Bet on German Train Delays
bahn.bet
bahn.bet
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Så, norsk da. :)
> 1010 Wien, Austria
Of course, this went exactly as you'd think. However, since 2021, you can get a gambling license in all of Germany.
Fun fact: Since it's illegal to gamble with a non-licensed provider, using international platforms like polymarket can get you in trouble.
> Rather than contest the ruling, DBSM embraced it. If riding our trains is gambling, then passengers deserve the right to hedge.
> BahnBet is our answer: a platform where you can bet against your own train, turning delays into suffering, and suffering into profit. Every minute of punctuality you lose, you can win back in deliciously valuable caßh.
It also speaks to the world that we live in these days - I'm having a hard time separating satire from reality.
Source: my train back from Amsterdam was late...
But that was from Germany to Austria, so that might make a difference
Sure, they can improve, but it seems possible. The French SNCF has improved a lot in the last decade, for instance.
Remember that if your train is delayed more than a certain amount (30 minutes?) you have the legal right to ignore the routing on your ticket and take any train you want, that leads towards the destination on your ticket. Consider it an adventure. The app can suggest alternative routes in real-time, and you can also ask at the info desk at any station that has one.
There's definitely a comedy docudrama in there somewhere.
At this point here in the south of Germany not having DB would be an improvement.
Now it exists and you might even try to take it just to be delayed and disappointed. You'll lose your money and they behave in their arrogant manner with impunity.
Their customer "service" will definitely tell you how it's your own fault for having had the nerve to actually try to take their train. You might have even carried some dirt to the train for Christs sake!
So yeah. Not having it would already be an improvement. You'd just shrug and move on and take an alternative transport. Even horse and carriage would be better.
> Even horse and carriage would be better.
How does the existence of the DB prevent you from travelling with your horse and carriage? Your attitude doesn't seem very constructive, to be honest.
EU does not have a train monopoly. There are other train companies in Germany (FlixTrain, OBB, BRB...). And operators from other countries can also operate there, even French SNCF!
DB is blocking slots on rail, that could be used by other operators. And they are not going to change because it is Germany.
I recently experienced this with CD from Karlovy Vary to Berlin. It was snowing that day and inside of the Czech Republic I was enjoying the scenic view of the Egerland without any delays.
But as soon as we pulled into Germany, the train came to a stop - problems with the rail security infrastructure, nothing the train operator has any influence on.
We eventually arrived in Berlin with +1h delay.
Rails, buildings and train stations are in separate company (DB InfraGO), owned by DB.
But DB has no monopoly on trains in Germany, any company can run trains there.
Fine if some trains go through it (e.g. a TGV between Paris and Berlin).
But I remember being interviewed for a cybersecurity job at Siemens's Trains division and the german guys there started grilling me on some obscure cybersecurity standards used by the rail industry, even though that was never in my pentest resume and it's something that can be learned on the job.
Germans really hate hiring people who don't 100% fit a job description no matter how impossible it is. No wonder their economy is stagnant, when it's based on HR box ticking instead of aptitudes.
Good employees are required for the private sector that has competition, not for pseudo-state controlled pseudo-monopolies.
In defense of Deutsche Bahn, countries with comparable infrastructure but more reliable transport have put in about twice as much money per capita for the last 30 years at least.
Also, it went through a pseudo-privatisation back then, which hasn't helped (just private enough to focus on quarterly profits by letting bridges decay so that they have to be rebuilt or repaired in a few years, just public enough that they have to serve a lot of non-lucrative areas by law).
I have to admit I'm rather biased as I work there, but I would say most employees do the best they can with the hand they're dealt. It's just that politicians dealt them a really bad hand. And if Germany were to properly invest in infrastructure from now on, there's so much stuff that has to be repaired that reliability would go down even more in the next decade or so (seriously, this is not something you could fix in a year or two, even with hundreds of billions).
It’s almost as if people are tired of having betting shoved down their throats.
Why is that "in defense?"
When you let your infrastructure rot away since the 90s of the last century for something as complex as a train network by brutally underinvesting.
Then you seriously fucked up. There's nothing to defend here.
Because DB does not decide its own budget. And we're literally living in times where their employees are getting attacked and verbally abused by the passengers for the state of the train system
Except when they quickly build cartels. See internet in Germany.
Yes, we can use more devices now. Prices have stayed more or less the same (or have risen, corrected by inflation. Service quality has collapsed, though.
Telekom is a profitable enterprise. Yet, telecom infrastructure in Germany is on a remarkably bad level and relatively expensive. Cell coverage is also still bad, especially when travelling via rail or car.
