But, one silver lining, maybe, is gamblers are a little less likely to fall for fake news. Maybe?
Only in a truth-agnostic sense. Good gamblers in player-banked games (poker; rock, scissors, paper) vs house-banked games (slots) are good at figuring out what the other guy is representing. The actual truth is much less significant.
That only really holds if reporting on the manipulation bets is not turned into effective propaganda for skewing events towards the manipulation outcome.
So the main argument of the article holds IMO.
Edited to add: I'd like to rephrase that a bit actually. It doesn't even have to help bring about the particular outcome being bet on. It's enough that it can be used to shift public opinion in some way that's worth the cost to the manipulator.
Sure, but events where that kind of "skew" is effective are going to be quite rare. And even then, the incentive is just for everyone to try to "skew" the event as early as possible, where factors other than monetary cost or reward then become dominant. No different from what usually happens with no prediction market at all.
> It's enough that it can be used to shift public opinion in some way that's worth the cost to the manipulator.
This has been tried in the real world and is just not very effective. It's just too hard to move the price in ways that will shift public opinion when literally anyone else has a huge incentive to bet against you.
The whole nation is eaten up by gambling and other vices at this time. It's not the first time such a thing has happened in a nation's history. Generally it occurs just after widespread monetary debasement and just before major, world shaking disasters. (You Are Here.)
Reference: Andrew Dickson White (first president of Cornell) "Fiat Money Inflation In France", published 1896:
"The government now began, and continued by spasms to grind out still more paper; commerce was at first stimulated by the difference in exchange; but this cause soon ceased to operate, and commerce, having been stimulated unhealthfully, wasted away.
Manufactures at first received a great impulse; but, ere long, this overproduction and overstimulus proved as fatal to them as to commerce. From time to time there was a revival of hope caused by an apparent revival of business; but this revival of business was at last seen to be caused more and more by the desire of far-seeing and cunning men of affairs to exchange paper money for objects of permanent value. As to the people at large, the classes living on fixed incomes and small salaries felt the pressure first, as soon as the purchasing power of their fixed incomes was reduced. Soon the great class living on wages felt it even more sadly.
Prices of the necessities of life increased: merchants were obliged to increase them, not only to cover depreciation of their merchandise, but also to cover their risk of loss from fluctuation; and, while the prices of products thus rose, wages, which had at first gone up under the general stimulus, lagged behind. Under the universal doubt and discouragement, commerce and manufactures were checked or destroyed. As a consequence the demand for labor was diminished; laboring men were thrown out of employment, and, under the operation of the simplest law of supply and demand, the price of labor--the daily wages of the laboring class--went down until, at a time when prices of food, clothing and various articles of consumption were enormous, wages were nearly as low as at the time preceding the first issue of irredeemable currency."
He's writing about Revolutionary France's debasement, but Mackay's Extraordinary Delusions documents France's debasement under John Law about 70 years earlier, which shows how easily such mistakes are repeated.
"The mercantile classes at first thought themselves exempt from the general misfortune. They were delighted at the apparent advance in the value of the goods upon their shelves. But they soon found that, as they increased prices to cover the inflation of currency and the risk from fluctuation and uncertainty, purchases became less in amount and payments less sure; a feeling of insecurity spread throughout the country; enterprise was deadened and stagnation followed.
New issues of paper were then clamored for as more drams are demanded by a drunkard. New issues only increased the evil; capitalists were all the more reluctant to embark their money on such a sea of doubt. Workmen of all sorts were more and more thrown out of employment. Issue after issue of currency came; but no relief resulted save a momentary stimulus, which aggravated the disease. The most ingenious evasions of natural laws in finance which the most subtle theorists could contrive were tried--all in vain; the most brilliant substitutes for those laws were tried; "self-regulating" schemes, "interconverting" schemes--all equally vain. All thoughtful men had lost confidence. All men were waiting; stagnation became worse and worse. At last came the collapse and then a return, by a fearful shock, to a state of things which presented something like certainty of remuneration to capital and labor. Then, and not till then, came the beginning of a new era of prosperity.
