading/fees

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

#322
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There are no fees on Polymarket. Not sure about others.

> There are no fees on Polymarket

"Currently, small fees apply to Crypto and Sports markets.

Starting March 30, 2026, this will expand to include other categories like Finance, Politics, Economics, Culture, Weather, and Tech" [1].

More critically, Polymarket doesn't pay interest on deposits. (Kalshi does.)

[1] https://help.polymarket.com/en/articles/13364478-trading-fee...

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

#323
post #150
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%.

In that case you limit your upside as well as an insider, and have to deal with liquidity and slippage coming and going.

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

#324

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…

So you want them to keep working on those products?

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

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still reeling from the fact that the sitting president pumped some meme coin the day (iirc) he took office. And this largely passed by without any consequence, reckoning, or repercussions. It's just accepted now that even the highest office will scam their own supporters

The US government and private interests are clearly incentivized to keep the crypto industry subdued to a chaotic casino. Participants engage willingly. If crypto is legitimized, it threatens the US dollar, sanctions regime and the US’s ability to project power as the world leading reserve currency. The president and any other shitcoin operator know this and are playing the game on the field. Every country has the sa…

That's a fair point. But I'm not talking about the legitimacy (or not) of crypto. More that the president was (is?) running a pump and dump scheme. It should be profoundly embarrassing to supporters and it should be political suicide for the scammer. But it barely registered.

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

#326
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There are no fees on Polymarket. Not sure about others.

There is a fee implicit in the market spread. It's formed out of the time value of money w.r.t. the cost of NOT trading as well as the adverse selection faced by those with standing offers.

Increased insider trading will increase spreads.

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

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still reeling from the fact that the sitting president pumped some meme coin the day (iirc) he took office. And this largely passed by without any consequence, reckoning, or repercussions. It's just accepted now that even the highest office will scam their own supporters

The US government and private interests are clearly incentivized to keep the crypto industry subdued to a chaotic casino. Participants engage willingly. If crypto is legitimized, it threatens the US dollar, sanctions regime and the US’s ability to project power as the world leading reserve currency. The president and any other shitcoin operator know this and are playing the game on the field. Every country has the sa…

It was extremely obviously not some intentional 500 IQ plot to keep crypto illegitimate...

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

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I made a platform like that, I'd be RICO'd after the FBI kicked down my door and confiscated everything I own. If I had the connections Polymarket does, well, then we can just place bets on when people will die, everything will work out just fine and the President will invest in me.

If you don't mind not having US customers, it's easy enough to get an online gambling license in a few jurisdictions, maybe $20-50k all in (Nevis and Anjouan are a couple of the more notable ones), at which point you can serve a large portion of the world. This was basically the scenario polymarket was in for awhile until they started making inroads into US regulatory apparatus.

Wasn't there a crypto betting platform that was operating outside of the US, blocked US traffic and the US still went after them?

I don't remember any specifics, or if I'm remembering anything right at all, but I feel like I read something about that.

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

#329
post #84

'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.

Especially when the "prediction" part isn't even part of the product, it is an accidental byproduct. No one pays for access to the predictions. And they aren't predictions, they are more like "outcome-shaping" markets, since the more liquidity that gets dumped on a particular outcome, the more motivation there is to tamper with the real-world outcome, and at a certain point it will just always happen if it is billion…

> the more liquidity that gets dumped on a particular outcome, the more motivation there is to tamper with the real-world outcome

This only works if there are enough people betting on the other side. It's not some kind of magical money multiplication machine. As more stuff like the one-day Iran bet or the 64:56 minute press conference happen, people will avoid taking bets on highly specific outcomes.

On more reasonable bets like "war with Iran in the next 6 months", if there is some kind of shadowy cabal putting billions of dollars on the yes side, they just aren't going to have much upside if there isn't the same amount on the no side.

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

#330
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

some people like gambling. for them, risking money is an efficient way to purchase a thrill. do we not care about them?
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