With the exception if the Japanese Rail, all the other examples are different in one crucial detail: they are not natural monopolies.
(There is plenty of examples for good or bad private or state owned railways. It's just not black and white)
For Germany though, the rail „privatization“ has been an absolute failure no matter how you try to spin it, unfortunately. But hey, at least we have nice rolling stock!
OMG. Employers to never work for:
- the Bund - the Oeffentlichen - Deutsche Bahn - Unions, especially ver.di - established / legacy parties
I think most people don't blame the normal employees. The blame is on the management layers, the "Wasserkopf", that gives themselves boni, even if things are done poorly and are going badly. A disconnect from the reality on the tracks.
I don't see improvements. I rather see worse and worse reliability, even though Deutsche Bahn asks for more and more money from the government. That money is disappearing somewhere, at least partially, instead of arriving in projects for improving the situation. In many places, if not most, there isn't even a single turnout track, so that any construction work halts the whole line. Disastrous. You cannot ask people to buy train tickets for 100 to 200 EUR, and then be hours late. I mean, you can, but then you are delusional. They are not surviving because of their great product or service, they are only surviving, because people don't have good alternatives. Basically, it is extortion. In other countries I pay 1/10 of the ticket price and I arrive on friggin' time, on a much longer ride.
Are you new to the Internet? This has been a thing since (at least) Slashdot. :)
In defence of the 80%, there is no indication in any section other than the About page that it is not real money (with the possible exception of the suspiciously high sums of money), and most commercial services have fairly useless About pages. The HN headline presents it as if it's real.
A far cry from GP's implication that "inadvertently click[ing] on the website" is sufficient to see this.
A lot of delays are due to rail corridors being at capacity, but overboarding bureaucracy makes any improvement there a generational project.
Hamburg - Hanover has been discussed for decades with strong opposition from NIMBY groups with no solution in sight.
But even if there is no opposition things take ages. E.g. for restoring the 2nd track and electrification between Cottbus and Görlitz the plan is now to finish the project by 2041.
This is absolutely insane for 100km of track that were removed as WW2 reparations.
And looking at previous projects it's unlikely to finish in time.
The new S-Bahn track in Berlin between the main station and Gesundbrunnen was supposed to open in 2017. It got delayed over and over and is now finally scheduled to open by the end of this month - just a delay of 9 years.
And that's with an interim station because the real station at Hauptbahnhof wasn't finished in time - and no intermediate stop, that's now also in the planning phase and will mean the line will have to be interrupted again in the near future
I'd really like to see that happen for the S-trains, as well--DB loves nothing more than continuing to project an on-time arrival on the station board, as the time of departure comes and goes and other trains arrive and depart.
> All the trains, delays, and data on this app are real.But the money isn't – because for that I'd need to move to Malta. Or Cyprus. Or Schleswig-Holstein.
Driving slower can make things more predictable and reduce wear, making breakdowns less likely. Trains being on time is all about consistency.
One gets back 50% if reaching the destination is delayed by more than 2h. Schedule the journey such that this is probable, making the journey 50% cheaper. Potentially with being able to define where one should be stuck waiting for the next train connected with sight seeing opportunities (such as the nice quarter near the Frankfurt main train station -- old ECB building!).
[1] https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10652-bahnmining_-_punktlichkeit... (German)
The complexity of operations is astounding and the organisational challenges (e.g. railway deregulation push) make it even harder.
Sick burn hahaha
> Sinderella She has to leave the ball by midnight — but her last train was cancelled. Now she roams the platform in glass slippers, waiting for a replacement bus.
This is something that most people don't currently understand because most people don't really have much experience with gambling addicts and the sort of horrible things they will do to satisfy their cravings, but as the amount of gamblers in society grows explosively, we're all going to be feeling the effects of being surrounded by these people.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/01/america-polym...
Though, I probably shouldn't have even talked about the reporting, and instead just said "this is something we're under-worried about as a society".
Why ever do anything at all with your money, ever, otherwise? Except for basic needs.
You used to be able to save for most large purchases without going into debt. Even cars.
But no, these days cars tend to be so goddamn expensive while at the same time being so low-margin products for the dealerships that even if you theoretically can pay in cash, the salespeople do their best to force you into some sort of debt because the kickback from that is the only way they make money. And practically, rents suck up so much of your income you can't save anyway.
Banks don't profit from keeping your deposits, they profit from running the money supply which empowers them to create new money which they tax or, in other words, loans on which they charge interest.
Go and try to withdraw something tangible with intrinsic value from a bank and you'll see they don't owe you anything at all. The most you'll get from them is paper, but even then you'll find it withdraw all your money in paper.
