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Uncovering insiders and alpha on Polymarket with AI

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Re: Uncovering insiders and alpha on Polymarket with AI

#31

Post by swingboy »

SamPatt wrote: post #15
aleksiy123 wrote: post #11

Out of curiosity, is it possible to see everyone's bets and positions in real time? Or is the info only available later? I'm guessing that bots predicting insiders and copying positions is already a thing.

You can see when they buy or sell a position. It's on the blockchain so it's all public. And yes, copying positions is called copy-trading and it's extremely popular. Orders aren't public though. Only the actual trades. This is important because by the time the trade is known by others very often the edge is gone. Especially if you have other people watching the same trader and they all try to copy the trade at the s…

If it takes so long for the actual trades to show up then why is copy-trading popular?

Re: Uncovering insiders and alpha on Polymarket with AI

#32

Post by joncooper »

currymj wrote: post #18

there is some inevitable "insider trading" in commodities markets. for example if you're a giant agricultural company, and you want to hedge the price of soybeans, you have some extremely relevant insider information about the soybean market. but you're still allowed to trade soybean futures. very different than securities. if prediction market contracts really are regulated as commodities, then presumably a lot of i…

An agricultural company hedging the price of soybeans is precisely hedging, not speculation. The insider information they have is their supply/demand/pricing picture. That's different than the colloquial definition of insider information which I've always taken to tie to event occurrence (or not).

Re: Uncovering insiders and alpha on Polymarket with AI

#33

Post by smcin »

kibwen wrote: post #24
moduspol wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. For those of us not gambling, it's really quite beneficial.

Prediction markets can only pay out based on public information, which means that prediction markets can only "reveal information" like this for things that would have been public knowledge anyway. And insiders are always risking that leaking their insider info might influence the outcome of the bet against them (like if leaking the date of a covert military operation causes the operation to be rescheduled), so they'…

You're overlooking that sudden, unexplained or counterintuitive movements in the actual prediction market itself, well before the event occurs/market resolves can themselves convey information, about what apparent insiders think (or whales want to manipulate the market to think).

Obvious example: Polymarket now has 69(!) markets involving Iran: https://polymarket.com/predictions/iran

Consider the timing of those markets wrt 2026 national elections in US, Israel, also Sweden, legislative elections in France, Germany (as canaries for their next general elections) plus a possible change in UK PM, plus any possible Ukraine or Venezuela outcomes. And of course events in the stock market or energy markets make certain outcomes more/less likely.

Also, on Polymarket traders often buy and sell before a market resolves, to exploit patterns in other traders.

And consider what happens at major media e.g. CNN now they've partnered with Kalshi, wrt whether the broadcasting certain predictions/viewpoints/interviewees get boosted/suppressed.

Re: Uncovering insiders and alpha on Polymarket with AI

#34

Post by pousada »

tedsanders wrote: post #10
delichon wrote: post #3

> Clearly, these insiders have figured out a way to cash in on information. Whether that's kosher is out-of-scope here To the extent that the value of prediction markets is in their power to predict, insider trading is kosher. Wholesome even.

Bribing employees to disclose confidential information entrusted to them is not kosher nor wholesome. I consider corporate insider trading on these markets to be analogous - if you're an employee and you trade, you are selling your employer's info for money. Nearly every employer would fire employees caught giving away confidential information for personal bribes. In the stock market, Matt Levine likes to say that in…

The market economy is not about fairness but about ruthless power.

The worlds most influential people demonstrate that only power matters; that the world order we built last century through unimaginable suffering and violence matters less than securing their own personal gain; that law, morals, and order were just dreams of the weak

Re: Uncovering insiders and alpha on Polymarket with AI

#35

Post by tombert »

It baffles me that Polymarket is legal.

Even if there wasn't any kind of insider betting going on, it just seems so disgusting to turn literally everything into a casino.

There's a bet going on right now about Jesus coming back before 2027 [1], and a part of me wants to do it because I'm pretty confident Jesus isn't coming back by the end of the year (or any year), but it seems kind of wrong to try and extract money out of people who are gambling away their money.

[1] https://polymarket.com/event/will-jesus-christ-return-before...

Re: Uncovering insiders and alpha on Polymarket with AI

#37

Post by jwpapi »

peterjliu wrote: post #30
w10-1 wrote: post #26

Speculation and concern from a naive observer: Is it polymarket presenting this ability to detect insiders? Or is someone trying to sell the service of detecting insiders to those wanting to know if bets are on equal footing? (or wanting to follow insiders? or wanting to hide your identity by making multiple accounts? Are there per-account fees, when polymarket might encourage people to make multiple accounts?) Regar…

Post author here: To clarify, this is not a post from Polymarket. This is talking about using Compound AI (product I'm working on) to query Polymarket data, including finding insiders, just as a fun example analysis you could do. Often you need a well-calibrated probability of a future event to feed into some other analysis, and Polymarket is pretty great for that. An example is how much insurance (hedge) to buy for…

Why dont you just copy the trades?

Re: Uncovering insiders and alpha on Polymarket with AI

#38

Post by testaccount28 »

coldtea wrote: post #36

> Prediction markets have been called "truth machines" because anyone who has information missing from the market can profit. That sounds like "insider trading" machines, or "scam" machines, rather than truth machines.

yes, they allow you to pay people who have information about the future for that information, in a distributed manner. this is great if, like many people, you want information about the future.

Re: Uncovering insiders and alpha on Polymarket with AI

#39

Post by nodesocket »

There is 100% insider-trading and manipulation of prediction markets. It's absurd some of the markets that are created. The most glaring example was this years super bowl halftime show. They had markets on songs Bad Bunny would sing, which song he would sing first, etc. You're telling me the thousands of people who had access to practices and information would not wager on this?

Re: Uncovering insiders and alpha on Polymarket with AI

#40

Post by genidoi »

jwpapi wrote: post #37
peterjliu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Post author here: To clarify, this is not a post from Polymarket. This is talking about using Compound AI (product I'm working on) to query Polymarket data, including finding insiders, just as a fun example analysis you could do. Often you need a well-calibrated probability of a future event to feed into some other analysis, and Polymarket is pretty great for that. An example is how much insurance (hedge) to buy for…

Why dont you just copy the trades?

Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.
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