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Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

timesofisrael.com

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

#251

Post by tclancy »

twodave wrote: post #213
tclancy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you’d just see the role of the CEO change to basically be a highly-paid fall-guy. That seems to be assuming a world where CEOs actually face meaningful consequences and that feels like a good start.

"Meaningful consequences" in this case means "throwing a CEO in jail until they de-anonymize their platform," which sounds ripe for abuse to me.

In this specific case, perhaps. In most it means "throwing a CEO in prison or fining them extensively for crimes they have committed".

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

#252

Post by skywhopper »

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…

Sure, it’s fun if the limits are at fun levels. Five dollar bet on who wins an Oscar? Whatever. But you could do that amongst your friends or in the office pool. Scaling gambling on real world events to VC level, or allowing people to bet self-ruining levels on anything online? Should be illegal and ought to be recognized as blatantly immoral. That it isn’t shows just how far the cultural rot has gotten.

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

#253

Post by phkahler »

The pull quote "The attempt by these gamblers to pressure me to change my reporting so that they would win their bet did not and will not succeed. But I do worry that other journalists may not be as ethical if they are promised some of the winnings" misses something. If the reporter changes his story, then the people on the other side of the bet might start harassing him. OTOH individual betters anger will depend which side of the odds they're on.

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

#254

Post by bentcorner »

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…

Makes me wonder if there's a bet you can take on Polymarket that Polymarket will get shut down due to it negatively influencing behavior. The insider trading on that one should get interesting.

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

#255

Post by gus_massa »

kasey_junk wrote: post #120
ipaddr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The insiders ruin a market like this. Unlike in sports/stocks there are no rules / punishment for insider trading.

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.

If the value is insider information, and assuming it's legal, wouldn't it be better if the major newspaper offer a big pile of money to insiders that leak the data? At least there will be some level of ethical checking.

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

#256

Post by xXSLAYERXx »

cael450 wrote: post #182
markus_zhang wrote: post #16

The gambling market is really bringing out the worst of us.

I feel like America is re-learning why gambling was so widely outlawed. It just ruins everything it touches. At least casinos are mostly contained. I'm tired of seeing gambling ads on every sport and hearing the news talk about prediction markets. Not to mention, they all prey on people. When I was younger, I worked in a gas station, and people would come in regularly and drop everything they had on scratch-offs. And…

The marketing is what bothers me the most. These books market very aggressively in app: Take Daves 5 leg parlay; Share your picks! 30% profit boost if you do a 4 leg parlay that'll never hit. Its constant engagement. Contrast this to a real bookie: Open app. Place bet. Meet once a week in parking lot. Small chatter. Pass envelope.

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

#257

Post by iamacyborg »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #219
iamacyborg wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> late-stage internet capitalism This isn't a thing. Capitalism is just capitalism.

Pretty sure every single economist would disagree with you

Happen to have any links?

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

#258

Post by axus »

xvector wrote: post #56
TheDong wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but how do you find the person making the threats? Polymarket accounts are more-or-less just a crypto address. Whatsapp accounts are somewhat easier to link to a real identity, but still not hard to at least obscure a bit. The arm of the law struggles to reach across borders, and on the internet, it's quite plausible all those involved are in different jurisdictions.

Polymarket's founder is Shayne Coplan, 27-year old "youngest self-made billionaire" (why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics?) A sane system would just throw him in jail until his illegal betting market implements KYC.

When power is concentrated to the government, the corruption is concentrated with it. Incarceration and the end of privacy don't restore the victims. A consumer protection bureau could bring a civil suit against Polymarket to pay the journalist.

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

#259

Post by airstrike »

kasey_junk wrote: post #120
ipaddr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The insiders ruin a market like this. Unlike in sports/stocks there are no rules / punishment for insider trading.

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.

This notion that price discovery is only possible with insider trading is demonstrably false yet somehow surprisingly pervasive.

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

#260

Post by dboreham »

empath75 wrote: post #224
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.

So, a fun historical fact is that insurance markets started with people in coffee houses betting on whether or not ships would sink for fun. Eventually ship owners realized that if they bet on their own ship sinking, that it reduced the financial risk of travel, then betters realized that ship owners were doing that and decided to research before taking the other side of the bet, and so on until you end up with ship…

Yes but if you're a bloke toking on your pipe in Lloyds Coffee House in 1713 you don't know that you already ordered a submarine to sink a ship you're placing a bet will sink...
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