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White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

bbc.co.uk

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Re: White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

#81

Post by chrisnight »

OutOfHere wrote: post #78
maerF0x0 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that nearly everything public?

The key is avoiding the bets with controlling insiders, i.e. those that could have a potential conflict of interest. Even something as banal as weather data has some insider knowledge, but an insider has no practical control over it, i.e. the insider is non-controlling, with no conflict-of-interest.

Weather data in prediction markets can definitely be gamed. One example that exists in real prediction markets is that the contract specifies a single source as the source of truth. But that source rounds data during unit conversion twice (F -> C -> F), meaning there’s an unequal probability distribution, and some numbers have a 0% chance of winning.

Re: White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

#82

Post by nslsm »

mchusma wrote: post #77
keviniam wrote: post #18

I don't understand why anybody without access to serious inside information is currently betting on prediction markets. It's clear that insiders are absolutely going to eat your lunch. So who are the suckers who are losing all this money? I guess this isn't true for all things you might bet on, but it seems to be true for a lot of them.

I did a bit for fun and felt there were areas where I did do well. However, the problems with these markets is the contracts are often such where you can win or lose on obscure technicalities. I bet on 5 things, and 4 were resolved in ways I felt were non obvious. For example, will the Ayatollah be out by April. Lost because death apparently did not count. Bet Anthropic would advertise at the superbowl. Lost because…

Wow, those examples are crazy. It’s basically fraud.

Re: White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

#84

Post by scoofy »

OutOfHere wrote: post #56
jeffwask wrote: post #35

Please don't do insider trading. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

For those who live in the red-pilled real world, just don't trade on something where controlling insiders (also with a potential conflict-of-interest) can beat you at the game. This is different from bets with non-controlling insiders with no conflict-of-interest.

“Please don’t gamble except for entertainment purposes.”

– Las Vegas

Re: White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

#85

Post by _DeadFred_ »

sneed-oil wrote: post #80
keviniam wrote: post #18

I don't understand why anybody without access to serious inside information is currently betting on prediction markets. It's clear that insiders are absolutely going to eat your lunch. So who are the suckers who are losing all this money? I guess this isn't true for all things you might bet on, but it seems to be true for a lot of them.

I guess I'm one of those suckers, except that so far I've made a 3x return on the small sum I bet, I would say it's a hedge. I’ve been betting on the Iran war since mid February, the reasoning was that if the conflict happened, my payout would offset some of the jump in my cost of living. I could have used traditional financial instruments to buy options or oil futures or gold, but there's more friction there and I a…

Ah yes, the war futures exchange keeping us able to afford food.

Somehow 2026 took the Ancient Rome model of profit from destruction and enshitified and made it even worse and more grotesque. WTF are we even doing?

Re: White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

#86

Post by mrguyorama »

ceejayoz wrote: post #19
keviniam wrote: post #18

I don't understand why anybody without access to serious inside information is currently betting on prediction markets. It's clear that insiders are absolutely going to eat your lunch. So who are the suckers who are losing all this money? I guess this isn't true for all things you might bet on, but it seems to be true for a lot of them.

> So who are the suckers who are losing all this money? Random people who saw an ad or their favorite influencer shilling it. Like when my neighbors started asking me about NFTs.

There does seem to be a distinct class of "Serial Bagholders" though. People who thought NFTs were going to be their "Ticket" and lost a lot, and then the next thing was going to be their "Ticket", etc etc.

I genuinely don't understand how they have money to keep losing.

Re: White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

#87

Post by ceejayoz »

mrguyorama wrote: post #86
ceejayoz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So who are the suckers who are losing all this money? Random people who saw an ad or their favorite influencer shilling it. Like when my neighbors started asking me about NFTs.

There does seem to be a distinct class of "Serial Bagholders" though. People who thought NFTs were going to be their "Ticket" and lost a lot, and then the next thing was going to be their "Ticket", etc etc. I genuinely don't understand how they have money to keep losing.

They don't. They're just gambling addicts.

Re: White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

#88

Post by edge_trader_41 »

keviniam wrote: post #18

I don't understand why anybody without access to serious inside information is currently betting on prediction markets. It's clear that insiders are absolutely going to eat your lunch. So who are the suckers who are losing all this money? I guess this isn't true for all things you might bet on, but it seems to be true for a lot of them.

[flagged]

Re: White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

#89

Post by whywhywhywhy »

baggachipz wrote: post #68
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bipartisan, just look at Pelosi's portfolio.

Ah, there's the whataboutism. Where are her bets in the prediction markets?

That's not what whataboutism is, markets are markets and insider trading is insider trading.
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