Just as dependent on the law of cause and effect was the moral development. Out of the inflation of prices grew a speculating class; and, in the complete uncertainty as to the future, all business became a game of chance, and all business men, gamblers. In city centers came a quick growth of stock-jobbers and speculators; and these set a debasing fashion in business which spread to the remotest parts of the country. Instead of satisfaction with legitimate profits, came a passion for inordinate gains. Then, too, as values became more and more uncertain, there was no longer any motive for care or economy, but every motive for immediate expenditure and present enjoyment. So came upon the nation the obliteration of thrift."
Please don't make posts consisting of quotes and nothing else. HN is a supposed to be a site for curious conversation. It's not hard to see how posts like this interrupt that and bog it down - imagine someone at a dinner party* reading entire parargraphs like this.
(* I don't know why I said "dinner party", since I don't go to those, the conversation usually isn't good, and they aren't my idea of fun, but oh well, it makes the point)
"In this mania for yielding to present enjoyment rather than providing for future comfort were the seeds of new growths of wretchedness: luxury, senseless and extravagant, set in: this, too, spread as a fashion. To feed it, there came cheatery in the nation at large and corruption among officials and persons holding trusts. While men set such fashions in private and official business, women set fashions of extravagance in dress and living that added to the incentives to corruption. Faith in moral considerations, or even in good impulses, yielded to general distrust. National honor was thought a fiction cherished only by hypocrites. Patriotism was eaten out by cynicism.
Thus was the history of France logically developed in obedience to natural laws; such has, to a greater or less degree, always been the result of irredeemable paper, created according to the whim or interest of legislative assemblies rather than based upon standards of value permanent in their nature and agreed upon throughout the entire world. Such, we may fairly expect, will always be the result of them until the ñat of the Almighty shall evolve laws in the universe radically different from those which at present obtain.
And, finally, as to the general development of the theory and practice which all this history records: my subject has been Fiat Money in France; How it came; What it brought; and How it ended.
It came by seeking a remedy for a comparatively small evil in an evil infinitely more dangerous. To cure a disease temporary in its character, a corrosive poison was administered, which ate out the vitals of French prosperity.
It progressed according to a law in social physics which we may call the "law of accelerating issue and depreciation." It was comparatively easy to refrain from the first issue; it was exceedingly difficult to refrain from the second; to refrain from the third and those following was practically impossible.
It brought, as we have seen, commerce and manufactures, the mercantile interest, the agricultural interest, to ruin. It brought on these the same destruction which would come to a Hollander opening the dykes of the sea to irrigate his garden in a dry summer. It ended in the complete financial, moral and political prostration of France--a prostration from which only a Napoleon could raise it."
So that lazy people who form their worldview via a Quick Google Search, Wikipedia articles, and/or "news media" can actually have a chance to learn something real about the time they are living in.
It's like a dozen paragraphs, forming one complete argument. Is this too much material to take in all at once, in this brave new TLDR tomorrow?
> It's like a dozen paragraphs, forming one complete argument. Is this too much material to take in all at once, in this brave new TLDR tomorrow?
The issue is not that you cited a dozen-paragraph argument, it's that you inlined all the text directly into a series of comments instead of a link to the text on a separate page. It visually overwhelms the discussion thread and is disruptive to the broader discussion, which is not strictly against guidelines but generally seen as non-normative behavior.
> A billionaire congressional candidate can’t just send a check to Quinnipiac University and suddenly find himself as the polling front-runner, but he can place enormous Polymarket bets on himself that move the odds in his favor.
Maybe not with a specific pollster depending on their scruples, but you can definitely pay to be part of the poll. And that’s the first step to getting any stats whatsoever.
Gambling isn’t a new problem, but apparently we thought it would turn out differently this time, for some vague unclear reason.
I think the simplified version of that reason is: no one really believes in anything anymore, except in the value that acquiring money by any means necessary is a good thing.
