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A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall

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Re: A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall

#81

Insider trading is legal. Crime is legal. You shouldn't be surprised though, name any market, all markets are full of manipulation and insiders.

hey now, Insider trading is legal if you're the right Insider, and so is crime, which means not so much for you and I.

In US shoplifting and car theft are also legal for everyone.

Re: A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall

#83
post #63
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget > Donald Trump Jr, the president's son, serves in advisory roles at Kalshi and Polymarket.

I believe there are way better opportunities than making 400k with a bet on an app. Could have been for fun though.

This is literally half a million dollars for clicking a button. You can take this opportunity and every other opportunity.

Re: A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall

#84
post #78
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely has been! In general prediction markets can’t be “correct” or “incorrect” - for instance if a prediction market says there’s a 60% chance of an event occurring, and it doesn’t occur, was the market right or wrong? Well it’s hard to say - certainly the market said the event was more likely to occur than not, but only just, and who knows? Maybe the event _only just_ occurred, and very nearly didn’t! So ge…

Charlie Kirk has a 3% chance of winning a Nobel Peace Prize right now according to Polymarket. He's climbed from 1% since Maduro was arrested. It seems unlikely since Nobels aren't awarded posthumously.

How much volume on this bet? Let's ignore black swan events and say it's a guaranteed 3% return. On how much? $1? $10? $1m?

I'd weigh the accuracy by how much money is at stake...

Even then, a "perfect" prediction market need not be accurate, if people use it for hedging. If some low probability event is really bad for me, I may pay over odds (pushing the implied probability up) to get paid if it happens. The equilibrium probability may be efficient, reasonable and biased.

Re: A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall

#85
post #18

I have to imagine governments are closely monitoring prediction markets as part of their intelligence apparatus. But then you just add another layer of subterfuge. Imagine a D-Day prediction market... "Will the Allies Land in Normandy, Pas-de-Calais, or somewhere else?" The US might buy a major position on Pas-de-Calais the night before as a decoy!

I imagine how few incumbents can take advantage of prediction markets.

Re: A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall

#86
post #40

How often are these prediction markets "correct"? Has this been studied?

It absolutely has been! In general prediction markets can’t be “correct” or “incorrect” - for instance if a prediction market says there’s a 60% chance of an event occurring, and it doesn’t occur, was the market right or wrong? Well it’s hard to say - certainly the market said the event was more likely to occur than not, but only just, and who knows? Maybe the event _only just_ occurred, and very nearly didn’t! So ge…

Some of the longshot biases still exists and can't be removed due to technical constraints on the platforms. A lot of times there is a minimum contract price, which effectively means the probability of unlikely events cannot be modeled as lower than 1% or 0.1% or whatever. But there are contracts for events much less likely than that.

Re: A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall

#88
post #11

Insider trading is a feature, not a bug, say Shayne and Tarek, stupidly. You can't have this amount of obvious manipulation and expect the average retail consumer to join. Same reason why there hasn't been mass consumer adoption of crypto. People just don't feel safe.

Even without insider trading it's a negative-sum game. Every dollar won is a dollar lost, and the platform takes a cut. Like all negative-sum games you should only participate if it's purely for entertainment or you have a clearly definable edge over the other players. If you can't spot the sucker, you are the sucker.

Re: A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, markets are evaluated on accuracy, not calibration

Noob question from me: what’s the difference between accuracy and calibration? A well calibrated market would be more accurate and vice versa, not? Edit: just found the answer myself: “accuracy measures the percentage of correct predictions out of total predictions, while calibration assesses whether a prediction market's assigned probabilities align with the actual observed frequency of those outcomes”

A forecaster can be calibrated but almost only assign probabilities in the 40--60 % range. This is not as ueful as one assiging calibrated probabilities in the full range.

We try to measure the increased usefulness of the latter with proper scoring rules.

Re: A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall

#90
post #23
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Then why would non-insiders bet? The classic prediction market is guessing the weight of an elephant (or some animal) at a circus. The average guess of the crowd will actually get very close. But if someone knows the actual weight, no one would play.

The entire idea of a prediction market is to aggregate insider information. If you don't have insiders, you're not doing predictions, you're just doing gambling. Granted: that's what almost every Polymarket user is actually doing. But that's a bad thing . The insider whales are the only ones actually using it for its intended purpose.

If you don't have insiders, you're not doing predictions, you're just doing gambling.

Non-insiders can't make predictions? I'm not into betting as a hobby but I make minor bets with myself or friends on topics with clear win-loss conditions in areas of politics where I consider myself knowledgeable. I'm pretty good at it since I find it easy to distinguish between results I'd like to see vs what I expect to actually happen.

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