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Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

theguardian.com

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Re: Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

#101

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

nunez wrote: post #43

Not a new phenomenon! It happened during the War on Iraq. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/02/weekinreview/you-can-bet-... People will bet on absolutely anything; gambling is as old as time itself. > Wagering was generally legal under British common law, so long as it did not to lead to immortality or impolity.13 Bets about the outcome of events in war, over the death of political leaders, over court cases, or between…

"Not a new phenomenon!"

True, but I cannot find anything in the article that suggests such betting is a "new" phenomenon

Often unclear to me what is the point behind the common "this is not new" HN reply when the submission makes no explicit or implicit claims that the subject matter is "new", or that being "new" is significant

IMHO, the "this is not new" replies need further elaboration to clarify the point being made

Re: Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

#102

Post by azan_ »

watwut wrote: post #100
azan_ wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting take for sure. However it appears that in real life nowadays most millionaires are self made. I was surprised when I found out about it too. Seems to contradict your thesis.

Musk and Trump got into goverment and are getting rid of everything not for them. While paying huge amounts of money to themselves.

Yeah, that’s definitely corrupt. Doesn’t contradict the fact that people are generally richer than ever nowadays and that capitalism enables that, I don’t mind ultra rich getting richer as long as everyone else is also getting richer.

Re: Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

#103

Post by azan_ »

ffsm8 wrote: post #48
azan_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain what do you mean? What's the plan and execution here? Planning and executing invasion? If so, there are much better markets than polymarket for making such bets.

I understood the argument like this: If there is a bet going that a war doesn't start, and you're able to start said war... Then everyone betting on the war not starting is effectively providing venture capital funds for you to start that war. So if eg. 20 mil is bet on it not starting, the actor holding the proverbial trigger only needs to "invest" sufficient funds to drain the bet and then capitalize on it by pulli…

There's not enough liquidity on polymarket for that. However there's enough liquidity on stock market and indeed it appears that there was a lot of insider trading around start of the war and ceasefire. Polymarket is really pennies when it comes to bets that can be also realized on the stock market.

Re: Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

#104

Post by jancsika »

miki123211 wrote: post #61
jancsika wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that necessarily true? E.g., suppose I'm grocery shopping online and get put in behavioral histogram bin #1. You're in bin #2 because of stuff like impulsive browsing habits and low battery. Your bin's price for chips is consequently x% more expensive than mine. Now, suppose both of us get separate uber rides from the same location. Similar data bins end up with your low battery generating y% higher price for your…

The truth is, price differentiation is something we've been doing for centuries , just with much worse heuristics. People are triggered when you frame it in terms of one cohort paying more than the rest. However, if there's a sticker price that basically nobody pays, with most customers getting a discount based on how rich the heuristics say they are, that's suddenly fine. Transit tickets work this way in most of Eur…

Stick to the steel man.

If our cash system deems dollars with certain serial numbers worth only $0.80 because they have history in the illicit drug trade, that cash is no longer fungible.

How is that functionally different than a system where a dollar of essential goods suddenly becomes $1.20 across most sellers for a particular consumer due to reliable inferences from an digital dossier inaccessible to the user?

In both cases, consumer confidence suffers. The biggest difference I see is that there's a rabid contingent who correctly yell, "Don't fucking mess with that!" with regard to currency fungibility, and a bunch of people saying, "It's complicated," with regard to surveillance capitalism.

Edit: again, to be clear-- I'm talking about individually tailored prices insidiously affecting large numbers of consumers in a consolidated industry for essential goods.

Edit 2: I know surveillance capitalism isn't the same thing as making currency be non-fungible. I'm looking for insight on what the difference is in terms of consumer confidence and other economic impacts.

Edit 3: clarification to narrow my question. If you can't tell yet, I'm earnestly looking for knowledge from someone who studies economics.

Re: Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

#105

Post by falcor84 »

Natfan wrote: post #98
falcor84 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely hasn't, but my argument would be in favor of making regular police forces be unarmed as well, like in the UK.

we have armed police, just not all police are armed

That's why I said "regular police". My understanding is that generally no one (including the police) is allowed to carry a gun in public unless someone already illegally introduced them into play. That's the world I want to live in.

