Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story • Hacker News Board

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#891

Post by bandrami » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 6:11 AM UTC

malfist wrote: post #539

sam0x17 wrote: post #459

I really wonder whether privacy would actually be the answer here --- prediction markets as they are now where the odds are public really shouldn't be called prediction markets, they should be called "outcome-shaping markets" because largely that is what they do, they let people shape real-world outcomes with massive amounts of liquidity. If instead these were privacy protocols where you can see how much liquidity is…

Why would anybody make a bet if they don't know the odds or payout?

That's how pari mutuel betting works; the odds are set by the bettors betting and unknown until the book closes.

That's in fact the entire argument behind Kalshi: the betting is the means of odds discovery.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#892

Post by quantified » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 6:19 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #885

margalabargala wrote: post #624

As someone generally against gambling, I think there's a fair point to be made that Polymarket and similar sites are not fundamentally different from e.g. sports betting. The issue of bribing/threatening a sports player to throw a game has existed for over a century. It's not a new problem. The only thing special about Polymarket is the expansion of surface area. My preferred solution would be to just ban it all, or…

The existence of sports betting absolutely encourages people to throw matches and the existence of X betting absolutely encourages people to try to make X come about. The existence of something in no way encourages someone to commit a crime. That is victim blaming (if the concept of 'sport' can be a victim in this case). Sport and people who enjoy sport and people who enjoy gambling on sport don't have anything to do…

Ah, the old "let's not have gun control, criminals can always find a gun" again. Except that when there are fewer guns around it is manifestly harder for more criminals to find.

In a very strict sense, you are right. But people influence other people, and people who wouldn't act this aggressively otherwise find themselves inspired to after taking a bet.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#893

Post by aerhardt » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 6:20 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #795

ihaveajob wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! As a beginner-level, amateur armchair economist who hated philosophy class in high school, I have to admit I was surprised to learn about this when reading https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/economix by Michael Goodwin. The book overall seems to lean liberal whenever there's a political choice to be made, and yet it paints Adam Smith in a much more positive light that one would imagine, if all you've learned…

> if all you've learned about him is the criticism of today's political left. Leftists I've known are more likely to quote Smith than criticize him. He seems to be seen by leftists as an important figure in political economy (flawed in not reaching certain important questions , perhaps, but not much in how he addressed those questions he did consider.) Even his argument that the class whose understanding of their own…

Some in the Left, including Marx - perhaps most of the well-read Left - do this. Then there is an entire category of people who throw his name around in the mud and call “Adam Smith liberal” anything they view as immoral or excessive.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#894

Post by onion2k » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 6:25 AM UTC

quantified wrote: post #892

onion2k wrote: post #885

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of sports betting absolutely encourages people to throw matches and the existence of X betting absolutely encourages people to try to make X come about. The existence of something in no way encourages someone to commit a crime. That is victim blaming (if the concept of 'sport' can be a victim in this case). Sport and people who enjoy sport and people who enjoy gambling on sport don't have anything to do…

Ah, the old "let's not have gun control, criminals can always find a gun" again. Except that when there are fewer guns around it is manifestly harder for more criminals to find. In a very strict sense, you are right. But people influence other people, and people who wouldn't act this aggressively otherwise find themselves inspired to after taking a bet.

Ah, the old "let's not have gun control, criminals can always find a gun" again. Except that when there are fewer guns around it is manifestly harder for more criminals to find.

That's not my argument though. Gambling is not the equivalent of a gun in this situation. Gambling is the catalyst, sure, but the crime is making death threats. Removing all the reasons why people might make death threats in order to stop the death threats is going to be tricky.

If you want an analogy it's like the argument is 'Let's not have banks because they only encourage bank robbers!', and I'm here arguing that really we just need to make bank robbery a crime.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#895

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 6:45 AM UTC

thayne wrote: post #850

derf_ wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Strong regulation and legal consequences could potentially fix this. There are regulations. E.g., in the US, 17 CFR § 40.11 prohibits contracts on "terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or an activity that is unlawful under any State or Federal law" [0]. The problem is that those responsible for enforcing those regulations are currently uninterested in doing so [1]. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/40.1…

Seems like bets on missile strikes would violate that...

They do. It's moot, though, because Polymarket isn't subject to US law.

