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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

#361

Post by cortesoft »

bko wrote: post #42
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.

I prefer prediction markets to gambling because the platform isn't the bookmaker. This reduces the adverse selection of players. For instance, if you actually win regularly on these platforms they'll actually ban you, much like a casino. My understanding of prediction markets is that it's pure market making which is preferable

Except there is still adverse selection, just like there is in the stock market. People who have inside information are going to bet more, and you will take the other side of that bet not realizing that has happened.

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

#362

Post by TheCowboy »

krick wrote: post #291

All this fearmongering about decision markets lately is really annoying. If you don't like gambling — just don't gamble and shut the fuck up. It's not for you to decide if gambling is good or bad for me. If I am stupid enough to bet anything on an outcome that clearly depends on a person who could, potentially, be betting as well — it's my problem, not yours.

I've been active and profitably trading in prediction markets for a long time now, but I think this perspective is also not helpful.

Prediction markets exist within the laws and institutions of society to be able to function, and the public should debate and discuss how they're regulated. Problem gamblers do present a negative externality where third parties can bear the cost, especially when they have dependents.

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

#363

Post by Yizahi »

taurath wrote: post #94

The entire country seems built on taking advantage of people, from my vantage point right now. Whether it’s attention, drugs, or business/legal leverage, everyone is out for advantage and they’re not even pretending to care about people they affect.

This sounds like everyone is not perfect therefore no one should be singled out as a bad guy, everyone is equally shady. Which is objectively not true. Even the shit IT practices like stealing private information or stealing copyrighted property can be "rationalized" to benefit better targeted advertisement or better LLM generators and so on. Gambling on the other hand is pure 100% social damage with zero redeeming qualities. Even drugs have some positive aspects to them, unlike gambling.

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

#364

Post by goodmythical »

WickyNilliams wrote: post #325
isubkhankulov wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I feel like you missed the suggestions that the move (the shiiling and scamming) may have surved or been subborinate to an ulterior motive.

By taking relatively low risk public position (from the guy making wildly innapropriate comments and taking wildly irresponsible actions seemingly daily) they are able to effectively spread FUD with regard to crypto. And that could have been motivated by a perceived threat by crypto against USD and/or fiat in general.

Like...this dude took food from genuinely starving people because there was some abuse in the system and had no plans whatever to restore the food to the starving.

Scamming people that are typically seen (by his constituency) as elitist tech-mongers and coin-bros? How's that supposed to negatively impact his ratings anyay? At worst it confirms pre-existing favor both for and against him.

People who hate him for the coin shilling already hated him and were not likely to ever be convinced in his favor, people who fanaticize him will see it as stated above and will also not change their opinions in anything but degree.

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

#365

Post by echelon »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #129
jerf wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this scenario, that would be the people paying for the assassination. The people who want it to happen bet that it won't. The people who want to do it bet that it will. The net result is that if one of the people who bet on it happening makes it happen, they are being paid by the people betting against it, in a plausibly deniable way. A country leader seeing someone suddenly take out a $50 million position on them…

I'm not sure there's any deniability in placing the "won't be assassinated" bet, when you could equally state it as "I will pay $1M to whoever accepts this bet and assassinated this person" Anyways, how exactly is this assassin going to collect on their bet? I'm pretty sure law enforcement will be looking into the fact that somebody place that bet and then shortly after, the assassination happened.

This could make for fun anti-life insurance.

"I bet I won't die this year."

The only life insurance you get to collect on while you're alive.

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

#366

Post by shimman »

firloop wrote: post #277

> And now here come the prediction markets, such as Polymarket and Kalshi, whose combined 2025 revenue came in around $50 billion. Bizarre to call trading volume "revenue". Last year, trading fees for Kalshi amounted to about $263 million[0], whereas Polymarket largely did not have fees in 2025 and is turning them on in a few days[1]. [0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kalshi-fee-revenue-2025-263-1... [1]: https://g…

It's DT, don't expect honesty from his posts (unless he is bashing unions or workers, he's very honest about that).

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

#367

Post by TheCowboy »

thejohnconway wrote: post #334
krick wrote: post #291

All this fearmongering about decision markets lately is really annoying. If you don't like gambling — just don't gamble and shut the fuck up. It's not for you to decide if gambling is good or bad for me. If I am stupid enough to bet anything on an outcome that clearly depends on a person who could, potentially, be betting as well — it's my problem, not yours.

That’s not what people are worried about, it’s the rigging of real world events (including wars!) that has people worried.

It's also a bit overblown. If you could rig a war, you would stand to make a lot more money playing the stock market than small potatoes prediction markets. A lot of money has been on the line based on which party wins elections even before prediction markets existed (see fracking or pipeline project approval as obvious examples).

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

#368

Post by Yizahi »

WickyNilliams wrote: post #304
taurath wrote: post #94

The entire country seems built on taking advantage of people, from my vantage point right now. Whether it’s attention, drugs, or business/legal leverage, everyone is out for advantage and they’re not even pretending to care about people they affect.

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

Forget pumping. He set free a high profile white collar criminal, who in return deposited 2 billion real dollars into Trump shitcoin exchange. And NO ONE bat the eye, not a single congressman or regulator body. Check and balances, my ass. More like cheeks and obeisances.

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

#369

Post by LeifCarrotson »

Rapzid wrote: post #245
jjcm wrote: post #131

These prediction markets shouldn't be allowed for situations where humans can control the outcome. They do have their place however - one I find particularly interesting is weather prediction markets, primary because they end up having a net benefit. Hundreds are creating their own weather prediction models and are duking it out. Over time these models get better, and the rest of us benefit. I think these markets cou…

Who is to say if it rained or not? Well now they are a target. A NY Times reporter was the target of a pressure and threat campaign to change their reporting over whether a rocket in the middle east was intercepted or not before it hit the ground. Prediction markets are not going to end well full stop IMHO.

That was a Times of Israel reporter Emanuel Fabian [1] but your point stands.

Prediction markets create incentives to predict the outcome of an event, which can be done in one of three ways: develop better models to predict the event, affect the event, or affect the reporting on the event.

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/gamblers-trying-to-win-a-bet-o...

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

#370

Post by mcmcmc »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #204
mcmcmc wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People who aren’t sociopaths might argue no one should be taking advantage of this, and that the people behind these services should be in prison
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