Re: Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

#106

Post by ModernMech »

eru wrote: post #78
ModernMech wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the capitalists get enough control of the government they rig everything for themselves. In a capitalist system money is paramount and they have the most of it, so their opinion is regarded higher than everyone else's. Once capitalists rig the system for themselves, the only way to get ahead is just pure luck or connections. Sine not everyone can be connected, luck is all that's left for most people, so it becom…

When Bill Gates was the richest guy in the world, he still had to battle the authorities for ten years to import his sports car from Europe. I'd hardly call that controlling the government.

Again, like I said, the capitalism you knew and loved is dead. When Bill Gates became the richest man in the world he had like $10 billion dollars. Today we are talking about trillionares now. As today's elites aspire to be able to own 1995 Bill Gates 100 times over, so yeah apparently he didn't have enough power back then.

Can you entertain the idea that someone several orders of magnitude more powerful than 1995 Bill Gates might have more effective control over the government?

Re: Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

#107

Post by ModernMech »

azan_ wrote: post #91
ModernMech wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the capitalists get enough control of the government they rig everything for themselves. In a capitalist system money is paramount and they have the most of it, so their opinion is regarded higher than everyone else's. Once capitalists rig the system for themselves, the only way to get ahead is just pure luck or connections. Sine not everyone can be connected, luck is all that's left for most people, so it becom…

It’s interesting take for sure. However it appears that in real life nowadays most millionaires are self made. I was surprised when I found out about it too. Seems to contradict your thesis.

What do millionaires have to do with anything I said?

Re: Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

#108

Post by ModernMech »

pigpop wrote: post #56
ModernMech wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look around you, the economy is aligning itself entirely around gambling. From bitcoin to nfts to the stock market to AI to art to dating apps to social media feeds to video games to venture capital to literal gambling apps infesting our phones ads sports. And finally we have actual members of the government gambling on policy. The capitalism you grew up with is dead, the arguments for and against it are old and stal…

Those are diseases of morality, not capitalism. Someone who lights a warehouse on fire because they aren't paid enough is an immoral person. In a communist country they would be called a Wrecker and they'd face a firing squad for their actions. Gambling, likewise, is a moral problem. It should be illegal or highly restricted and often was. Many other problems we face now could be fixed simply by reinstating laws that…

You and I probably have very different ideas about what is moral and what is not. For me, the highest moral crime is greed. A lot of people seem fine with it today. So for you to claim that the fire happened because of the poor moral character of the person who lit the fire, I can just as easily say this happened because of the poor moral character of the people who didn't pay him a fair wage, which leaves us nowhere.

That's why I focus on purely systemic arguments. The humans in the system are abstract. It doesn't matter if they are moral or not, they respond to systemic incentives. So if they're acting immorally according to you, why is the system incentivizing degenerate behavior instead of moral behavior?

Re: Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

#109

Post by everybodyknows »

bendtb wrote: post #44
Throaway199999 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly the profits aren't big enough when you can just go into business if you have that kind of influence

I would also argue that for a bet on war involving the United States, Middle East, Russia or China oil products are a better bet - and it is the world's second most liquid market after forex markets.

> liquid market

USO -- net assets over $2B, tradable by anyone with a brokerage account:

https://www.uscfinvestments.com/uso

Re: Polymarket gamblers betting millions on war

#110

Post by Tade0 »

hoppyhoppy2 wrote: post #36
srameshc wrote: post #3

> There is now more than $500,000 (£371,000) staked on whether Russia will capture Kostyantynivka this year . Now everyone has a chance to profit from war ! Thank you Polymarket

Are users able to bet specifically on whether prisoners of war in Kostyantynivka will be killed? Or whether women and children will be raped? That kind of fine-grained war market could be groundbreaking

First result when I put in "polymarket assassination" reads:

"Explore 102 live Assassin prediction markets as of April 6, 2026. Track real-time odds and trade on The World's Largest Prediction Market™"

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