> Gambling isn’t a new problem, but apparently we thought it would turn out differently this time, for some vague unclear reason.
Moneyed interests saw a business opportunity, simple as that. Economic investment is becoming highly concentrated towards high-growth, high-risk opportunities and gambling has long thrived in the black market while staying current with technology.
> except in the value that acquiring money by any means necessary is a good thing.
And this will only become more true as the economy continues to worsen. Economic downturns and market collapses favor the elite.
The powers that be have always saught wealth. At some point they gained enough power to start usurping the law that was supposed to keep them in check.
> Gambling isn’t a new problem, but apparently we thought it would turn out differently this time, for some vague unclear reason.
The things I've seen have been either "it's not right to tell me not to" or "non-participants can get useful information by observing the odds". What I haven't seen is claims that it won't be net-harmful to participants.
This seems like the contrarian argument to libertarianism. A libertarian might claim it is orthogonal to it in theory, but in practice it is very much relevant to a “break all the walls down” ideology.
> I think the simplified version of that reason is: no one really believes in anything anymore, except in the value that acquiring money by any means necessary is a good thing.
Hit the nail on the head and these are my thoughts exactly. I don't really want to be the guy that thinks his time is extra-ordinary (cue fake quote of Socrates saying "kids these days have no manners"), but... maybe it is?
For me it's like people don't even feel the need to pretend anymore. Selfish geopolitical calculations and greed have dictated all actors' actions in the 20th, that isn't new, but at least then there was a need to appear to abide by laws or to uphold human rights, even to strive for the eradication of war (and often it wasn't a disguise; people actually cared about those things).
States used to care or at least appear to care about progress, betterment, social improvement, moral improvement. Today? All any government speaks of is raw GDP growth %. And so gambling is pushed on TVs, streets, subways, kids' entertainment... The idea that a government of a nation would strive for the moral well-being of its citizens (by heavily curtailing gambling for example) seems positively quaint in 2026.
Eh, I don’t think not wanting gambling and amoral behavior to consume society makes me a conservative in any real sense of the word. More just common sense pragmatism, is how I’d put it.
No, it’s an argument against removing rules / making changes without deeply understanding why those rules exist in the first place, and what might happen when they are removed.
It’s perfectly fine to be for progressive social changes, as long as those criteria are met.
I’d call that a pragmatic approach, not a conservative one.
No, sometimes social change is putting up a fence. And if social change is sometimes putting up fences, that would mean that not all fences are supposed to be torn down.
I think most serious left-wing people also hold a strong aversion to gambling on the grounds that it's financially exploitative and can be viewed as a regressive tax on the poor/uneducated.
The article’s point was not that Polymarket is the problem-the point is validating and advertising Polymarket on national news outlets will have ugly consequences.
Yeah, once it's on television, it is similar to polling, which can influence elections because people like to vote for the winner. However, in this case it's even worse, because someone with deep pockets can influence the predictions.
But polling is still scientific and harder to manipulate than the betting markets. All of this is covered in th article. You should read it-it is a good article.
Sorry, that was what I meant to imply with the second half of my comment. Still, in my country there have been debates about whether publishing polls shouldn't be forbidden n weeks or days before the election (currently publishing polls and campaigning is only forbidden on election day).
The solution is baked into the problem. If prediction markets become generally embraced by the public (mentioning them on CNN is part of that evolution) then they will be much harder to manipulate. Size matters.
Polymarket here is one example among the companies causing the problem. Legislation that addresses the problem should affect all the listed companies and more, not just Polymarket.
Naked option trading is certainly the worst of the three from a financial risk perspective for the beginner.
Although polymarket would do the best at "attraction" towards the average uninformed consumer because the bets and how to place them are far more understandable than the various option trading strategies.
Personally I find it sickening to see ads that say you can get rich betting on the weather. I haven't seen ads for polymarket but Kalshi's ads are absolutely predatory.
It's a website where people can make bets on how certain geopolitical and public events shake out.
I used to think it's just yet another way to people with more money than sense to get their kicks.
