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Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

theatlantic.com

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Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#201

Post by porksoda »

hackable_sand wrote: post #197
smeej wrote: post #127

> The irony of prediction markets is that they are supposed to be a more trustworthy way of gleaning the future than internet clickbait and half-baked punditry, but they risk shredding whatever shared trust we still have left. The suspiciously well-timed bets that one Polymarket user placed right before the capture of Nicolás Maduro may have been just a stroke of phenomenal luck that netted a roughly $400,000 payout.…

It appears you are missing any cursory philosophy, ethics, logic, etc. courses.

Me too, and I wish you would have answered the clear request for enlightenment instead of pointing out the obvious fact that we weren't in your class.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#202

Post by networkadmin »

dang wrote: post #60
networkadmin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The mercantile classes at first thought themselves exempt from the general misfortune. They were delighted at the apparent advance in the value of the goods upon their shelves. But they soon found that, as they increased prices to cover the inflation of currency and the risk from fluctuation and uncertainty, purchases became less in amount and payments less sure; a feeling of insecurity spread throughout the country…

Please don't make posts consisting of quotes and nothing else. HN is a supposed to be a site for curious conversation. It's not hard to see how posts like this interrupt that and bog it down - imagine someone at a dinner party* reading entire paragraphs like this out loud. (* I don't know why I said "dinner party", since I don't go to those, the conversation usually isn't good, and they aren't my idea of fun, but oh…

Since you have now shadowbanned my comments from the site, I'm guessing you won't read this, so it's probably safe to point out that you are a useless, whiny fag who desperately needs to get out of his mom's basement and get a life.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#203

Post by dang »

networkadmin wrote: post #202
dang wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't make posts consisting of quotes and nothing else. HN is a supposed to be a site for curious conversation. It's not hard to see how posts like this interrupt that and bog it down - imagine someone at a dinner party* reading entire paragraphs like this out loud. (* I don't know why I said "dinner party", since I don't go to those, the conversation usually isn't good, and they aren't my idea of fun, but oh…

Since you have now shadowbanned my comments from the site, I'm guessing you won't read this, so it's probably safe to point out that you are a useless, whiny fag who desperately needs to get out of his mom's basement and get a life.

I don't know if this will help or not, but I didn't shadowban you. (I wouldn't post a moderation reply and at the same time ban the account without saying so; that would be incongruent.)

What happened is that, independently of my reply, HN's software started killing your posts because your account had crossed some thresholds at which the software starts doing that.

Like I said, it may be a distinction without a difference to you, but that's what happened.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#204

Post by latency-guy2 »

gpm wrote: post #192
latency-guy2 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the opposing side of that exact same bet allow themselves to be fleeced of all that money for free?

You're asking why someone hiring a hitman would be willing to part with their money? Because that's what money is for, to purchase things, like hitmen (apparently).

OK so its much a shallower thought than I anticipated.

Why go through the "prediction market" at all then? The hitman still killed someone, payments are not anonymous in this market, and its certainly not clean. Further, you share the pot with however many are involved, proportional to the allotted bets on each side and presuming binary prediction. And if the winds change on the market for the bet proportional to the "hitman's" side, you lose out on dollars that would otherwise be paid to you (the hitman).

And it'd be so easy to stiff the hitman just by equalizing the positions by timing it.

All that risk for something that's far simpler to just pay directly?

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#205

Post by colinmorelli »

valkmit wrote: post #179
pixl97 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>1. People who have insider information, I mean, most stock trading prevents insider trading, unless of course you're a in congress. Seemingly regulators consider this a bug in every other market type, but suddenly this gambling market allows it? > breathless anxiety about this All fun and games until people start dying from it.

Insider trading in stocks are prohibited but not for the reason most people think. It has nothing to do with someone having an unfair advantage in an informational sense, and everything to do with fiduciary responsibility. The CEO and executive team has fiduciary responsibility to act in the financial best interest of the shareholders. Your broker too. If you have insider info (Obtained legally) but no fiduciary resp…

This comment is not really correct

1. The misappropriation theory of insider trading covers anyone who trades on material non public information sourced through a trusted relationship regardless of any fiduciary duty to the company. For example, if I tell my personal attorney a non public fact about the company I work at, and they trade on that information, they absolutely can be found guilty of insider trading despite having no relationship to the company at hand.

2. Congress is explicitly covered by insider trading law, which was affirmed in the STOCK Act of 2012. The fact that they’re rarely indicted has more to do with the legal and political challenges associated with doing so, not the legality of the act.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#206

Post by pcchristie »

porksoda wrote: post #201
hackable_sand wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears you are missing any cursory philosophy, ethics, logic, etc. courses.

Me too, and I wish you would have answered the clear request for enlightenment instead of pointing out the obvious fact that we weren't in your class.

I thought the reason prediction markets were useful was not that people with inside information participate in them which can provide an indicator to the rest of us, but that by providing a sense of consensus at scale we can more accurately predict things.

e.g. two sports teams participating in a fair match tomorrow, someone runs a book and after 200,000 punters bet, the odds are 90/10 in favour of Team A indicates that 90% of the time Team A is going to win that game.

This assumes perfect and fully available information with punters availing themselves of this info (or at least an equal split of passionate/casual/informed/wreckless or even slightly "inside" punters on each side).

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#207

Post by latency-guy2 »

derf_ wrote: post #185
valkmit wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insider trading in stocks are prohibited but not for the reason most people think. It has nothing to do with someone having an unfair advantage in an informational sense, and everything to do with fiduciary responsibility. The CEO and executive team has fiduciary responsibility to act in the financial best interest of the shareholders. Your broker too. If you have insider info (Obtained legally) but no fiduciary resp…

"Insider trading is not about fairness, it is about theft" is a uniquely American approach that is not shared by other jurisdictions.

Where the hell did you read that

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#208

Post by aurareturn »

CPLX wrote: post #142
echoangle wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, OOP might have chosen a suboptimal example here. But for general newsworthy events, people aren’t going to be in positions to manually make them happen. And no person in a position to start a war would do it to affect a Polymarket bet.

> And no person in a position to start a war would do it to affect a Polymarket bet. Are you fucking kidding? Based just on current events, that is absolutely not a statement you can make without at least trying to prove it. If you do try to prove that you will fail as the idea that people would start wars for profit is as old as wars. Just evaluate the sentence you've just created. How many people exist who have the…

It isn’t just the people who can start a war. It’s also normal people who can.

Imagine if 10 million people bet on starting a war vs 5 million who say no war. Those net 5 million people are going on social media saying why the war is justified. They’ll vote in war mongers. They’ll support the military. The bet literally influences the result. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#209

Post by [deleted] »

jart wrote: post #182
uyzstvqs wrote: post #167

Prediction markets are not considered gambling for the same reason that stock markets aren't. There's no fixed odds or random chance. A skilled analyst can make consistent returns. Unlike stock markets, prediction markets also provide valuable data on important world events, such as elections. It's wisdom of the crowd with financial incentive.

Equities markets allow society to collective allocate labor resources and they incentivize the public discovery of business intelligence. Prediction markets reward the public discovery of gossip. Any kind of trading can be gambling depending on how you do it. But with equities the odds are usually almost guaranteed to be in your favor if you long them and wait. I can't remember ever seeing a prediction market where I…

[deleted]

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#210

Post by intended »

fartfeatures wrote: post #177
kbos87 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...but many people in positions where they can start a war or cause some other highly visible event of any sort probably will start turning to Polymarket to make money in the course of their work

Which makes the prediction market more accurate.

Eh… sort of? In a sense, they become less accurate, because the prediction market is the causative event, not an independent observer.
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