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Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

reuters.com

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Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#411

Post by tommica »

cortesoft wrote: post #263
mithras wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this one was the most interesting: ‘Hairdryer or lighter?’: French police look at claim of sensor tampering to win weather bets https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/23/hairdryer-or-l...

Oh man, I thought from the headline that it was going to be about a new prediction wager on the site about whether the manipulator had used a hair dryer or lighter. That would have been perfect.

Because the picture already shows it is a hair dryer, now the prediction market would be what make and model...

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#413

Post by selcuka »

svachalek wrote: post #270
charcircuit wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murder and arson are illegal. Just because there is an event contract that doesn't make them legal to do.

It's also illegal to pay someone to do murder or arson, which is easy to obfuscate as an "event contract".

Very true. Someone could place a huge bet for "person X will NOT be assassinated in the next 24 hours" and some lowlife could see the opportunity.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#414

Post by somenameforme »

freejazz wrote: post #389
WarmWash wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's the most effective tool we know of for surfacing the true odds of something (Which also includes the fact that insiders will place outsized bets to move the needle towards the truth.) An example would be the latest presidential election, where professional pollsters at them at almost 50/50, but the prediction markets had trump by a landslide. He went on to win even the popular vote. The benefit comes to…

>An example would be the latest presidential election, where professional pollsters at them at almost 50/50, but the prediction markets had trump by a landslide. He went on to win even the popular vote. Trump didn't win by a landslide and he barely won the popular vote... >The benefit comes to people who don't even participate, and just take notes. Praying someone has an example besides the election, to which it seem…

It's not supposed to make a difference but to provide information to people, which it does a great job of. Go browse Polymarket and the odds they lay on most of everything are about as close as one can get as to the "real" odds of that thing. They're essentially like a superhuman pollster. I'm a big fan of them but have not placed a single bet. It's simply that if you want to see what's happening in the world, a browse of their front page is way more informative than browsing a e.g. news website, especially in modern times.

As for the election, a Republican winning the popular vote by a couple million can't be called a landslide in nominal terms, but it is in terms of normal results. The DNC currently completely controls California and New York. After those 2 states alone Trump was down 7 million votes in 2020. The rest of the states tend to be either very small or relatively competitive. To make up the popular vote amongst them requires a very large edge. Polymarket had Trump as a 2:1 favorite the day before the election, and he would indeed go on to win every single swing state. The corporate media and their associated pollsters had Harris ahead.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#415

Post by napolux »

imglorp wrote: post #91
solenoid0937 wrote: post #7

These - especially Polymarket - should be illegal globally, as they incentivize people with power to manipulate the real world in horribly destructive ways to win a bet. I would not be surprised if people are murdered at some point to reap the payout of some related bet.

Very close already. Death threats went to this journalist; seems someone bet on missile hits. https://factkeepers.com/polymarket-gamblers-vow-to-kill-jour... It also incentivizes leaks from insiders, sometimes endangering others. A soldier was charged for betting on a military operation. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-soldier-charged-using-clas... And of course throwing pro sports, but that's been happening for ag…

lost good money on the Eupolus Scandal.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#416

Post by somenameforme »

FireBeyond wrote: post #234
somenameforme wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polymarket doesn't take a cut. Their profit comes in transaction fees.

"We don't take a cut of your bet, we just charge you a transaction fee on your bet" is reaching a bit.

My phrasing was poor, but they do so generally in a very good faith fashion. It's not just a wink wink rake type thing. For instance there are no fees at all on the most popular and high-volume markets - geopolitics and world events. And not only are there are no fees even on smaller markets for market 'makers' - people who put up an offer, but they provide a percentage of all fees collected from market 'takers' back to the makers, as a means of encouraging liquidity.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#419

Post by Tanoc »

RHSeeger wrote: post #390
sebastiennight wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This logic is how we ended up with TSA. "What do you mean, people used to just walk up to planes with their shoes on and a FULL 8-ounce water bottle in hand with barely any physical security?" It's easier to stop incentivizing people to ruin the commons, vs. trying to strengthen the commons against all possible adversarial behavior.

> It's easier to stop incentivizing people to ruin the commons It's impossible. No matter how good of a job you do, there will _always_ be people out to watch it all burn.

When underlying problems are left untreated the number of unreasonable responses increases as a symptom of that. For sure, you'll always have that tiny minority who are just misanthropes. But a lot of the people who end up causing destruction do so because there's some problem affecting them that's not being dealt with. The modern world incentivizes creating underlying problems because not only can you profit from the unreasonable responses, but you can sell protection against them as well. A large portion of the economy actually revolves around this as a consequence of the shift towards service rather than production.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#420

Post by tombert »

WarmWash wrote: post #53
solenoid0937 wrote: post #7

These - especially Polymarket - should be illegal globally, as they incentivize people with power to manipulate the real world in horribly destructive ways to win a bet. I would not be surprised if people are murdered at some point to reap the payout of some related bet.

> as they incentivize people with power to manipulate the real world I would argue that the ratio between "power" and "money to be won" is too big (at least right now) for this to materially matter. No fortune 500 CEO is going to postpone a product launch so they can win $5,000 on polymarket. But some random guy will get his hair dryer to win a socially meaningless weather bet. It's not discussed often, but the liqui…

Donald Trump made a fake school where he was telling single moms to max out their credit cards so that they could eventually take a photo in front of a cardboard cutout. This would be for like $5-10 grand

Single moms historically don't have tons of extra money, and Trump was ostensibly a billionaire.

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