Live data from Hacker News

Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

wsj.com

241–250 of 424 posts

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well try to make a withdrawal and see how convinient that might be. Internet casinos are usually easy to get money into but hard to get money out of.

It works just fine. It’s not a casino in the regular sense because you’re betting against other people, not the house.

I'm not sure about Kalshi, however on most sports betting sites you actually are betting against the house. The betting sites all have in-house models (or piggyback off other sites) that are much better at predicting odds than the general public. If someone is making money then the sites just place limits on that account so they're not losing money.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#242

All these gambling apps need regulation. And I fear they are buying politicians precisely so that doesn't happen. If I were to have my way, I'd put a law in place that limits bets to $5 max and monthly bets to $150 per month. Letting them go higher encourages some of the worst aspects of society. We will see crazy things like athletes being injured or murdered in order to win bets. We are already seeing crazy things…

Have to remember that regulated gambling also has lobbyist so unless regulated gambling is invested in these apps they are likely trying to get them banned or also regulated

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of proposed legislation trying to expand mobile gambling too: https://www.gamblinginsider.com/news/114277/massachusetts-ig... https://sportsbettingalliance.org/take-action/ohio_igaming/ https://sportsbettingalliance.org/take-action/texas/ https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/h...

WHAT and I have to stress IN THE ACTUAL FUCK

You see sins. Politicians see sin taxes, political will to spin up regulatory beurocracies, etc, etc.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#244
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to gamble, it's probably for the best that your counterparty doesn't also control the platform. I'm not saying that justifies being able to gamble frictionlessly, but it is marginally less exploitative. Eg, back in the day bucket shops (which sold binary options, like prediction markets do) would increase the spread in proportion to their assessment of your skill such that you would lose even if you w…

> I think prediction markets could serve a similar to a futures markets and have a functional purpose in the economy. It could be useful to generate real time estimates of the probability of some events that no one can control and have real economic consequences, like a hurricane. Even though nobody can control them, some people can predict them better than others. (Meteorologists with good models and supercomputers,…

Insider trading by, say, having direct access to the particular wind vane that grounds the market and being able to manipulate it is a problem. Being better at trading because you have better models or better computers isn't per se a problem. Any more than it's a problem if someone is a better poker player.

In a broader context this may contribute to income inequality and regulatory capture, it can have negative externalities. But it isn't on it's face a problem. And the alleged positive externalities (realtime forecasts and a liquid market for hedging) are driven by such skilled traders.

Not all prediction markets are equally easy to manipulate. The bar was supposed to be (according to my hazy recollection) that a market had to be run in collaboration with an outside authority who, along with delivering a verdict that was already part of their normal duties, would help you exclude insiders from the market. That's a defensible position (not morally, tactically).

But "will so and so tweet about such and such" is a total joke. That's indefensible. That I do think that should never have been allowed or should be regulated as gambling. If there's no conceivable natural hedger, it isn't a real financial market and doesn't have a function (or the function is gambling, whichever).

Don't get me wrong, I think this turned into an end run around gambling regulations (that's certainly what happened with PredictIt), but I don't think that was always inevitable or will necessarily always be the case. That's a strong attractor for sure but it was pushed that way by the COVID era meme stock frenzy, the deregulation of online gambling, and ultimately competitive pressure from the sketchier markets. Once those forces were aligned it was inevitable, but it's possible that in 10 years there will have been a crackdown and tightening down of regulation and things will be very different. I'm not that optimistic, but it's a real possibility.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cash advance is taking physical cash out with your credit card at an ATM or bank teller. Making an online purchase (which depositing money into your Kalshi account is) is therefore not a cash advance.

There is a whole lot of merchant categories that is treated like withdrawing money from an ATM. I believe the term is “quasicash”.

“Cash equivalents” is the term.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#246
post #12

I finally gave in to my curiosity and downloaded Kalshi last week to place a few bets on the World Cup. I was blown away how easy it was. I placed a bet with real money within 5 minutes of downloading the app. They allow instant deposits with credit card, and ID verification was real time. I can’t imagine that the extreme accessibility and the typical dark patterns deployed by every popular app won’t eventually end b…

This was my experience trying out "traditional betting" for the first time with Betfair last Worldcup, and some other platform I tried out before as well. Not sure what Kalshi/others are doing that is so different?

They pretend they are not a gambling operation to get around geographical and age restrictions limiting gambling.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#247
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my experience trying out "traditional betting" for the first time with Betfair last Worldcup, and some other platform I tried out before as well. Not sure what Kalshi/others are doing that is so different?

If you're going to gamble, it's probably for the best that your counterparty doesn't also control the platform. I'm not saying that justifies being able to gamble frictionlessly, but it is marginally less exploitative. Eg, back in the day bucket shops (which sold binary options, like prediction markets do) would increase the spread in proportion to their assessment of your skill such that you would lose even if you w…

Why would prediction markets do a better job of predicting hurricanes than, say, meteorologists, weather stations, and satellite information?

All evidence I’ve seen shows mainstream prediction markets devolve quickly into gambling and related corruption while predicting nothing other than conventional wisdom. especially about real-time facts. The prediction markets on the NBA Finals game four this year were completely useless.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The live scammers targeting kids are pretty vile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYTPI57GLac Seems like it's just a game of whack-a-mole, nothing is really being done to stop scammers from making new accounts and continuing their scams.

The only defense is parenting. And no, I'm not one of those childless people who tells parents to parent better.

Its not the only defence, important and necessary, but also I think educating children about these risks in school is important (my kids' school does okay at this), and government regulation and criminalising such activity is useful too.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#249
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to gamble, it's probably for the best that your counterparty doesn't also control the platform. I'm not saying that justifies being able to gamble frictionlessly, but it is marginally less exploitative. Eg, back in the day bucket shops (which sold binary options, like prediction markets do) would increase the spread in proportion to their assessment of your skill such that you would lose even if you w…

Why would prediction markets do a better job of predicting hurricanes than, say, meteorologists, weather stations, and satellite information? All evidence I’ve seen shows mainstream prediction markets devolve quickly into gambling and related corruption while predicting nothing other than conventional wisdom. especially about real-time facts. The prediction markets on the NBA Finals game four this year were completel…

"Better" depends on the application but more precisely it would be "real time" and may include things that are measured but rarely if ever published. A prediction market doing poorly might be a negative result, "this is a martingale and our ability to forecast is limited." That would be my suspicion for a sports event but it could also mean that the participants are gamblers and so not making useful predictions, entirely possible.

The other value proposition would be that you could hedge your risk against all sorts of things that would otherwise be very difficult, like someone who sells funnel cakes hedging the risk of poor at the state fair due to rain. I think that's potentially interesting but was always far fetched and is definitely not as common as gambling.

Re: Polymarket has flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators

#250
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pretend they are "market" and not gambling to avoid regulations.

It is not pretend, it is technically correct (the best kind of correct). Redefining what gambling is, is a different problem.

Markets sell actual products. These are gambling apps.
Post reply on HN