But then I saw the true reason why the platform is terrifying - it gives people who have nontrivial amounts riding on the line a very powerful incentive to influence said events.
I have seen expertly crafted and highly convincing narratives - that I know to be false from firsthand experience - spring up inside (and presumably outside) the platform spring up on an issue. There was the thing where the ISW (a reputable military think tank) reported an Ukrainian city was captured (when in fact it wasn't) in order to win a bet.
Imagine if next time someone leaks some military intel in order to hedge a bet. Money, especially lots of it, is a very powerful motivator.
There's also no way to check and control who has insider info or has influence on the outcome (as betting against them is essentially suicide)
It gives people in power, wether it be the government or even an NBA ref, a vehicle to profit off of conflicts of interest / fixing games / etc...
Ive seen people point out White House press conferences do weird shit, like cut the conference 10 seconds before some polymarket prop bet of "how long will this press conference be".
Much more heinously, a few months ago right before one of Trumps asinine tariff announcements, someone took out a $300M BTC short position that was almost certainly from a WH insider.
I honestly don't care if someone loses all their money gambling, but the problem I have is how so many institutions are able to be undermined at a fundamental level do the existence of polymarket.
I think you have completey missed my point. The stock market only allows you to trade securities, and (in theory) there is a lot of regulation and enforcement on who buys / sells stocks. Additionally, no one has the power to magically set a stock price to be a certain price on a certain date.
Polymarket all of a sudden makes it much easier to make money betting on an outcome people control. Looking at polymarket, I see bets paying 100-1 based on the number of tweets Elon makes on a given day. I see another at 100-1 on wether the US airstrikes Iran today with $66m riding on it. All of a sudden theres an incentive of a life changing amount of money for goons in the whitehouse to strike Iran for shits and giggles.
Did you know that in 2007 some NBA Refs were caught rigging games for just $2000 a game? Now Refs don't even need to be payed off when you can make a position anonymously with bitcoin.
>Additionally, no one has the power to magically set a stock price to be a certain price on a certain date.
but many have the knowledge of which company or industry is about to experience legislation, which they can pass to any of their associates worldwide, who can then buy or short the affected entities and share the profit with the insider. Polymarket is just the idiocracy version of that.
Why is polymarket worse than cell phone games? At least polymarket essentially self identifies as gambling and isn't specifically marketed to children.
Cell phone games are knowingly losing money for fun. Polymarket is a sign of a failing, rapidly deregulatory economy.
And that's before we get into discussing the social damage to country that already sees more school shootings than weeks in a year (actually, 4x more), with rising political and civil tensions including assassinated politicians, adding potential "lose your house" to random events. As if it'll help calm things down and let us all keep a level head.
Or the implications of news companies reporting on these odds as if they reflect actual statistical likelihood, and how that gives the ultra wealthy yet another lever to control the view of reality the common people have.
>>At least in gambling they don't let the sports referees and players gamble.
Oh c'mon now. This is completely impossible to police. Players and referees are not under constant supervision. They have families, friends, partners. Some of them got caught but you can be certain most weren't because it's just very difficult to catch.
There are always multiple people who know about key players' injuries, illness, other factors. The game is negative sum and additionally insiders take a a chunk for themselves. It's worse then roulette which at least doesn't pretend to be fair.
If insiders trade, the market becomes more accurate, which is good for society. Like WikiLeaks. Thus the MSN panic, the legacy establishment wants Polymarket to follow Assange's path.
The problem discussed in the article was NOT insiders trading on secret information — it is the nearly opposite problem of manipulators trading and skewing the odds.
Insider trading seeks to trade with secret information and minimally obvious trades to avoid moving the markets until their position is locked in, in order to profit when the previously secret information becomes public and the market finally moves to a different price level.
Manipulators seek to move the market to create a false narrative that market-moving info exists when actual market-moving does NOT exist; the expectation is that people will see the price change and ASSUME there is information behind it, when there is actually just a manipulator willing to lose money to create that impression.