There has been an ongoing controversy over the fact that Kalshi (which is subject to US law) chose to comply with the law over the market on Khomeini "leaving office", when the bettors assumed that it wouldn't.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#896

Post by riffraff » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 6:50 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #894

quantified wrote: post #892

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the old "let's not have gun control, criminals can always find a gun" again. Except that when there are fewer guns around it is manifestly harder for more criminals to find. In a very strict sense, you are right. But people influence other people, and people who wouldn't act this aggressively otherwise find themselves inspired to after taking a bet.

Ah, the old "let's not have gun control, criminals can always find a gun" again. Except that when there are fewer guns around it is manifestly harder for more criminals to find. That's not my argument though. Gambling is not the equivalent of a gun in this situation. Gambling is the catalyst, sure, but the crime is making death threats. Removing all the reasons why people might make death threats in order to stop the…

But the argument for not having cash so that it does not encourage robberies is a real argument and it does indeed work.

ATMs have long had devices that stain cash if you try to steal from them. Bank cashiers used to have "we don't have the keys to the vault" signs. Vaults that open at fixed times beyond the control of the cashiers are a thing.

Regulation and enforcement are important but removing opportunity and motive are also important.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#897

Post by markdown » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 7:00 AM UTC

afthonos wrote: post #793

lordnacho wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning it sends it underground into the hands of organised crime, which will still have access to modern technology. There's going to be a net loss, but it's probably better to regulate it than have another war on drugs.

As someone who at first embraced the idea of prediction markets and is now ambivalent, sending them underground vastly reduces their harm. First, because discoverability is an issue. Second, there will be much less liquidity. Third, any gains will have to be laundered or hidden, making it even more difficult. Maybe prediction markets are net positives, or maybe regulating them will make them so, but banning them does…

> First, because discoverability is an issue.

I can't believe how many betting ads I see or hear every time I consume US media. It's worse then all the ads about drugs they want you to request from your doctor.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#898

Post by riffraff » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 7:01 AM UTC

jamesfinlayson wrote: post #869

triceratops wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can ban online betting and betting advertising though. If you want to bet on ponies go to a racetrack. No apps, no phones.

Not sure about other countries but in Australia at least, betting was only allowed at race courses on race days. That has obviously changed though.

This was the case in Italy too until a few decades ago, except for some specific locations with a casino license, and a national kind of sport lottery.

Since sport betting became legal the issues with gambling addiction have skyrocketed but the state is addicted to the trickle of provents from it and can't cut it back.

There was an attempt to limit sport bets advertising, and that was widely sidestepped (you advertise for bet.news instead of bet.com, with the former linking to the latter)

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#899

Post by necovek » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 7:22 AM UTC

janalsncm wrote: post #611

sam0x17 wrote: post #459

I really wonder whether privacy would actually be the answer here --- prediction markets as they are now where the odds are public really shouldn't be called prediction markets, they should be called "outcome-shaping markets" because largely that is what they do, they let people shape real-world outcomes with massive amounts of liquidity. If instead these were privacy protocols where you can see how much liquidity is…

That wouldn’t solve the issue in the article. The gamblers threatening the journalist know how much money they individually gambled on an outcome, which means they know how much they stand to lose if they cannot pressure a source to alter reporting in their favor.

Problem intrinsic to gambling is that people appropriate expected winnings instead of what they really put in, thus making the feeling of loss even greater than what it objectively is.

Re: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me over Iran missile story

#900

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 7:31 AM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #878

CamperBob2 wrote: post #855

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intrade confuses me. It was illegal to use Intrade as a US citizen; in fact, some people I personally know who were into that scene had to maintain foreign bank accounts. What has changed, exactly, to make Polymarket legal where Intrade was not?

Giving it to you straight: GOP SCOTUS court packing via denying Obama’s nomination led to 6-3 supermajority, and it ruled gambling legislation was a states rights issue. Sports gambling startups ate sports right up, then, innovators like YC funded companies that said “that, but for everything” and collided with a shameless pay-to-play administration, not the general “politicians take donations from companies” kind, t…

> and it ruled gambling legislation was a states rights issue.

What did that change? Gambling legislation was a states' issue before. You might have noticed that different states had wildly different gambling regimes.

(...and all federal legislation is a states' rights issue?)

> Now the argument that would have appeared batshit insane a decade ago, that there’s no federal way to prevent this[,] is [the] de facto law of the land.

You're talking about a law that was invalidated eight years ago, and passed 24 years before that. Which position would have looked insane more of the time?