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Bets on US-Iran ceasefire show signs of insider knowledge, say experts

theguardian.com

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Re: Bets on US-Iran ceasefire show signs of insider knowledge, say experts

#141

Post by Karrot_Kream »

roadside_picnic wrote: post #130
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #20

Couldn't insiders just trade Brent Crude futures and do the same thing? There's more than enough liquidity in Brent that an insider can make great money.

That more-or-less happened over the weekend [0]. Five minutes before Trump's unsurprising TACO announcement an unexpected large number of WTI futures contracts were sold and an even larger amount of S&P 500 futures were purchased. 0. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/03/23/volume-in-stock-and-oil-...

Yes that's my point. There's this whole new angle of prurient news where articles try to use the "anynomous nature" of Polymarket to play into an a corruption story as if it's all some new, dangerous game.

But why? You can trade Brent or WTI and do the same exact thing with much less scrutiny. $800k of Brent futures is nothing, and instead of having to risk your entire bet going bust like in prediction markets and their binary outcomes you can just take a loss on your investment instead if you time your exit incorrectly.

Re: Bets on US-Iran ceasefire show signs of insider knowledge, say experts

#142

Post by jerlam »

ragebol wrote: post #64
delecti wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're orthogonal, so there's no barrier. They're all nefarious, and most are also incompetent.

Getting yourself installed as president while knowing you are incompetent (I mean, look at all those bankrupt businesses, he should know) is nefarious in itself. His entourage is nefarious for supporting the incompetency for their own gain.

If people are giving you money, are you truly incompetent?

I think we're using different scales to measure competency.

Re: Bets on US-Iran ceasefire show signs of insider knowledge, say experts

#144

Post by lovich »

broof wrote: post #126
lovich wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Openly corrupt markets that feature insiders with secret knowledge taking money from gambling addicts and rubes is actually good cause the crowd is now wiser.

Unironically yes. Someone bet a mid sized amount and now we all share in that potential insider knowledge. A small scale example is my spouse said that the election odds from her home country were not realistic because all the westerners were betting a candidate would win but weren’t accounting for corruption that she felt was guaranteed to happen. Turns out she was right.

Ah good. The NBA/NFL/MLB/etc should let players bet on whether they win or lose. Letting those with the influence on events being able to make money on them has never degraded a system before.

Someone must have just mistakenly put in regulations against insider trading before, for no good reason. Luckily this isn’t anything like the normal tech play of figuring out a loophole or flat out ignoring the law and hoping you get too big before the regulators catch up.

Re: Bets on US-Iran ceasefire show signs of insider knowledge, say experts

#145

Post by 8note »

irishcoffee wrote: post #89
koolala wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just one market. The other bets are all across the stock market.

The order of magnitude of “money to be made” is the same.

polymarket and kalshi are used as inputs to the rest of the market.

placing bets on polymarket is a cheap way to influence the whole market

Re: Bets on US-Iran ceasefire show signs of insider knowledge, say experts

#146

Post by 2postsperday »

vkou wrote: post #35
standardUser wrote: post #21

There's something funny about watching global markets react to Trump's every lazy lie as if Moses himself just passed down orders. Maybe funny is the wrong word. The kicker is that this isn't even Trump's war and he likely lacks the capacity to end it if he wanted to.

> The kicker is that this isn't even Trump's war That's quite possible. > and he likely lacks the capacity to end it if he wanted to. Nah, he could end it any time he wants. Iran will stop bombing its neighbors in a week or so, and things will more or less return to the pre-war status quo. He chooses to not end it, because the one thing that he cannot stand is losing face .

[dead]

Re: Bets on US-Iran ceasefire show signs of insider knowledge, say experts

#147

Post by 8note »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #95
phil21 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh what? It’s literally the only reason for prediction markets to exist. Otherwise they are simple gambling and pointless. The only way you get more wisdom from “the crowd” is if it teases folks who hold non-public (or at least less public) information into the market to refine the odds towards what they should be. Without insider information the entire concept is dead on arrival. Yes randos are gonna gamble because…

That’s not true. Consider a jar of jellybeans.

the guy who put the jellybeans in the jar can put the best bet on the result, no?

Re: Bets on US-Iran ceasefire show signs of insider knowledge, say experts

#148

Post by bethekidyouwant »

input_sh wrote: post #138
bethekidyouwant wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to be an insider to know that the US wants to broker a peace deal now that they’ve gotten themselves deep in the shit. Also, how could a Washington insider know if a peace deal will actually be brokered they have to negotiate with the other party after all.

Betting on a ceasefire isn't the interesting part, placing a five digit bet on a ceasefire by March 31st using brand-new accounts is. Do you have any other plausible explanation for this behaviour? I can't think of any, if it's just like your average WallStreetBets gambler, why would they be making these bets from brand-new accounts?

Conspiracy theories are once again gossip for men. Interestingly, you can put your money where your mouth is in this case open your own account and make your own bets since you seem convinced. might as well cash in. Which gives me an idea … if only I had enough cash sitting around…

Re: Bets on US-Iran ceasefire show signs of insider knowledge, say experts

#149

Post by pjc50 »

vkou wrote: post #77
standardUser wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran will not stop harassing the region, and perhaps not even allow the strait to open, if Israel is still bombing them or fighting a proxy war in Lebanon. So Trump can pack up and head back to this side of the planet, having made our country a few trillion dollars poorer in the process, but the war doesn't ends until Iran and Israel decide it ends.

> Iran will not stop harassing the region, and perhaps not even allow the strait to open, if Israel is still bombing them or fighting a proxy war in Lebanon. If Israel is still bombing them? Certainly. This will put incredible international pressure on Israel to stop. It's one thing when the US wrecks the world's economy, and it's hard to push back on. It's an entirely different thing when a country of 10 million peo…

Israel is basically immune to pressure from countries other than the US, and the US won't pressure them because of domestic politics.

Re: Bets on US-Iran ceasefire show signs of insider knowledge, say experts

#150

Post by maxerickson »

lovich wrote: post #144
broof wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unironically yes. Someone bet a mid sized amount and now we all share in that potential insider knowledge. A small scale example is my spouse said that the election odds from her home country were not realistic because all the westerners were betting a candidate would win but weren’t accounting for corruption that she felt was guaranteed to happen. Turns out she was right.

Ah good. The NBA/NFL/MLB/etc should let players bet on whether they win or lose. Letting those with the influence on events being able to make money on them has never degraded a system before. Someone must have just mistakenly put in regulations against insider trading before, for no good reason. Luckily this isn’t anything like the normal tech play of figuring out a loophole or flat out ignoring the law and hoping y…

If athletes didn't face consequences for manipulating betting markets, I think you'd see people become less and less likely to bet on sports outcomes. People naturally don't like a rigged game, you don't have to tell them not to play it.

With these betting markets, do you think it's critical that they exist, but with bans on insider bets? Because I'm not sure anyone you are moralizing at is taking up the argument that it's critical that they exist.

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