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

'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

telegraph.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 270 posts

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#101

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

palmotea wrote: post #58
alaudet wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the genie is out of the bottle, even if you try to regulate it away it pops up in offshore jurisdictions and uses crypto. The ease with which polymarket can be manipulated is infinite because there are so many different random things you can bet on. It's a sign of our times and I don't think there is much that can be done about it by anyone.

> It's a sign of our times and I don't think there is much that can be done about it by anyone. Isn't cryptocurrency (for the most part) very traceable? If you make it too hard and risky for most people to participate in, you'll limit the negative effects. You could probably quite effectively discourage it by sanctioning any transactions with one of these markets, you've got some opportunity because at some point the…

> Isn't cryptocurrency (for the most part) very traceable

Mostly no. If you're connected it to a banking account, or other KYC platform, maybe, but the folks capable of doing that are part of the same administration supposedly doing the manipulation, so they would not investigate themselves.

Indeed, they are actually fighting against those trying to regulate it [0]

Indeed, the president's son works for Polymarket, and has invested in it [1]

0 –https://www.npr.org/2026/04/02/nx-s1-5771635/trump-cftc-kals...

1 – https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025/08/polymarke...

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#102

Post by jerf »

The libertarian argument for prediction markets is really beautiful.

It's just a pity it basically depends on all participants in the prediction market being basically unaware that they are participating in a prediction market, and being oblivious to the incentives to create the outcomes they are predicting by the very act of predicting it with money.

But other than that minor detail, that little minor catastrophic flaw in the foundation, it's a beautiful argument.

I think we can call it as a society. It's a failure. We can go back to banning them, not just for moral reasons, but just pragmatic ones. The theory doesn't work. The supposed benefits don't manifest, and "unanticipated" costs to everyone do. We did the experiment. (Again.) We can close this out now.

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#103

Post by dlenski »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #90
dlenski wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just wait until they start killing people to win bets. Quite likely it has already happened. There's been an enormous amount of betting on various military strikes by the Trump administration, much of which looks like insider trading. Almost certainly there have been insiders with money on the line who were financially motivated to launch lethal attacks, which they might have otherwise paused or delayed.

Why almost certainly? It's much more effective to make the decision first and the bet second.

> It's much more effective to make the decision first and the bet second.

What did I say that contradicts this?

> Why almost certainly?

Because I haven't seen any clear reporting with evidence documented down to the level of individual decision-making.

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#104

Post by clifdweller »

echelon wrote: post #34
ambicapter wrote: post #9

> There are no indications so far that the successful punters have had to return their winnings. However, the data source for Paris’s hottest temperature has since moved to a sensor at the smaller Paris-Le Bourget airport. Here's the negative externality that no one will care about. There's no reason gamblers won't repeat this stunt, until us poor schmucks who just want an accurate temperature reading have to build a…

Just wait until they start killing people to win bets. It's going to happen. It'll happy by proxy too. When they figure 90% of Tesla's or SpaceX's valuation is tied to Elon, suddenly he becomes your mark.

That has proven not to be the case with sports betting. Otherwise every major league pitcher would be needing armed guards to stop all the people with pipes trying to disable them. Seems there is at least some morality to not harm people but no issue in harming temperature sensors so where is the split line? Some really annoying ones like trains being on time can impact thousands yet i could see someone stepping out on tracks to make a train break to delay it to win a bet

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#105

Post by filoleg »

coryrc wrote: post #32
logicchains wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'll steelman it: previously there was no monetary gain to be made by messing with weather sensors. A market like this creates one, creating an externality on owners of weather sensors, on enforcers and courts to investigate and prosecute novel crimes. Administration of taxes on such markets to compensate all the disparate factions harmed by the externalities exceeds the amount which could be collected, so banning is…

> A market like this creates one, creating an externality on owners of weather sensors, on enforcers and courts to investigate and prosecute

I am only half-joking, but this gave me an idea for how to finally get the local courts+LEO near me to get off their asses and actually do some law enforcement and prosecuting - I just gotta create prediction markets on the crimes occuring in public in my neighborhood.

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#107

Post by dzdt »

This is small potatoes compared to the rain gauge tampering farmers were doing in Colorado. There was a recent conviction for $6.5 million dollars of fraud against the federal crop insurance program!

https://www.justice.gov/usao-co/pr/two-southeastern-colorado...

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#108

Post by jgeada »

Analemma_ wrote: post #92
j-bos wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why are they only using one sensor?

Why didn't you put two locks on your door? Clearly you deserved to get burgled if you only used one. Building Byzantine fault tolerance into absolutely everything is expensive, and makes everything we do and buy more expensive. It would be better and cheaper to rely on social trust, if that's possible-- and it was possible before these gambling sites. Prediction markets are burning social trust as fuel to make profit…

Prediction markets and all the market manipulation are the symptom, not the cause. Our society used to have real consequences for breaching public trust, but with our mere decades old "money is speech" legal system, there have not been any consequences for moneyed interest in quite a while. And as long as there are no consequences, they keep trying more and more egregious violations of public trust to establish where the new red line (if any) actually are.

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#109

Post by e28eta »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #90
dlenski wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just wait until they start killing people to win bets. Quite likely it has already happened. There's been an enormous amount of betting on various military strikes by the Trump administration, much of which looks like insider trading. Almost certainly there have been insiders with money on the line who were financially motivated to launch lethal attacks, which they might have otherwise paused or delayed.

Why almost certainly? It's much more effective to make the decision first and the bet second.

Sure, but then what if in the several hours before the decision is executed, new information comes in?

Your decision maker is now going to make decisions differently than they would if they hadn’t made the bet, due to the financial incentive. It hopefully won’t be blatant, but they’re going to be more committed to the original decision.

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#110

Post by Petersipoi »

lostlogin wrote: post #56
w-m wrote: post #5

John Oliver had a segment on prediction markets this week. It covers insider training and opportunities for blatant manipulation like this, well worth checking out. The example in the Last Week Tonight segment was betting on dildos being thrown on court during a WNBA match. And then travelling to the match to throw the dildo. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN4njIQcSR4

The WNBA bit was less alarming than the betting on various aspects of the US + Israel versus Iran war. All gross.

Why is the WNBA alarming at all (other than the fact that we shouldn't be throwing dildos on the court at all, of course)?

I'm just not sure why anyone would take a bet against someone who can single handedly make their side win. It would be like someone making a bet that I won't eat a hot dog for lunch tomorrow. Of course I'm going to eat a hot dog for lunch tomorrow. Why is there anything alarming about that? It's just stupid that anyone is taking the other side of that bet.

Post reply on HN