Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 517 posts

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

#221

Post by tpm »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #102
tpm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, one silver lining, maybe, is gamblers are a little less likely to fall for fake news. Maybe? Long time ago I was working for a betting company and we had a product where virtual (horses, dogs, bikes, cars) were racing in a virtual environment. This was displayed on a TV in physical branches and on the website, along with completely transparent information that it is all random, source of randomness was even so…

Am I overlooking something, or would that mean it’s super easy for a rational participant to make money?

Not sure what you mean exactly. If you mean the virtual rates, a gambler has no way to make money by placing bets there (while the real probability is 1/8, the odds the betting company is selling are of course much worse). If you mean in a broader context that it is easy to take these people's money, yes and no - there is a long queue of people wanting to do the same and what they want to do is mostly either heavily regulated or illegal.

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

#222

Post by xboxnolifes »

kelipso wrote: post #95
xboxnolifes wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, sometimes social change is putting up a fence. And if social change is sometimes putting up fences, that would mean that not all fences are supposed to be torn down.

Chesterton’s fence has a specific definition. It’s not supposed to mean restrictions on social conduct or mores like you seem to be implying.

Social conduct is the context, not the definition. Chesterton's fence is just about not touching things you dont understand.

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

#223

Post by nly »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #207
derf_ wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

Presumably he means theft from shareholders. It's an accurate summary.

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

#225

Post by CPLX »

Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #180
CPLX wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm trying to understand what the criticism is here > If I knew someone wanted me dead, of course I would want a prediction market on it, and if the odds suddenly shifted dramatically in favor of my death No, you definitely would not want that. You don't want to live in the world like this. That's the point. It's fucking horrible and dystopian, people betting on extra-legal invasions of countries, murders, things t…

I think easy gambling over the internet is terrible, tons of young people are getting stuck in it. People get addicted to it throughout history and ruin their lives, vulnerable people get in trouble with huge losses. But I don't think we should do anything because religion doesn't like it - that's a foolish thing to use to make your crucial choices or world view. A key reason is pretty much every terrible thing ever…

You have cause and effect backwards. I'm saying that it's horrible and toxic for society which is why almost every major religion over every major period of history noticed and banned it.

It's not toxic because religion doesn't like it. Religion doesn't like it because it's toxic.

Religion has been the primary means throughout history by which humans have tried to figure out right and wrong. You can feel however you want about it, but that's just how it's worked. It's basically the ultimate example of Chesterton's fence.

To carry my analogy further, there are many, many, many times where the fence doesn't need to be there or where the fence has outlived its useful purpose. But it's still a good metaphor.

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

#226

Post by elzbardico »

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.

If you don't have insider info, they are betting houses. Prediction Markets is just a cynical euphemism.

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

#227

Post by zvqcMMV6Zcr »

uoaei wrote: post #2

The internet is too connected and communication too instantaneous for Polymarket to be anything but a system to be gamed by those with money and influence. Bet appears on Polymarket? You have the ability to direct people and resources to enact the under? Congrats you're rich!

Rich might be overstatement, but WNBA dildo stir show that people are ok with risking jail time over relatively low amounts of money.

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

#228

Post by elzbardico »

mcphage wrote: post #68
valiant55 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The powers that be have always saught wealth. At some point they gained enough power to start usurping the law that was supposed to keep them in check.

We should have made it clearer that monied interests have a choice: be kept in check by the law, or by the guillotine.

The problem is, the guillotine solution to regulation only becomes feasible after the monied interest have thoroughly fucked society, to a level that would make living as blue-collar working in Detroit downtown today feel like being a banking executive living in Geneva.

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

#229

Post by elzbardico »

BurningFrog wrote: post #42
keiferski wrote: post #24

I’m increasingly convinced that the single most important concept to understand in the 21st century is Chesterton’s Fence: "Chesterton's fence" is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_... Gambling isn’t a new problem, but apparently we thought it would turn out differently this…

Maybe, like myself, you're just aging into being a bit of a conservative.

Let's not label ourselves. Once we do it, we have this tendency to think in black and white terms. Like, I wish people didn't divorce, so kids could have stable families, does this make me a conservative? Maybe yes, or maybe no, because I don't want to FORCE people to stay married.

But once I label myself a conservative, I am stuck, and now have a new set of friends with the same label, because I am labeled myself, and they have all those radical ideas, and then I have to pretend to believe and ending up believing them too.

Of course, the same applies when you label yourself a progressive.

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

#230

Post by polski-g »

bshaughn wrote: post #38
AbstractH24 wrote: post #6

Why is polymarket any more or less dangerous than NFTs or naked option trading? Fool and his money are quickly separated…

It gives people in power, wether it be the government or even an NBA ref, a vehicle to profit off of conflicts of interest / fixing games / etc... Ive seen people point out White House press conferences do weird shit, like cut the conference 10 seconds before some polymarket prop bet of "how long will this press conference be". Much more heinously, a few months ago right before one of Trumps asinine tariff announceme…

There's a "cloudflare outage" market. If I worked at CF I'd absolutely bet to win 5mn and then cause an outage and retire.
Post reply on HN