In a small market, such manipulation can be more cost-effective (make more of an impression for the same cost) vs buying advertisements.
Yep, some WH member trading 400k$ an hour before an attack sure did wonders for "the good of society". So does media showing rates on gambling websites as if they were an oracle and not something that can be gamed for cheaper than a TV ad.
Isn't Polymarket very low stakes?
For example "Will Trump acquire Greenland before 2027" market (the main one for this issue) has only 14m USD volume.
This is like 2 orders of magnitude less money than is bet on El Classico 2 times a year.
There are risks connected when prediction markets run wild but Polymarket ain't it.
There is also utility. It has high predictive value (it beats polls for elections from a little sample I've looked at) and allows you to make better decisions.
It beats polls for elections ONLY until someone notices it is being used as the basis of news stories and figures out it will be four orders of magnitude cheaper to manipulate that small market and make the news idiots broadcast that opinions have changed than to actually deploy all the adverts needed to change the opinions.
The very low stakes you point out make this even easier to put a thumb on the scales.
Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"
The point of the article is that as soon as the "news" started reporting on prediction markets or corporatized gambling as if it was a measure of sentiment, it ceased to become a good measurement. That point has long passed.
News already broadcast tons of nonsense. Political commentary is just brain rot. Economic commentary might be just as well generated by one of those Markov chain string generators - it would make as much sense.
>>out it will be four orders of magnitude cheaper to manipulate that small market and make the news idiots broadcast that opinions have changed than to actually deploy all the adverts needed to change the opinions.
It will then become more expensive.
Out of all the manipulation news and journalists do every day I am not sure why "people bet money at 1 to 4 odds that Trump takes Greenland before 2027" is particularly problematic. It's true people bet money on it at those odds. How is that more problematic that news running pro or anti Trump segments or broadcasting some random crystal ball readings to justify stock price fluctuations of the day?
You can see how much money is bet on the market as well. It's not like you can spend 5 figures and suddenly shape the narrative.
The internet is too connected and communication too instantaneous for Polymarket to be anything but a system to be gamed by those with money and influence.
Bet appears on Polymarket? You have the ability to direct people and resources to enact the under? Congrats you're rich!
Occasionally they make historically bad bets and blow up their fortunes, and it gets eaten up it all the smaller sharks circling behind them. It used to be most billionaires only lasted (as billionaires) for 3-7 years before collapsing.
The current stock market insane binge has changed that a bit.
Yeah, they historically don't like to keep increasing their wealth, Elon musk going from 350bn to nearly 800bn in like 2 years is definitely not an example of that.
The writer obviously hasn’t done any deep study of prediction markets and why they often provide greater insight than other polling techniques. Are they perfect? No. They predicted Hillary would win in 2016.
You obviously missed the point of the article. The point is that validating and advertising Polymarket on national news outlets will have ugly consequences.
But, one silver lining, maybe, is gamblers are a little less likely to fall for fake news. Maybe?
It seems hard to be a climate change denier when you're about to gamble on it.
Or maybe people will find a way to gamble while still living in completely different reality bubbles. Probably.
If you thought your neighbor was politically extreme last election, just wait until next election when he also has $100,000 on the line...
Only in a truth-agnostic sense. Good gamblers in player-banked games (poker; rock, scissors, paper) vs house-banked games (slots) are good at figuring out what the other guy is representing. The actual truth is much less significant.
5 minutes browsing polymarket comments will dispel that notion really fast.
Well, only if they are thinly traded. If they get mentioned a lot more on CNN and CNBC, that is likely to change.
Edited to add: I'd like to rephrase that a bit actually. It doesn't even have to help bring about the particular outcome being bet on. It's enough that it can be used to shift public opinion in some way that's worth the cost to the manipulator.
> It's enough that it can be used to shift public opinion in some way that's worth the cost to the manipulator.
This has been tried in the real world and is just not very effective. It's just too hard to move the price in ways that will shift public opinion when literally anyone else has a huge incentive to bet against you.
