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Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

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Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#231
post #12

I finally gave in to my curiosity and downloaded Kalshi last week to place a few bets on the World Cup. I was blown away how easy it was. I placed a bet with real money within 5 minutes of downloading the app. They allow instant deposits with credit card, and ID verification was real time. I can’t imagine that the extreme accessibility and the typical dark patterns deployed by every popular app won’t eventually end b…

> They allow instant deposits with credit card

This is my biggest takeaway, and I really wonder what payment processor(s) they're using, because the chargeback and fraud rate in filling 'real money' into an online gambling account using visa or mastercard must be through the roof.

Exactly same reason why porn sites use their own specialist payment processors (alluded to in popular fiction in Industry season 4 recently, for instance).

The back end of how they're able to get money "instantly" into peoples accounts must be fascinating, in a how the sausages are made kind of way.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#232
post #96
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predictions markets are more regulated than sports betting, because the events being predicted are wider, so they will naturally touch on a whole lot more regulation. For example, can someone place a bet on an event that X person will be shot? That question now touches on a whole range of laws regarding murder, life insurance, incitation to violence, free speech? That you just don't touch at all in sports betting.

I read your statement and my reaction is what you describe is less regulated than sports betting. For example, in sports betting there are laws by major leagues that players can not bet on games they are in. On prediction markets, if someone has insider knowledge, or can control whatever verification source is set for a bet, they can win (I believe there was an article posted earlier about some journalist reporting o…

My main proposition was that prediction markets include sports betting as well as a bunch of other things, and they are therefore more regulated.

Did some research, and Kalshi (US based) is regulated by the CFTC, so they are already regulated by the same stuff that regulates securities, including price manipulation.

The subject of insider information is different because these are not public securities, there's no fiduciary responsibility. But it's not that there are no regulations, it's just that that specific regulation that we associate with the 2008 crisis just doesn't apply. But that doesn't mean there's no regulation, there's heaps, feel free to check out the CFTC website.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#233
post #12

I finally gave in to my curiosity and downloaded Kalshi last week to place a few bets on the World Cup. I was blown away how easy it was. I placed a bet with real money within 5 minutes of downloading the app. They allow instant deposits with credit card, and ID verification was real time. I can’t imagine that the extreme accessibility and the typical dark patterns deployed by every popular app won’t eventually end b…

Surely credit card has a terrible fee attached no? Just based on other services

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#235
post #92
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predictions markets are more regulated than sports betting, because the events being predicted are wider, so they will naturally touch on a whole lot more regulation. For example, can someone place a bet on an event that X person will be shot? That question now touches on a whole range of laws regarding murder, life insurance, incitation to violence, free speech? That you just don't touch at all in sports betting.

So where are those regulations?

I'm not a lawyer, and I originally made a claim about sportsbetting covering a a subset of prediction markets, so just being covered for more laws that are not necessarily related to bets.

But I made some research, and here's the main body that specifically targets 'regulation' regulations for prediction markets https://www.cftc.gov/LawRegulation/index.htm

I can see the argument that they are piggybacking off a body of regulations that wasn't designed for this. I'm not an attorney, so I don't know if that holds, but even if it does, it's undeniable that there are enough parallels between commodity futures and prediction markets and that's why it's being used to regulate so far.

If you argue for more or more specific regulation, it's probably going to be a fork, not regulation from scratch.

And as mentioned in other comments, there's existing laws around the subject of bets themselves that mean that there already exist loads of regulations around these subjects, in the end they are just contracts, which is one of the main branches of law and has a huge body of law and jurisprudence, so either it's inaccurate to say they are unregulated, or it regulation means something much more specific that I'm unaware of.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#236

Every ad is staged like this. The whole point is to make as good of an ad for the product as possible. Do you think in a food commercial the people eating the product are showing their genuine emotion? It's all acting.

OK but you know that you're seeing an ad. These are ads that are pretending to be users just posting their experiences.

Creators are supposed to make it clear that it is add. Usually they add a #ad to their post. But many creators don't understand the rules and don't correctly mark their post as being sponsored.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#237
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pretend they are "market" and not gambling to avoid regulations.

It is not pretend, it is technically correct (the best kind of correct). Redefining what gambling is, is a different problem.

It is not technically correct. It is just manipulative. It is gambling in its pure sense and meaning.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#239
post #12

I finally gave in to my curiosity and downloaded Kalshi last week to place a few bets on the World Cup. I was blown away how easy it was. I placed a bet with real money within 5 minutes of downloading the app. They allow instant deposits with credit card, and ID verification was real time. I can’t imagine that the extreme accessibility and the typical dark patterns deployed by every popular app won’t eventually end b…

> It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So.

My worry is that social media surveillance could be combined with Polymarket to tailor bets to individuals.

This could be very subtle. You don't really need your punters to always be wrong either. Meaning that sometimes they'd win at the expense of other punters with the illusion they can make money.

You just need them to be wrong, say, 15% of the time and to keep coming back compulsively and consistently over time. The longer the better.

If you're ever around fruit/slot machines you'll notice that they do payout and when they do they make a lot of noise. That hides the fact they slowly cream off a percentage of the money that goes in. In the UK the legal limit is around 30%, keeping it low for new gamblers and ramping up when they're hooked.

With detailed information about punter's lives and no regulation you can weaponise that.

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