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Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

merkley.senate.gov

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Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#61

Post by Terr_ »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #21
schnebbau wrote: post #18

The answer is simple - you price in the chance that an insider could have an edge on you when making your prediction. It's all part of the game.

We also care about the world outside the prediction markets. If decision-makers have an incentive to "throw the match" by making surprising decisions, that will impair the decision-making, which will affect the rest of us. Likewise, sufficiently-wealthy actors will be able to manipulate the behaviour of officials by betting against the behaviour they want to see, much like an assassination market.

> manipulate the behaviour of officials by betting against

Right, it becomes regular bribery with middleman and a funny hat.

"I didn't pay the judge to dismiss the case against me, I just hedged by betting I'd be convicted and he just happened to be betting I'd go free, and now my money is coincidentally in his pocket.

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#62

Post by trinsic2 »

gruez wrote: post #31
trinsic2 wrote: post #24

How is any of this going to get passed without enforcement of anti-trust and an end to citizen united?

What does anti-trust enforcement and citizens united have to do with being able to pass laws on insider trading?

Money in politics which causes politicians to be biased on the passing of legislation?

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#63

Post by bee_rider »

ralph84 wrote: post #59
staplung wrote: post #5

Unfortunately, it's not just elected officials that are problematic for prediction markets. The Secretary of War, for instance is not an elected official nor are leaders of the armed forces and there is definitely a prediction market for war. Multiply this by every powerful appointee and every career bureaucrat and see what kind of picture that paints.

If I was a NOAA meteorologist I'd be making bank insider trading temperature prediction markets.

Maybe this could be an alternative funding source for weather prediction, haha.

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#64

Post by salawat »

gruez wrote: post #29
SteveNuts wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like you’d get a secondary proxy market popping up overnight. Like domain privacy for degenerates.

That's why you make the regulations like AML regulations, where it's a crime to obfuscate the source of the wager too.

[flagged]

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#65

Post by nkrisc »

GaryBluto wrote: post #26
idle_zealot wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, and I beg you to consider this radical position: we arrest people who break the law (insider trading is illegal) and those who knowingly help them to do so (the operators of the prediction markets). How quickly we accept the death of even the ideal of rule of law in favor of embracing a return to an explicit rule by might, fuck-you-got-mine mentality.

It doesn't break the law.

If it doesn’t then it should.

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#66

Post by samlinnfer »

lukev wrote: post #11
staplung wrote: post #5

Unfortunately, it's not just elected officials that are problematic for prediction markets. The Secretary of War, for instance is not an elected official nor are leaders of the armed forces and there is definitely a prediction market for war. Multiply this by every powerful appointee and every career bureaucrat and see what kind of picture that paints.

If we're not going to ban prediction markets, we could at least make it a requirement that all bets are public and associated with a real identity. That'd go a long way towards curbing the corruption of these things, while preserving (or even greatly enhancing) their "predictive power."

And maybe you can start by mandating age verification?

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#68

Post by hephaes7us »

SteveNuts wrote: post #17
lukev wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're not going to ban prediction markets, we could at least make it a requirement that all bets are public and associated with a real identity. That'd go a long way towards curbing the corruption of these things, while preserving (or even greatly enhancing) their "predictive power."

Seems like you’d get a secondary proxy market popping up overnight. Like domain privacy for degenerates.

Domain privacy isn't for degenerates.

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#69

Post by MadnessASAP »

salawat wrote: post #64
gruez wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you make the regulations like AML regulations, where it's a crime to obfuscate the source of the wager too.

[flagged]

Its not transparent to me? What are they trying to do?

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#70

Post by bee_rider »

int32_64 wrote: post #33

The prediction market trend will "work itself out". It will become common knowledge that these platforms are exploited by insiders so people "trust" apparent flagged insider bets, so people will try to piggyback insiders, then it will be revealed that a sophisticated party with infinitely deep pockets burns massive amounts of cash to manipulate odds and these piggybackers will be burned badly, so in the end classical…

Prediction markets do seem basically corrupting. So yeah, maybe the winning move for society is to just not regulate them at all so they just become obvious “cheaters only” leagues.
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