How Kalshi Infects the News • Hacker News Board

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#111

Post by giantrobot » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #96

nradov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That perception bears almost no relation to reality. The most reliable path to building a modicum of wealth has remained the same for generations: start a small business in some boring field and work your ass off for 80 hrs/wk. Building wealth through real estate is also still totally possible outside of the HCOL metro areas. Try unfashionable areas like Cleveland or Oklahoma City. And let's not have any low-effort c…

Just start a small business, or build wealth through real estate is a take that indicates some severe divorce from the reality of poverty in America. You need both capital (which folks don’t have access to) and the ability to absorb risk (which folks don’t have access to). Similar advice is in the vein of just stay with your parents for free, have a relative invest $50,000 in your business to start it up. This runs c…

I don't know what you mean, I mean I made a million dollars with only a small hundred million dollar loan from my dad! This sort of entrepreneurship is available to anyone in America.¹

¹ Terms and conditions apply.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#112

Post by nlarew » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

game_the0ry wrote: post #63

Did anyone else think it was strange how fast legitimate news orgs (cnn for example) integrated prediction markets into their businesses?

Not really? It's an interesting proxy for public opinion that requires zero investment from the news org. They don't have to pay a polling agency or wait for someone else to.

Of course that suffers some likely substantial bias from oversampling a specific domain/sub-population

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#113

Post by y-c-o-m-b » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #67

Over the last 2+ decades gambling has increased massively. By "gambling" I include sports betting, prediction markets, online casinos and crypto (including NFTs). Yes, I'm including crypto under gambling. When ordinary people buy crypto it's mostly because they saw the stratospheric rise of Bitcoin, don't really understand why and don't want to miss out on the next Bitcoin.. Straight up. That's gambling. But why? Eas…

> The thesis is that as people become increasingly desperate to have enough money (and espeically if they fall below that level) then gambling increases because people see this as the only way they can get ahead

I have plenty of cash (let's just say over a half-mil), so well ahead of the poverty level. I find myself nearly falling into this trap often. I used to work in FAANG as a developer making big bucks and earning far more than I spend. I left FAANG a couple of years ago and now I feel like I'm just breaking even with the lower salary. Quality of life has improved, but I miss having that "cushion" in each paycheck, so I look to things like the stock market to determine if I can get ahead again somehow. The fact that the tech market is absolute trash right now makes me fear for my future which in turn drives this "gotta find a way to get ahead" line of thinking even more aggressively. It's definitely not just impacting the poor.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#114

Post by Terr_ » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #74

xg15 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find almost as depressing is evidently the concerted push to normalize this practice. We were all shocked by Polymarket, but meanwhile others just saw it as yet another emerging market - and now CNN is including it in news segments as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

We are incredibly market-brained at this point. A certain kind of person loves markets because they provide decisions on complex questions at scale. And like, that's not NEVER true, but it also takes for granted a lot of rational thinking among people who act completely irrationally with incredible regularity. Perhaps our greatest cultural fiction right now is the "rationality" of markets, and people are looking for…

> A certain kind of person loves markets because they provide decisions on complex questions at scale. And like, that's not NEVER true, but it also takes for granted a lot of rational thinking

It also tends to assume a certain hypothetical ideal of perfect information, where all prices and transactions are public, secret deals don't exist, and ownership/interests are never hidden.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#115

Post by keiferski » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:02 PM UTC

thrance wrote: post #83

keiferski wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society needs to rediscover the idea that not all moral judgements are religious in nature, and in many cases are just basic pragmatic ones. The bans on gambling were often framed in Christian terms, so as society became more secular, they were undone. Now they probably need to be re-added with practical reasoning.

I disagree with your assessment, the ban wasn't undone because of secularism. In fact, this prediction market craze was embraced by the right almost instantly, which is the side currently most favored by Christians.

Gambling bans have been slowly undone for decades. This isn’t something that happened in the recent MAGA populist era; which is the portion of the right that seems to be okay with the gambling stuff.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#116

Post by tavavex » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #82

criddell wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to win at gambling is to be the house.

Even better, be the guy that taxes the house and winners, sells the licensing to the house (or friends of them that have privileged advantage to sell compliance services), or the guys who determine whether the house gets its zoning or construction exemptions.

How is that better? Taxes are a cut of the profits and they mostly are spent back on other goods and services. The owners of the gambling business take the remaining majority of the money and use it to scale themselves up, remove competition or to enrich their ranks. If you want to exist as a parasite, option #2 is the way to go.

It is crazy to me that even when faced with the most irredeemable industry, one that is predicated on abusing addiction and human irrationality, one that takes and gives back nothing, the first reaction to this is to brush all of that off and go "but what about the construction permits?"

The American adoration for anything 'private' knows no bounds. When our corporate overlords will be scamming, poisoning and forming quasi-dictatorships to rule over us all for profit, they'll still be cheering that at least it's not one of those pesky public governments.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#117

Post by fudgy73 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

game_the0ry wrote: post #63

Did anyone else think it was strange how fast legitimate news orgs (cnn for example) integrated prediction markets into their businesses?

Painfully obvious when you realize how heavily involved the current administration is with both Paramount Skydance (CNN owner / Trump has equity) and Kalshi (Trump Jr has equity).

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#118

Post by Terr_ » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

kevinob11 wrote: post #39

aqme28 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, the gambling industry is going to have a much wealthier and more powerful lobby than any effort to displace it.

How in the world do we get money out of politics? I want to so so so badly, but I have no idea how to successfully do it. I can't even figure it out as a thought exercise.

One approach is to reduce discontinuities and spoiler-effects in voting, which in turn reduces the incentives for a politician to accept—or someone else to offer—a devil's bargain. As it stands now, there's lots of potential for: "Do me a favor and my money will push you the small distance that distinguishes total defeat from total victory."

That leads to some game theory and math, with things like some form of ranked-voting, uncapping the House of Representatives, and maybe even proportional-representation rather than lots of just-one-winner races.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#119

Post by baggachipz » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

nlarew wrote: post #110

baggachipz wrote: post #3

The unprecedented era of gambling on literally everything everywhere is an absolute cancer on society, made completely legal by absolute greed and degeneracy at the highest levels of government. I don't know how we put this genie back in the bottle (amongst many detrimental genies).

You are 100% free to not gamble

And I don't, save for a Super Bowl square or fantasy football entry fees. My point is that it's doing real damage to the most vulnerable and acting like it's some flippant choice is both myopic and selfish.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#120

Post by carlosjobim » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

deepsun wrote: post #93

dheera wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's instilled into society at every level in the US. If your company offers an FSA, it's asking to make a gamble on how much medical needs you'll have in the next 1 year. The "smart" way to write the tax law would be to just let taxpayers deduct whatever medical expenses they have at tax reporting time. But instead, they want you to make a bet because you're highly likely to either (a) not use all of it and…

Well, then any insurance is also gambling, according to your argument. Mean return of buying insurance must be always worse than not buying, but you don't want it to happen to _you_. PS: except for home insurance in hurricane areas, government allows insurance plans to be non-actuarial, so essentially all other taxpayers pay for destroyed homes there. Gov even promotes rebuilding destroyed homes in the same place, in…

> Well, then any insurance is also gambling, according to your argument.

That's what they are. Three big industries are net-losses to the economy by definition: banking, insurance and gambling.