491–500 of 741 posts
> And now here come the prediction markets, such as Polymarket and Kalshi, whose combined 2025 revenue came in around $50 billion. Bizarre to call trading volume "revenue". Last year, trading fees for Kalshi amounted to about $263 million[0], whereas Polymarket largely did not have fees in 2025 and is turning them on in a few days[1]. [0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kalshi-fee-revenue-2025-263-1... [1]: https://g…
Gambling is flourishing not because we're in a low-trust world, as the article says, but because the living conditions of an increasingly large part of the population as such that they cannot hope of ever achieving a comfortable life. We're returning to the social dynamics that dominated much of history (if you consider how much gambling was a scourge, from ancient Rome to thousands of years of history in China).
The entire country seems built on taking advantage of people, from my vantage point right now. Whether it’s attention, drugs, or business/legal leverage, everyone is out for advantage and they’re not even pretending to care about people they affect.
Europe: freedom from
The amount of suspicious bets around international politics is disturbing One data point of many: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/24/politics/iran-war-bets-predic... Fact: Donald Trump Jump Jr is an advisor of polymarket
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> By the late 1970s and 1980s the balance had shifted to where more households than not had both parents working. This is caused by the government sucking up ever larger portions of the economy, while also constricting it with ever more onerous regulations. It has to be paid for somehow.
This is Reagan-era starve the beast propaganda [1][2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast [2]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S
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I think they're saying you bet $1 billion it will not be gone, and someone takes that bet and kills Polymarket (How?)
Ah yes, of course and then he pays poly market ceo half that to close the company in time. But how do you not get screwed in your subterfuge?
You have to make another market that is a proxy for you (not) getting screwed.
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Prediction markets advertise insider trading as a feature, and enforcement of financial crimes is a racket anyway. If you know the right people, make the right campaign contributions, laws just don't apply to you.
this kind of cynicism is malignant
> And now here come the prediction markets, such as Polymarket and Kalshi, whose combined 2025 revenue came in around $50 billion. Bizarre to call trading volume "revenue". Last year, trading fees for Kalshi amounted to about $263 million[0], whereas Polymarket largely did not have fees in 2025 and is turning them on in a few days[1]. [0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kalshi-fee-revenue-2025-263-1... [1]: https://g…
Same as Block booking crypto trades as revenue.
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Agreed, as long as it's a catastrophe that the bettors can't cause, but for which advance warning can mitigate harms. For instance, I'm in favor of bets that a certain astroid will strike the earth at a certain time and place. A signal from the prediction markets might cause somebody to evacuate in a scenario where they'd otherwise cry "fake news." Let's not bet on whether the water will remain drinkable, because the…
> For instance, I'm in favor of bets that a certain astroid will strike the earth at a certain time and place. A signal from the prediction markets might cause somebody to evacuate in a scenario where they'd otherwise cry "fake news." I understand the point you're making, but in this case, you're still incentivizing someone somewhere to not attempt to the best of their ability to intervene in that astroid. Bets that…
Another one would be discovering malware in a PR and betting loudly enough that it won't get merged. The bet is how you make your certainty rise above the bot noise and attract extra attention on the maintainers' part.
Granted that's also theoretical, but it's worth theorising about how we'll get things done in a world where the only way to be heard is to put your money where your mouth is.