Reference: Andrew Dickson White (first president of Cornell) "Fiat Money Inflation In France", published 1896:
"The government now began, and continued by spasms to grind out still more paper; commerce was at first stimulated by the difference in exchange; but this cause soon ceased to operate, and commerce, having been stimulated unhealthfully, wasted away.
Manufactures at first received a great impulse; but, ere long, this overproduction and overstimulus proved as fatal to them as to commerce. From time to time there was a revival of hope caused by an apparent revival of business; but this revival of business was at last seen to be caused more and more by the desire of far-seeing and cunning men of affairs to exchange paper money for objects of permanent value. As to the people at large, the classes living on fixed incomes and small salaries felt the pressure first, as soon as the purchasing power of their fixed incomes was reduced. Soon the great class living on wages felt it even more sadly.
Prices of the necessities of life increased: merchants were obliged to increase them, not only to cover depreciation of their merchandise, but also to cover their risk of loss from fluctuation; and, while the prices of products thus rose, wages, which had at first gone up under the general stimulus, lagged behind. Under the universal doubt and discouragement, commerce and manufactures were checked or destroyed. As a consequence the demand for labor was diminished; laboring men were thrown out of employment, and, under the operation of the simplest law of supply and demand, the price of labor--the daily wages of the laboring class--went down until, at a time when prices of food, clothing and various articles of consumption were enormous, wages were nearly as low as at the time preceding the first issue of irredeemable currency."
New issues of paper were then clamored for as more drams are demanded by a drunkard. New issues only increased the evil; capitalists were all the more reluctant to embark their money on such a sea of doubt. Workmen of all sorts were more and more thrown out of employment. Issue after issue of currency came; but no relief resulted save a momentary stimulus, which aggravated the disease. The most ingenious evasions of natural laws in finance which the most subtle theorists could contrive were tried--all in vain; the most brilliant substitutes for those laws were tried; "self-regulating" schemes, "interconverting" schemes--all equally vain. All thoughtful men had lost confidence. All men were waiting; stagnation became worse and worse. At last came the collapse and then a return, by a fearful shock, to a state of things which presented something like certainty of remuneration to capital and labor. Then, and not till then, came the beginning of a new era of prosperity.
Just as dependent on the law of cause and effect was the moral development. Out of the inflation of prices grew a speculating class; and, in the complete uncertainty as to the future, all business became a game of chance, and all business men, gamblers. In city centers came a quick growth of stock-jobbers and speculators; and these set a debasing fashion in business which spread to the remotest parts of the country. Instead of satisfaction with legitimate profits, came a passion for inordinate gains. Then, too, as values became more and more uncertain, there was no longer any motive for care or economy, but every motive for immediate expenditure and present enjoyment. So came upon the nation the obliteration of thrift."
(* I don't know why I said "dinner party", since I don't go to those, the conversation usually isn't good, and they aren't my idea of fun, but oh well, it makes the point)
Thus was the history of France logically developed in obedience to natural laws; such has, to a greater or less degree, always been the result of irredeemable paper, created according to the whim or interest of legislative assemblies rather than based upon standards of value permanent in their nature and agreed upon throughout the entire world. Such, we may fairly expect, will always be the result of them until the ñat of the Almighty shall evolve laws in the universe radically different from those which at present obtain.
And, finally, as to the general development of the theory and practice which all this history records: my subject has been Fiat Money in France; How it came; What it brought; and How it ended.
It came by seeking a remedy for a comparatively small evil in an evil infinitely more dangerous. To cure a disease temporary in its character, a corrosive poison was administered, which ate out the vitals of French prosperity.
It progressed according to a law in social physics which we may call the "law of accelerating issue and depreciation." It was comparatively easy to refrain from the first issue; it was exceedingly difficult to refrain from the second; to refrain from the third and those following was practically impossible.
It brought, as we have seen, commerce and manufactures, the mercantile interest, the agricultural interest, to ruin. It brought on these the same destruction which would come to a Hollander opening the dykes of the sea to irrigate his garden in a dry summer. It ended in the complete financial, moral and political prostration of France--a prostration from which only a Napoleon could raise it."
