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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

#391
post #140
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were just the one comment I wouldn't have said anything; the issue is the pattern (note the word "repeatedly").

You haven’t said anything, or at least I haven’t seen it. There’s no inbox here and I don’t always read old comments. If you have pointed it out before I don’t care, I haven’t seen it. If you want to point something out, then maybe email me about it the just time you see it, otherwise I’m not trolling through my old threads that often so you’ll have to accept that this is the first I’ve seen you ask. I’m respect your…

These are the previous moderation replies, and you certainly saw some of them, since you responded. Interestingly, sometimes your responses were positive and sometimes rather hostile (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43877994). But we're not asking you anything different than we ask of others here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43875947 (May 2025)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36265350 (June 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36062502 (May 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35449790 (April 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32190475 (July 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32146436 (July 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29857469 (Jan 2022)

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

#392
post #139
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly, and we've had to ask you many times not to. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. (p.s. Just to pre-empt the usual: no, this i…

There’s no flame bait here just some swearing and rough language. I’ll cut back because you asked (once, I’ve not seen your responses other than this one), but I don’t think I’m out of line. Also if people were downvoting my comments it’d be different but it’s just you for a frw recent ones down modding then, because before you get here they were up or even. Moderators should focus on those truly displaying bad behav…

I appreciate the expression of feeling here! I know it sucks to get upbraided by moderators (and we don't enjoy it either). But it's definitely not personal. The moderation response would have been the same regardless of user, since we're not focused on usernames to begin with.

What attracts our attention are, in this order: (1) a post that breaks the site guidelines; (2) the other comments by that account; (3) whether we've posted moderation replies to that account before. It's true that that the username is what links (1), (2), and (3), but what we're paying attention to is mostly the content.

I think one factor here may be the tendency, which we all have, to underestimate the provocation in your own statements and overestimate it in others [1]. Those two distortions compound into quite a skew [2], and makes it easy to feel like one is being singled out or treated unfairly [3].

Beyond that, when you run across other posts breaking the site guidelines and going unmoderated, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that the moderators are biased or secretly agreeing with those other posts. But this is a mistake. Overwhelmingly the reason for this is simply that we didn't see those other posts. We can't moderate what we don't see, and we don't come close to seeing everything on HN (or even 10% of it) - there is way too much. [4]

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

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

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well my assumption that gamblers will do something stupid is not that far flung. And regarding your comment about investment literacy yes I agree with you but just to be clear we are discussing gambling and not investing.

> just to be clear we are discussing gambling and not investing Where's the demarcation? The whole point of this sub-thread was "you absolutely can predict the outcome of some of these markets". If you do your due dilligence/leverage your domain knowledge to buy a thing you expect to pay dividends at a later date, how is that not investing? Are government bonds gambling in your thinking? Your prior about people actin…

Are you seriously trying to make a comparison between government bonds and prediction markets? What is wrong with you?

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

#394
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loan sharks that use threats still exist, non-bank personal lending funds use cold calling and connections with bankers and use non-staff third party callers to distance themselves from the consequences and reputation of threatening with violence. So it's not like people need to go to shady lenders in the first place, they can be pipelined from normal credit card debt into less scrupulous debt collectors. https://www…

Does cold calling still works? I get so many spam calls that unknown numbers just go directly to voicemail that I check every other week or so. Pretty much everyone around me does the same. I do not remember when I got last legitimate call - it's all spam now. The link you have is about business debt - that's likely much more collectable than CC debt.

The general rule is that if you see an attack/ad, it's because someone is falling for it.

Attacks have costs, no matter how marginal, and if someone is paying that, they are probably funding it with the victim payouts.

Very rarely will attacks be funded on hopes, and if that happens, it's not for long until they run out of funds and energy.

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

#395
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the chargeback and fraud rate actually is in practice given they do ID verification. Pretty difficult to claim you didn't make the purchase depending on what they collect.

Having verified somebody's government ID doesn't actually factor into chargeback decisions and outcomes, not least because many forms of online KYC practiced today in the US are pretty laughable from a security point of view.

True, but for merchants that ship high fraud risk physical merchandise, it's becoming increasingly common to ask for a copy of a drivers license or other government issued photo ID (from a recognized US state or Canadian province, in the North American market) before a product gets shipped. I've seen this from a number of persons adjacent to a completely different forum who frequently buy things online like rifle scopes, spotting scopes, rangefinders, camera lenses, etc.

