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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

#211

Post by intended »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #189
gpm wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the prediction market is for a non-trivial amount, it's likely someone is going to kill you in exchange for the money the prediction market offered them . The prediction market isn't acting as a prophet here, it's acting as a plausibly deniable murder for hire service and you are its victim. The people "betting against" you dying just paid to have you killed.

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

Asymmetry of information. Fixed bets depend entirely on a small enough group with the ability to influence the outcome, keeping their mouths shut.

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

#213

Post by tasuki »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #129

I don’t really understand the argument for prediction markets if you don’t have inside information. The reason they beat other forms of news is because insiders are incentivised to bet, that makes some sense. But surely an investor without insider knowledge will always make less money on a market where they’re trading against insiders than one where they’re not.

> I don’t really understand the argument for prediction markets if you don’t have inside information.

If you don't have inside information and you participate in prediction markets, you're there mostly to provide liquidity.

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

#214

Post by StrayTint »

gizzlon wrote: post #212

Polymarked has a 3% chance of Jesus returning _this year_ : https://polymarket.com/event/will-jesus-christ-return-before... Good example to show when people tout how great these are at predicting.

The Jesus market is really a bet on interest rates. You should bet that Jesus will return if interest rates are >3% because "No" holders will sell to put their money in the bank instead.

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

#215

Post by rifty »

In theory I like the idea of prediction markets but how they are done right now makes a bunch of markets too insecure to put much stock into or informationally unvaluable to inform other decisions

There is little incentive for someone with significant information, reason, or intuition to reveal it early leaving the market dumb for most of its existence or also open for someone influencing the outcome late.

They also aren't currently that reliable for gauging the wisdom of the crowds for situations where trust in the market effects its outcome. It's easy due to the scale of them for someone to just burn money to skew the perception of it for rhetorical and influential benefits.

I feel like there is no getting off this train though because news media companies are still desperate for revenue. Gambling around news will either increase advertising revenue for them, or if they do real information uncovering journalism, drive subscriptions because there's now incentive for getting news early on more than just financial news.

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

#216

Post by gizzlon »

StrayTint wrote: post #214
gizzlon wrote: post #212

Polymarked has a 3% chance of Jesus returning _this year_ : https://polymarket.com/event/will-jesus-christ-return-before... Good example to show when people tout how great these are at predicting.

The Jesus market is really a bet on interest rates. You should bet that Jesus will return if interest rates are >3% because "No" holders will sell to put their money in the bank instead.

You are probably right, but I believe it's a failure of prediction whatever the reason is.

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

#217

Post by Kinrany »

rifty wrote: post #215

In theory I like the idea of prediction markets but how they are done right now makes a bunch of markets too insecure to put much stock into or informationally unvaluable to inform other decisions There is little incentive for someone with significant information, reason, or intuition to reveal it early leaving the market dumb for most of its existence or also open for someone influencing the outcome late. They also…

> There is little incentive for someone with significant information, reason, or intuition to reveal it early

Yes but only if they know no one else has the same information and enough money to move the market

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

#218

Post by snowmobile »

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.

Not really, for the same reason entrapment isn't usually seen as an accurate way to gather information for law enforcement. See also Goodhart's law and overfitting.

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

#219

Post by gorbypark »

giantg2 wrote: post #89

What is the legality for US residents? Right now Polymarket is subject to a federal agreement that they don't let US people participate. Apparently this is just a checkbox for the user to attest to. They don't even do IP geolocation, never mind payment checks. So it's currently illegal for them to run this in the US. But is it illegal for users to participate?

I have the Polymarket app installed because it's a React Native app and I installed a bunch of the top apps using RN as research. About a week ago I got a notification that "Polymarket is now legal in the US!". I'm not from the US so not sure why I got the notification. Anyways, seems like something has changed.

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

#220

Post by lifestyleguru »

echoangle wrote: post #137
gpm wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the prediction market is for a non-trivial amount, it's likely someone is going to kill you in exchange for the money the prediction market offered them . The prediction market isn't acting as a prophet here, it's acting as a plausibly deniable murder for hire service and you are its victim. The people "betting against" you dying just paid to have you killed.

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.

No person in position to start a war and to influence economic policies would become a crypto scammer... erm wait...

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