It's like a dozen paragraphs, forming one complete argument. Is this too much material to take in all at once, in this brave new TLDR tomorrow?
Do as you wish, however I doubt this will have the effect you want here.
The issue is not that you cited a dozen-paragraph argument, it's that you inlined all the text directly into a series of comments instead of a link to the text on a separate page. It visually overwhelms the discussion thread and is disruptive to the broader discussion, which is not strictly against guidelines but generally seen as non-normative behavior.
Maybe not with a specific pollster depending on their scruples, but you can definitely pay to be part of the poll. And that’s the first step to getting any stats whatsoever.
"Chesterton's fence" is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...
Gambling isn’t a new problem, but apparently we thought it would turn out differently this time, for some vague unclear reason.
I think the simplified version of that reason is: no one really believes in anything anymore, except in the value that acquiring money by any means necessary is a good thing.
Moneyed interests saw a business opportunity, simple as that. Economic investment is becoming highly concentrated towards high-growth, high-risk opportunities and gambling has long thrived in the black market while staying current with technology.
> except in the value that acquiring money by any means necessary is a good thing.
And this will only become more true as the economy continues to worsen. Economic downturns and market collapses favor the elite.
The things I've seen have been either "it's not right to tell me not to" or "non-participants can get useful information by observing the odds". What I haven't seen is claims that it won't be net-harmful to participants.
Hit the nail on the head and these are my thoughts exactly. I don't really want to be the guy that thinks his time is extra-ordinary (cue fake quote of Socrates saying "kids these days have no manners"), but... maybe it is?
For me it's like people don't even feel the need to pretend anymore. Selfish geopolitical calculations and greed have dictated all actors' actions in the 20th, that isn't new, but at least then there was a need to appear to abide by laws or to uphold human rights, even to strive for the eradication of war (and often it wasn't a disguise; people actually cared about those things).
States used to care or at least appear to care about progress, betterment, social improvement, moral improvement. Today? All any government speaks of is raw GDP growth %. And so gambling is pushed on TVs, streets, subways, kids' entertainment... The idea that a government of a nation would strive for the moral well-being of its citizens (by heavily curtailing gambling for example) seems positively quaint in 2026.
Anyway I'm tired, excuse the incoherent ramble.
It’s perfectly fine to be for progressive social changes, as long as those criteria are met.
I’d call that a pragmatic approach, not a conservative one.
The other meaning of "conservative", the one that's opposite "reckless".
It should in theory be possible to take a conservative approach to being progressive.
Fool and his money are quickly separated…
Sorry, that was what I meant to imply with the second half of my comment. Still, in my country there have been debates about whether publishing polls shouldn't be forbidden n weeks or days before the election (currently publishing polls and campaigning is only forbidden on election day).
Coinbase
Robinhood
DraftKings
FanDuel
Polymarket here is one example among the companies causing the problem. Legislation that addresses the problem should affect all the listed companies and more, not just Polymarket.
And to be fair options trading used to be pretty limited in users too, until apps like robinhood tried to democratize it.
Although polymarket would do the best at "attraction" towards the average uninformed consumer because the bets and how to place them are far more understandable than the various option trading strategies.
Personally I find it sickening to see ads that say you can get rich betting on the weather. I haven't seen ads for polymarket but Kalshi's ads are absolutely predatory.
I used to think it's just yet another way to people with more money than sense to get their kicks.
But then I saw the true reason why the platform is terrifying - it gives people who have nontrivial amounts riding on the line a very powerful incentive to influence said events.
I have seen expertly crafted and highly convincing narratives - that I know to be false from firsthand experience - spring up inside (and presumably outside) the platform spring up on an issue. There was the thing where the ISW (a reputable military think tank) reported an Ukrainian city was captured (when in fact it wasn't) in order to win a bet.
