The battle to stop clever people betting
economist.com
The battle to stop clever people betting
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Re: The battle to stop clever people betting
#2Re: The battle to stop clever people betting
#3I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly.
Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though
Re: The battle to stop clever people betting
#4It doesn't really sound fair if they are allowed to ban clever people. Isn't that the point of a game?
Re: The battle to stop clever people betting
#5It doesn't really sound fair if they are allowed to ban clever people. Isn't that the point of a game?
The point is to part gamblers with their money. Sport betting was never anything more than that.
Re: The battle to stop clever people betting
#6I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly. Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though
I used to think this but then developed the impression that quite the opposite is true, that a great many clever people live their lives betting on this or that (equities, derivities, sports, polymarket, often they call it "risk management" or other such things) and, unfortunately, that abstaining from betting (as I still do) is, unfortunately for me, an unrealistic maladaptive cope. I think the adaptive thing to do is to learn how to bet, especially if you're not a person who becomes pathological.
Re: The battle to stop clever people betting
#7I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly. Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though
Smart people who are "gambling" for anything other than fun only would participate when they have an edge.
There are many ways to obtain such an edge, and the casinos are highly motivated to prevent that from happening.
Re: The battle to stop clever people betting
#8It doesn't really sound fair if they are allowed to ban clever people. Isn't that the point of a game?
The point is to part gamblers with their money. Sport betting was never anything more than that.
Yeah, on the spectrum of ways to make money, running a sports betting site is pretty bad. It's zero-sum (unlike, say, founding a company and getting rich from shares that were initially worthless), doesn't really incentivize discovery of any truly valuable info (if you find out a player is injured an hour before everyone else ... ok?), and seems to disproportionately hit people who are already not doing very well.
Seeing the statistics about young American men's betting habits makes me feel old.
Re: The battle to stop clever people betting
#9I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly. Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though
Smart people who are "gambling" for anything other than fun only would participate when they have an edge. There are many ways to obtain such an edge, and the casinos are highly motivated to prevent that from happening.
Not on polymarket or kalshi. They welcome what would be insider trading on the stock market.
Re: The battle to stop clever people betting
#10I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly. Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though
I imagine there’s lots of money to be made on fools in polymarket, like “Will the US confirm that aliens exist in 2025?”
That topic had over a 10% “yes” chance in January. Betting no on that is better taking out a CD.