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Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

theatlantic.com

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Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#501

Post by toss1 »

bluecalm wrote: post #500
toss1 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, we agree on just about everything. Political and economic commentary is generally brain rot, and Polymarket, etc. is not an accurate predictive tool And yes, if it starts to be seen as one of the levers to manipulate in manipulating public opinion, it will become more expensive. That does not improve it's predictive value, since we never really know how expensive it is on either side relative to the bankrolls…

If you think Polyrmarket is not an accurat predictive tool you can easily exploit and make a fortune. If you think some politician is paying to manipulate the market just take their money by taking the other side. It's not perfect but it's the best thing we get. Certainly beats analysts, government officials and about anyone else.

>>If you think some politician is paying to manipulate the market just take their money by taking the other side.

Yes, that is True -- IFF (and that is a big If and Only If) we can suss out in real time what is happening.

The other risk is the Polymarket (or other betting market) managers' calls on what gets meet or don't meet the criteria. Like that punter who made big bets on the Venezuela Maduro kidnapping operation, betting tens-of-thousands$$ on the "Invasion" proposition and initially looking like he made almost a half-million dollars, only to have Polymarket decide it was not an "invasion".

So there is both risk of "did I actually detect a ploy?" and counterparty payout risk. But if we can get past those two, we can definitely make bank!

EDIT: Another risk, and probably the key risk, is even after noticing and identifying a large market-moving bet, whether that is from a player who is trying to skew the market (and doesn't care if they win/lose as they are playing a different game) or a player with inside information who knows something we do not.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#502

Post by jstanley »

nkrisc wrote: post #350
jstanley wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people want to gamble and the gambling industry provides what they want. How would you like it if people who didn't care about your hobby started questioning the social benefit of allowing you to do it?

> How would you like it if people who didn't care about your hobby started questioning the social benefit of allowing you to do it? In this hypothetical scenario, is my hobby actively harmful to society? Some people would enjoy killing people but we don’t let them do that.

Gambling isn't harmful to society. A gambling bet is a private bet between two people.

If some people who like gambling are harmful to society in other areas of their life, that's on them.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#503

Post by jstanley »

trollbridge wrote: post #366
jstanley wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people want to gamble and the gambling industry provides what they want. How would you like it if people who didn't care about your hobby started questioning the social benefit of allowing you to do it?

Maybe I enjoy having an arsenal of late-model machine guns, doing research on rare nuclear isotopes, brewing cholera in my septic tank, tending a Japanese knotwood garden, raising lantern flies, and breeding new strains of cold viruses. Perhaps society should continue to restrain such hobbies.

Those are all good examples of things that you could in principle do without harming other people, so I don't see your point.

Yes, you should be allowed to do those things as long as you do it without harming others.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#504

Post by jstanley »

freejazz wrote: post #406
jstanley wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people want to gamble and the gambling industry provides what they want. How would you like it if people who didn't care about your hobby started questioning the social benefit of allowing you to do it?

What is the point of being this obtuse? Is there a rhetorical benefit to pretending that gambling is not a vice? That it is just a "hobby"? Should we apply this logic to selling illegal drugs? >How would you like it if people who didn't care about your hobby started questioning the social benefit of allowing you to do it? Gambling? Is people questioning gambling a new thing? Seems like the opposite is the case. Again…

> Should we apply this logic to selling illegal drugs?

Yes, of course.

Selling drugs is also a private transaction between two people that does no harm to anyone else.

If the people buying or selling drugs are harmful to others in the rest of their life, that's on them. It shouldn't be used as a fig leaf to negatively impact people who can buy and sell drugs responsibly.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#505

Post by vablings »

fnands wrote: post #355
Hammershaft wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be gambling for some, but prediction markets are impressively accurate, in a way that I think merits OPs comment that the information they produce can improve lives. (Other lives will surely be destroyed by gambling...) There's quite a bit of interesting research done on the accuracy, here's a great resource: https://calibration.city/introduction

What value does an accurate prediction market bring? I.e. how can this information be used to improve lives (other than the person winning the bet)? I.e. even if it is sorta accurate, is this valuable to anyone? As I see it it seems to be a way to incentivize insiders to leak information, e.g. see the alleged Google insider betting on Google actions: https://www.forbes.com/sites/boazsobrado/2025/12/04/alleged-... Gre…

There are worse examples closer to home.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/white-house-briefing-fuels-in...