Imagine if next time someone leaks some military intel in order to hedge a bet. Money, especially lots of it, is a very powerful motivator.
There's also no way to check and control who has insider info or has influence on the outcome (as betting against them is essentially suicide)
Ive seen people point out White House press conferences do weird shit, like cut the conference 10 seconds before some polymarket prop bet of "how long will this press conference be".
Much more heinously, a few months ago right before one of Trumps asinine tariff announcements, someone took out a $300M BTC short position that was almost certainly from a WH insider.
I honestly don't care if someone loses all their money gambling, but the problem I have is how so many institutions are able to be undermined at a fundamental level do the existence of polymarket.
there is the stock market for those things, where insider trading is nigh invisible to public.
Polymarket all of a sudden makes it much easier to make money betting on an outcome people control. Looking at polymarket, I see bets paying 100-1 based on the number of tweets Elon makes on a given day. I see another at 100-1 on wether the US airstrikes Iran today with $66m riding on it. All of a sudden theres an incentive of a life changing amount of money for goons in the whitehouse to strike Iran for shits and giggles.
Did you know that in 2007 some NBA Refs were caught rigging games for just $2000 a game? Now Refs don't even need to be payed off when you can make a position anonymously with bitcoin.
but many have the knowledge of which company or industry is about to experience legislation, which they can pass to any of their associates worldwide, who can then buy or short the affected entities and share the profit with the insider. Polymarket is just the idiocracy version of that.
And that's before we get into discussing the social damage to country that already sees more school shootings than weeks in a year (actually, 4x more), with rising political and civil tensions including assassinated politicians, adding potential "lose your house" to random events. As if it'll help calm things down and let us all keep a level head.
Or the implications of news companies reporting on these odds as if they reflect actual statistical likelihood, and how that gives the ultra wealthy yet another lever to control the view of reality the common people have.
This is just another racket for those in power to continue making the world worse for just a little bit more gain for themselves.
Oh c'mon now. This is completely impossible to police. Players and referees are not under constant supervision. They have families, friends, partners. Some of them got caught but you can be certain most weren't because it's just very difficult to catch.
There are always multiple people who know about key players' injuries, illness, other factors. The game is negative sum and additionally insiders take a a chunk for themselves. It's worse then roulette which at least doesn't pretend to be fair.
Insider trading seeks to trade with secret information and minimally obvious trades to avoid moving the markets until their position is locked in, in order to profit when the previously secret information becomes public and the market finally moves to a different price level.
Manipulators seek to move the market to create a false narrative that market-moving info exists when actual market-moving does NOT exist; the expectation is that people will see the price change and ASSUME there is information behind it, when there is actually just a manipulator willing to lose money to create that impression.
In a small market, such manipulation can be more cost-effective (make more of an impression for the same cost) vs buying advertisements.
For fucks sake...
There are risks connected when prediction markets run wild but Polymarket ain't it. There is also utility. It has high predictive value (it beats polls for elections from a little sample I've looked at) and allows you to make better decisions.
The very low stakes you point out make this even easier to put a thumb on the scales.
Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"
The point of the article is that as soon as the "news" started reporting on prediction markets or corporatized gambling as if it was a measure of sentiment, it ceased to become a good measurement. That point has long passed.
>>out it will be four orders of magnitude cheaper to manipulate that small market and make the news idiots broadcast that opinions have changed than to actually deploy all the adverts needed to change the opinions.
It will then become more expensive. Out of all the manipulation news and journalists do every day I am not sure why "people bet money at 1 to 4 odds that Trump takes Greenland before 2027" is particularly problematic. It's true people bet money on it at those odds. How is that more problematic that news running pro or anti Trump segments or broadcasting some random crystal ball readings to justify stock price fluctuations of the day? You can see how much money is bet on the market as well. It's not like you can spend 5 figures and suddenly shape the narrative.
Bet appears on Polymarket? You have the ability to direct people and resources to enact the under? Congrats you're rich!
If you have the ability, you are already rich.
The current stock market insane binge has changed that a bit.