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'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#211

Post by kelnos »

ortusdux wrote: post #57
ambicapter wrote: post #9

> There are no indications so far that the successful punters have had to return their winnings. However, the data source for Paris’s hottest temperature has since moved to a sensor at the smaller Paris-Le Bourget airport. Here's the negative externality that no one will care about. There's no reason gamblers won't repeat this stunt, until us poor schmucks who just want an accurate temperature reading have to build a…

Usually the TOS of these betting markets prohibits tampering. IIRC, someone bet on a streaker at the super bowl, did the streaking themselves, made 6-figures on the bet, bragged about it publicly, and the market negated the bet and recovered the money.

There are also plenty of cases where something like this has happened, and the prediction market paid out and did nothing.

Ultimately they don't care too much about this kind of tampering, except when it has the potential to damage their reputation. They otherwise don't care about the specific outcome of a bet; they make their money regardless.

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#212

Post by kqr »

ipython wrote: post #187
ianferrel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hasn't happened in this case. Your example has causality reversed. Khamenei wasn't killed because there was a prediction market about the political leadership of Iran.

It is interesting, though, that a large bet was placed not long before the assassination attempt that paid out $550k. By definition, killing the leader does imply that they are no longer the political leader of the country. It is entirely possible that there was causality in the forward direction if the bettor had inside information about the assassination operation beforehand.

Inside information is not the same as causing the outcome.

I knew my previous employer was getting acquired before the markets did -- I had inside information -- but I had no way to make the deal go through.

Revealing inside information through prediction markets is mostly fine. You may think people shouldn't need a financial incentive to do so but clearly they do, and clearly other people are willing to put up with that money for it.

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#213

Post by RugnirViking »

cbluth wrote: post #209
anigbrowl wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should have much stricter penalties for fraud. Vastly more money is stolen this way than by petty theft or robbery, but the perpetrators tend to get off very lightly by comparison.

It's an offset for the amount of effort and forethought put into the fraud

What's an offset? The money stolen from other people? I can't understand what you mean

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#215

Post by jrm4 »

samrus wrote: post #87
j-bos wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why are they only using one sensor?

Because we used to be a high trust society where degenrate gamblers wouldnt mess with scientific equipment to rip each other off

I'm sorry, what is this "high trust" society of which you speak?

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#216

Post by globular-toast »

qurren wrote: post #170
guyzero wrote: post #2

I don't understand who is taking the other side of all these insane Polymarket bets. Is Polymarket doing it?

I've been quite successful trading weather prediction markets. The prediction markets were never about predicting outcomes. If that's the level you are playing on, you're playing at the lowest possible level, and probably won't win. The markets are now about properly modelling other peoples' manipulation of prediction. That's how Wall Street works as well. Companies can beat earnings and their stocks crash immediatel…

I'm getting Foundation vibes from this comment. Asimov wrote that in 50s. Which is to say, this is by no means a new idea.

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#217

Post by sysguest »

cbluth wrote: post #209
anigbrowl wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should have much stricter penalties for fraud. Vastly more money is stolen this way than by petty theft or robbery, but the perpetrators tend to get off very lightly by comparison.

It's an offset for the amount of effort and forethought put into the fraud

well the bravery for robbing a bank deserves some respect, not jail time

sexual assulters deserve respect due to their manliness and will-to-action

hmm can't see what's wrong here? well that's your intelligence level

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#218

Post by abdullahkhalids »

anigbrowl wrote: post #204
bombcar wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it exists, and money can flow, it will be gamed.

We should have much stricter penalties for fraud. Vastly more money is stolen this way than by petty theft or robbery, but the perpetrators tend to get off very lightly by comparison.

Wage theft is the largest form of theft by a wide margin. Everything from not paying people at all for contracted work, forcing people to work overtime without additional pay, structuring contracts/agreements in terms of bonuses that can never be attained with the insane performance requirements, to paying people late.

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#219

Post by qurren »

Coneylake wrote: post #206
qurren wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been quite successful trading weather prediction markets. The prediction markets were never about predicting outcomes. If that's the level you are playing on, you're playing at the lowest possible level, and probably won't win. The markets are now about properly modelling other peoples' manipulation of prediction. That's how Wall Street works as well. Companies can beat earnings and their stocks crash immediatel…

I am getting into trading on my own (my main job was in machine learning and I studied math in university). I've also come to a similar conclusion that you pretty much have to model these "manipulations" on top of the statistics/Brownian-motion-driven behavior of any security. I am currently working on a hybrid model for something on Polymarket but it's not yet sophisticated. Do you have any resources that you can po…

Without giving away my exact strategies, I'm also an ML engineer and I'll just say that ML is in 90% of cases the wrong tool, whereas simple regressions and scatter plots will unearth loads of statistical anomalies if you know where to look. You want to find anomalous behavior then hone in on how to make them your counterparty.

ML can help you optimize things after that, but locating diamonds in a soup of noise is not really where ML shines.

Re: 'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win Polymarket bet

#220

Post by qurren »

thenewnewguy wrote: post #36
thimabi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why these bets are allowed at all. Can one just make an account there and bet in anything? The whole “prediction market” charade is increasingly proving to lend itself to abuse. I hope regulations catch up with it soon, otherwise more shenanigans will follow.

Anything on the site? Yes. Anything at all? No - Polymarket themselves make the markets (and I think they have some partners that can make markets as well, but point is some random user cannot make a market).

> some random user cannot make a market

You absolutely can market make on Polymarket. The barrier to entry is actually extremely low; you can do it from an AWS instance in Dublin (the closest non-geo-restricted region to the Polymarket exchange), and don't need the kind of infra that is needed to market-make on US stocks. Retail can absolutely do it on anything crypto-based.

In order to market make, you just need to price probabilities better than everyone else. That's it.

On Wall Street on the other hand it has come down to FPGAs and free space microwave links because fiber optics' index of refraction causes a ~31% reduction in the speed of light. If you don't have millions of dollars you can't get into that game. Over-regulation cas resulted in this space being only accessible to the ultra-rich.

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