Getting a copy of the ID, only shipping to card billing address, using a signature on delivery required shipping option considerably cuts down on the number of fraudulent orders.

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

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly do you think the price is set at 65 cents, if not by the other market participants? When you win, who do you think is paying you out from the other side of the bet? When you lose, who do you think your money goes to?

Not only did you miss the point of the conversation entirely, you're attacking a point I explicitly addressed in my comment. I well understand how the system works, ggps comment had me confused about their perspective.

I didn’t miss the point at all. Once you’re in, unless you want to sell your stake, you’re in. But the entire point is that at the time of your bet, you’re taking a position that’s inherently disadvantaged. If there was any more EV to be gained, people with more money than you would have exhausted it. So without insider information, you’re flipping a coin but the house takes a cut.

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

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>" can someone place a bet on an event that X person will be shot? " > Couldn’t someone place a bet on a sporting event and then murder a key player? I don't follow, these are separate hypotheticals. For the record the answers would be: 1a) Can? Yes 1b) Legal? No, listing itself against public policy. 2a) Can? Yes 2b) Legal? No, murder is illegal 2c) Wager profits retained? No, slayer rule/No profit theory.

Re: 1b “public policy” is not law, so no it’s not “illegal” just against the betting site rules. Easily skirted by making the bet not directly about death, e.g. https://polymarket.com/event/trump-out-as-president-before-2... Re: 2c also applies to scenario 1, if you get caught you can’t retain the money. So, to your point about which is more regulated - there is no difference in the amount of regulation between the t…

>Re: 1b “public policy” is not law, so no it’s not “illegal” just against the betting site rules

Not a lawyer, but jurisprudence (case law) is law, especially in Common Law jurisdictions like the US it has even more weight than actually codified law (unlike for example napoleonic Civil Law like in Argentina or France).

"Restatement (Second) of Contracts" (1989), Chapter 8, has a pretty extensive list of restatement and examples of case law of contract nullity by being against public policy.

Additionally, it's even a more basic rule that contracts are void ab initio if they are about breaking a law, I can see how it might be argued that a contract about a murder is not about breaking the law, but it's debatable and probably fact dependent.

There's also probably statutes or UCC that explicitly state such rules, but that's secondary.

>Easily skirted by making the bet not directly about death, e.g. https://polymarket.com/event/trump-out-as-president-before-2...

Worth noting that polymarket is not in US Jurisdiction, so no, it's not regulated. Kalshi is in US jurisdiction and is regulated by US laws.

There was a case that reached some appeal court about election bet in Kalshi, and Kalshi won, you may agree or disagree, but it is under regulation.

>Re: 2c also applies to scenario 1, if you get caught you can’t retain the money.

Not necessarily, because both parties would be at fault in scenario 1. In scenario 2, the law would not declare the contract void, but award the payment to the non murdering party. In case 1 the whole contract is void, and the court will probably not get involved in any action whether forcing award of monies, nor forcing a party to return money, letting "the loss lies where it falls", in pari delicto.

>So, to your point about which is more regulated - there is no difference in the amount of regulation between the two scenarios.

It was a very basic mathematical claim, prediction markets include sports bets, so therefore they touch more regulations. The regulations the prediction markets touch is huge, as it can be about anything really, it must follow the regulations of almost every branch of contract law.

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

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see sins. Politicians see sin taxes, political will to spin up regulatory beurocracies, etc, etc.

> You see sins. I can't speak for mastermage, but I don't see sins. I see addictions , and vultures preying on them and actively profiting from exploiting their self-destruction.

you can speak for me in this case because this is predatory as fuck. And instead of protecting the vulnerable they profiteer of of it.

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

#400
post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made that claim up. There was a study of Some 22 million people around the world being dependent on marijuana. You are severely overestimating US addicted people. What about this: that policy was huge success, because unlike gambling, weed is fairly harmless.

https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-cannabis-alcohol-use-di... Close to 18 million in 2022, not exactly 20 million.

And the disaster part is where exactly? Their or their close ones lives being negatively impacted are where exactly? The original claim was "addicted" and "disaster".

The world has 22 million of people who are addicted and their lives are negatively impacted. The logical implication here is that these people are not negatively impacted.

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