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#506

Post by vel0city »

jstanley wrote: post #502
nkrisc wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you like it if people who didn't care about your hobby started questioning the social benefit of allowing you to do it? In this hypothetical scenario, is my hobby actively harmful to society? Some people would enjoy killing people but we don’t let them do that.

Gambling isn't harmful to society. A gambling bet is a private bet between two people. If some people who like gambling are harmful to society in other areas of their life, that's on them.

Gambling can absolutely destroy lives. I've seen it in my own family. Its highly addictive nature combined with an easy way to lose everything you own is incredibly dangerous.

I've personally witnessed domestic violence from a gambler taking heavy losses as they realize they're about to be in a really bad place financially. I've never seen someone get violent over messing up a few rows of knitting.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#507

Post by jstanley »

vel0city wrote: post #506
jstanley wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling isn't harmful to society. A gambling bet is a private bet between two people. If some people who like gambling are harmful to society in other areas of their life, that's on them.

Gambling can absolutely destroy lives. I've seen it in my own family. Its highly addictive nature combined with an easy way to lose everything you own is incredibly dangerous. I've personally witnessed domestic violence from a gambler taking heavy losses as they realize they're about to be in a really bad place financially. I've never seen someone get violent over messing up a few rows of knitting.

So your beef is with domestic violence, not with gambling.

In a counterfactual where someone was doing some gambling and not doing some domestic violence, would you be still upset about the gambling in and of itself? Who does it harm?

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#508

Post by vel0city »

jstanley wrote: post #507
vel0city wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling can absolutely destroy lives. I've seen it in my own family. Its highly addictive nature combined with an easy way to lose everything you own is incredibly dangerous. I've personally witnessed domestic violence from a gambler taking heavy losses as they realize they're about to be in a really bad place financially. I've never seen someone get violent over messing up a few rows of knitting.

So your beef is with domestic violence, not with gambling. In a counterfactual where someone was doing some gambling and not doing some domestic violence, would you be still upset about the gambling in and of itself? Who does it harm?

Its not just domestic violence (though the rates of DV are usually higher with gamblers than the general population...huh I wonder why), but also just completely messing up a family's finances. This can really destroy families and relationships.

And sure, the same could be done with lots of things. But gambling is incredibly addictive.

I've watched family members gamble themselves into homelessness before. Isn't this a harm as well? Aren't the kids harmed when they lose their home and have no college savings despite the household having a net value of several million dollars a few years before?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not 100% against all forms of gambling. I gamble from time to time myself. What I'm against is this current wave of constant, relentless push of gambling into damn near everything, all the time. Back when gambling meant you'd have to go to the riverboat or fly halfway across the country or you're only dealing with small stakes poker between friends, its radically different to apps on our phones pushing notifications all the time, every sports game spending a significant amount of screen real estate to showing betting odds, news outlets talking about polymarkets all the time.

Could one have still been a problem gambler back before smartphone betting? Sure, one of those family examples I know about related to flying out to Vegas a few times a long time ago. But the rates of that happening were far lower before.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#509

Post by butlike »

smarf wrote: post #462
butlike wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entertainment. It's also the only vice you don't have to ingest an outside substance for.

> the only vice you don't have to ingest an outside substance for to name a couple: gaming, prostitution (okay you might incidentally ingest an outside substance but YOU DON'T HAVE TO)

I wouldn't classify gaming as a vice.

Re: Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling

#510

Post by vacuity »

jstanley wrote: post #503
trollbridge wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I enjoy having an arsenal of late-model machine guns, doing research on rare nuclear isotopes, brewing cholera in my septic tank, tending a Japanese knotwood garden, raising lantern flies, and breeding new strains of cold viruses. Perhaps society should continue to restrain such hobbies.

Those are all good examples of things that you could in principle do without harming other people, so I don't see your point. Yes, you should be allowed to do those things as long as you do it without harming others.

If a lot of people have that as their hobby, and some are careless or malicious, people will be harmed. Now suppose that it's not simple to stop the offenders directly. Instead, restricting the sale of nuclear isotopes or cholera samples would probably be highly effective.
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