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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

#501

Post by kakadu »

joelthelion wrote: post #499

There is a class of prediction markets that are useful and seem immune to most of these problems : play money prediction markets. I've been enjoying them for years; I feel they provide a useful service to understand what is going on in the world, and they don't seem to provide the perverse incentives that we are seeing here. Oh, and they seem to work just as well.

> There is a class of prediction markets that are useful

No there is not.

That's as damaging a statement as "soft" drugs or "problem" gambling.

Statements usured by corporate PR to set up a fake middle ground and delegate responsibility to the consumer for any "bad" behaviour.

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

#502

Post by chias »

andrewflnr wrote: post #305

How much of this is fixed if a person is only able to bet token amounts on each outcome? Let's get crazy and make it $20. A few crazy people might run Sybil attacks but it'll be a lot more limited and obvious. Not that I'm opposed to consigning all these gambling apps back to the fiery depths from which they came, but if you do want to preserve the ability of healthy people to have a little bit of fun, limiting the b…

I'd bet that a significant majority of prediction market revenue comes from people who bet big.

So I expect your solution would fix all of it, as a second order effect, in that running one would stop being a viable business model.

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

#504

Post by dogcomplex »

joelthelion wrote: post #499

There is a class of prediction markets that are useful and seem immune to most of these problems : play money prediction markets. I've been enjoying them for years; I feel they provide a useful service to understand what is going on in the world, and they don't seem to provide the perverse incentives that we are seeing here. Oh, and they seem to work just as well.

Prediction markets are just fine IF they have some means of regulation against insider trading and perverse incentives. This phase is the same thing derivatives markets looked like before the 2008 crisis and Dodd-Frank, and several other waves before that of crisis and reform (Securities Act, Market Reform Act).

Every new financial medium gets its moment in the sun when all the crooks extract everything they can, before eventually market governance steps in. Crypto's been in scammer phase for a while. It needs decentralized governance to solve it this time though, since obviously classic governance is a dumpster fire and couldn't enforce anything on crypto even if it tried.

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

#505

Post by bronco21016 »

YZF wrote: post #490

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/court-idf-reser... This was just on the news: "A reservist suspected of using classified information to place bets on the Polymarket prediction site served as a major in the Israeli Air Force, a Tel Aviv Court reveals. The defendant was indicted alongside his alleged accomplice last month on severe security offenses, as well as bribery and obstruction of justice, after the…

I’d love to read about their Opsec failures. It seems like an offline conversation or Signal chat with disappearing messages could’ve saved these two. Any links to details on the case?

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

#506

Post by kqr »

joelthelion wrote: post #499

There is a class of prediction markets that are useful and seem immune to most of these problems : play money prediction markets. I've been enjoying them for years; I feel they provide a useful service to understand what is going on in the world, and they don't seem to provide the perverse incentives that we are seeing here. Oh, and they seem to work just as well.

Indeed. I also want to give a recommendation in favour of forecast aggregation platforms like Metaculus and GJOpen. Aggregating forecasts works well even without phrasing it as gambling, because you can still have users compete to be the most accurate.

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

#507

Post by jaza »

matt_daemon wrote: post #221
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…

Same in Australia and only recently (that is, in the last year) has there been any restrictions on showing gambling ads during live sports events. It’s difficult to compare how normalised it is here versus what the US is currently going through. As for sportspeople throwing games, well that’s been happening for as long as betting has been around as well, see countless examples from football (soccer) and cricket.

Yep. Gambling is Australia's version of America's gun problem. We've recently banned kids from social media, yet we're apparently unable to ban gambling ads from kids content. Every time the (various levels of) government here talk about even the tiniest new gambling related regulation, somehow - definitely totally without any brown paper bags whatsoever going into any back pockets - it doesn't seem to actually happen. Magic!

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

#508

Post by lurkshark »

andrewflnr wrote: post #305

How much of this is fixed if a person is only able to bet token amounts on each outcome? Let's get crazy and make it $20. A few crazy people might run Sybil attacks but it'll be a lot more limited and obvious. Not that I'm opposed to consigning all these gambling apps back to the fiery depths from which they came, but if you do want to preserve the ability of healthy people to have a little bit of fun, limiting the b…

Part of the argument of prediction markets is that it incentivizes good forecasting. Theoretically if you wanted to concoct a novel political polling technique or rent some compute for a new hyper local weather model, you could recoup your costs via the prediction market.

I think in practice the volume of sharp money in the prediction markets is a small fraction and the majority would be better served with the limits you’re proposing

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

#509

Post by N_Lens »

joelthelion wrote: post #499

There is a class of prediction markets that are useful and seem immune to most of these problems : play money prediction markets. I've been enjoying them for years; I feel they provide a useful service to understand what is going on in the world, and they don't seem to provide the perverse incentives that we are seeing here. Oh, and they seem to work just as well.

Do you have a recommendation for a service? I'd like to try it out.

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

#510

Post by Towaway69 »

Is there a site which implements the ideas behind the file Indecent Proposal[1]?

It would be a site where folks could start auctions based on stuff they want from other folks. So Bob wants Janes jumper. He goes onto the site, creates an auction with an initial offer of $5. Jane is informed that Bob wants to buy her jumper. She turns down the offer. Bob raises his offer to $10. She declines the offer. Then Cane joins the auction and makes an offer for $15. Jane refuses that too.

One see where this is going. The point is that Jane cannot shutdown the auction and anyone can make a bid. The trajectory is that Jane will reach a point where she is forced to make a moral choice (much like in the film). Everyone has their price, even Jane in this case.

It is easy enough to imagine what besides jumpers will be placed on the site. It is an highly immoral idea and something akin to cyber mobbing or AI fake porn. So does the site exist already? Asking for a friend.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indecent_Proposal

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