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

Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

timesofisrael.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 1001 posts

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#241

Post by nekusar »

vincnetas wrote: post #155
fzil wrote: post #3

Man the moral degradation is off the charts. Prediction markets are easily the worst things to grace the internet by far and its not even close.

But wait, there is more: Assassination market bet that someone will die by certain date https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market

Huh, I figured they were rumors.

But it's fairly close to a tontine. But those are banned in the USA. But in those cases, rewards are split regularly between survivors. People who die with a tontine lose their share.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine

I could see a movie about that, with living tontine holders sending out hitmen to remove other tontine holders, so they can get more money.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#242

Post by applfanboysbgon »

Hammershaft wrote: post #194
fnands wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least cryptocurrencies had some nice ideas behind them. Just sad they almost immediately got co-opted by swindlers and criminals.

Prediction markets also have very interesting ideas. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/10/pr...

Not really.

1. As pointed out in the comments, you can inflate your prediction success rate by predicting things that are 100% to happen. There are plenty of 99.9% bets on Polymarket with degens betting on some 0.01% lottery event trying to strike a jackpot against the odds, and those will inflate the perceived accuracy.

2. All you're really doing is paying insiders to leak information a few hours ahead of time. Insofar as Polymarket is unusually accurate on things that aren't ~100% to happen, it's likely because in the 12-hour-window that post measures is when all of the insiders place their last-minute bets telling you what will happen. This is extremely bad for society. It's wealth redistribution from stupid people to unethical people[1], and it could completely compromise national security when eg. an insider tells you 12 hours ahead of time that the US is about to launch an invasion of Venezuela. There is no societal benefit to this.

[1] Even if you have no sympathy for idiots who bet their life savings on markets without having insider information, gambling addiction has extremely detrimental effects on society and directly results in increased crime rates, divorce rates, etc. as people lose all of their money and do bad things in desperation, so it is a problem that becomes everyone else's problem.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#243

Post by baobabKoodaa »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #45
bitmasher9 wrote: post #32

I don’t understand how this isn’t an immediate open and shut case for the police, assuming certain facts are verified independently. At the point that you’re making death threats to strangers you should be removed from civil society.

I agree. This involved should be investigated and prosecuted. Just a pedantic, nit pick: you said "should be removed from civil society" but I think you just mean "removed from society" as in prosecuted and imprisoned. "Civil society" has a specific meaning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society

> I agree. This involved should be investigated and prosecuted.

Cool! Since you know who the involved persons are (as you agreed with it being an "open and shut case"), why don't you let the rest of us know, too? And while you're at it, tell the police as well. I'm sure it will help their investigation!

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#244

Post by AlexandrB »

Prediction markets remind of the "Safety Training" episode[1] of the Office where Kevin and others are betting on the outcome of various situations. It was pretty funny and absurd back then. Didn't expect it to be so prescient.

[1] https://theoffice.fandom.com/wiki/Safety_Training

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#245

Post by kasey_junk »

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #157
kasey_junk wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prediction markets as a useful tool are predicated on insider information. The punters without edge are the bait incentivizing the insiders. And in the US prediction markets are regulated like commodities which have much more lax insider rules, because again, insider trading is the point.

> Prediction markets as a useful tool are predicated on insider information. The punters without edge are the bait incentivizing the insiders. And like any other gambling (see 1919 Black Sox), they can also incentivize behavior for actors who can influence the outcome of what’s being gambled upon. Personally, that’s a significant enough negative externality for me to not want to live in a society where “prediction ma…

I personally think it’s ridiculous that we have allowed these prediction markets to subvert our sports betting laws. And meaningful corruption legislation should exist to prevent government and military personnel from profiting from them.

But if you are going to allow them at all, you want as much expertise as possible in them. Sharks eating minnows is what that looks like.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#246

Post by RIMR »

Waterluvian wrote: post #43
fzil wrote: post #3

Man the moral degradation is off the charts. Prediction markets are easily the worst things to grace the internet by far and its not even close.

I think the idea behind a prediction market is pretty interesting, especially from an economics dataset point-of-view. And there's probably a lot of fun, harmless things to bet on. eg. "Will Conan lead an extravagent musical number at the Oscars?" But we're in an era of less and less responsible government oversight, so the whole thing naturally gets ruined if there's no guardrails to prevent peoeple without souls or…

Yeah, but even "harmless" bets like the one you describe are too easy to rig. Who is to say that someone who works on Conan's show won't have some influence over the programming and intentionally steer the show so that they win their bet?

We're already seeing athletes try to fulfill specific bets since it's way easier to rig a play than to rig a whole game. The problem with prediction markets is that people who bet on something small and influenceable have an actual chance to change the outcome of that thing in their favor.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#247

Post by input_sh »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #191
input_sh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polymarket already only accepts cryptocurrencies. :) Kalshi is worse in a sense that it also accepts fiat payments.

Maybe in your country, I just checked from Spain and they do accept paypal and credit cards.

In the US specifically, because they weren't allowed to operate in the US until November last year. But... they didn't really try to prevent US users from accessing it, just gently pointed them towards using a VPN and paying with cryptocurrencies.

"Coincidentally", they also gave a bullshit advisory position to Trump Jr. and accepted an investment from his firm (1789 Capital), which I'm sure had nothing to do with them getting that licence. But to be "fair and balanced" to Polymarket, Trump Jr. is also Kalshi's "strategic advisor", so there's that!

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#249

Post by sharp_runner_84 »

this was kind of inevitable once prediction markets got large enough. when traders have millions in open positions on geopolitical events, they have direct financial incentive to suppress or promote specific narratives. same dynamic as short sellers attacking companies, but applied to real-world events instead of stocks. the whole prediction market thesis assumes information flows freely into prices — breaks down when participants start trying to influence the information itself

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#250

Post by dfxm12 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #43
fzil wrote: post #3

Man the moral degradation is off the charts. Prediction markets are easily the worst things to grace the internet by far and its not even close.

I think the idea behind a prediction market is pretty interesting, especially from an economics dataset point-of-view. And there's probably a lot of fun, harmless things to bet on. eg. "Will Conan lead an extravagent musical number at the Oscars?" But we're in an era of less and less responsible government oversight, so the whole thing naturally gets ruined if there's no guardrails to prevent peoeple without souls or…

I think it is naive to assume that under capitalism, with no guardrails in place, that the people involved with these markets will leave money on the table purely by self restraint/acting in good faith.

If you just want fun, you don't need to be gambling real money.

Post reply on HN