I just opened an account for you in my own bank, in fact. You have one million credits. You are free to send and receive credits from anybody else with an account (which is nobody, unfortunately). I owe you nothing.
If even the smart people on HN can't understand this it's little wonder the finance industry has such a stranglehold on society. The banks just run a ledger. That's all they are doing. But it's a ledger they control and they are allowed to create new money in it. In fact 97% of money is created by the banks when they issue loans.
It's a fundamentally different model to the antiquated "banks lend out your deposits" one.
No investments would take place because of that.
Why indeed? If people are only buying stuff because they are afraid of their money being worth less in the future then those are things people don't even want, let alone need. Why is it a good thing for us to endlessly churn out stuff people don't even want?
The Swiss Federal Railways asked German trains to wait at the border and has even ban many German trains to enter Switzerland over excessive delays to prevent their train schedule from being affected.
The site is hilarious by the way. I hope it will have an effect on DB, even though I doubt it.
I've been living in Germany for a very long time and the real decline started some ten years ago. At the beginning mostly because of poor maintenance. My first years with the DB 100 card (allowing to travel on all trains) were a pleasure then it deteriote to the point where you start yourself: where is this heading. As I said, the ban of SBB on German trains was a turning point for me.
But You're right about the networks being different (mostly because France suppressed many local lines in the last 20 years.
I think another part of their problem is trying to run at very high utilisation ratios, which slightly increases throughput but vastly amplifies the cascade effect of a disruption.
Edit: This was common until Parliament passed the Marine Insurance Act of 1745.
Before that, speculators could take out "wagering policies" on vessels they had no connection to. This created "coffin ships" - unseaworthy vessels sent to sea because the insurance payout for a wreck was worth more than the ship itself. The law introduced "insurable interest," meaning you cannot bet on a disaster unless you stand to lose something if it happens. This removed the incentive for sabotage and murder for profit.
Modern prediction markets are heading toward the same problem. Betting on train delays or bridge collapses without having any stake gives bad actors a reason to cause it. If the cost of sabotage is lower than the payout, the market effectively pays for the disaster to happen.
Whoever downvoted this wants you to ignore centuries of legal precedent designed to prevent exactly this kind of blood money. Those who ignore the lessons of the past learn wisdom in blood... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_ship_(insurance)#:~:tex... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Insurance_Act_1745#:~:t...
Over here in France a train is considered on time if it has up to a 15mn delay. We can ask for a very partial refund only if it has at least 30mn of delay, and we get a voucher to book another train that will also be late.
Too bad there are obvious problems with this.
60 min delay: 25% (or 100% if you abort your travel) 120 min delay: 50% Furthermore, your ticket is usually unlocked for all trains in case of delay, not just the one you booked. So you can find alternatives and maybe even upgrade (you won't have a seat reservation though).
There's also up to 120€ for overnight-stay or other forms of transportation in select cases (when you won't be able to reach your destination before some time)
These days, a DB journey that doesn’t involve some sort of disruption is the outlier.
Coming from someone who has to commute via South Western railway into London everyday.
Sad state of affairs for Germany.
The website and app work well, in my experience. It's all pretty sleek and modern, too. It's the one area they do a good job in, to be honest.
What? The app is infamous for just "forgetting" tickets and when you get caught you HAVE to pay a fine and no they will not accept screenshots. You will win in court but have fun paying for everything in advance.
Citation needed. I've never heard of this being an issue (certainly not an "infamous" one) and almost everyone I know constantly travels by train and uses the app regularly. Maybe you're mixing things up with Deutschlandticket apps by regional transport associations, but that's not DB's fault.
Tickets get hidden from the default view once they're expired, but that's to be expected and you can press the prominent "Previous trips" button to see them.
I agree that the delays are unacceptable, but the official app is great w/ digital tickets + seat registration, you don't need the PDF at all (it's even optional during checkout, so if you don't like them you can just uncheck the box lol)
The ticket office did have impressive throughput and lines building up.
Could be a force of habit for UK but that's mostly how we do tickets. Printing is usually still an option.
You can scan and add your QRs (or more correctly Aztec barcodes) in DB Navigator app already. If you bought it via your own account (instead of your company buying it), you don't even need to do it. The tickets automatically appear.
DB Navigator is one of the best transport apps and already implements some caching. However you're ultimately tied to cell network or WiFi in train for certain othet apps and the quality of implementation. PDFs don't expire.
No PDFs or print-outs or forms are needed.
Yes, you still get a PDF ticket sent to your email, but you aren't required to use it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20260303171349/https://bahn.bet/
Since downdetector has been bought, we can make a new site, where people can bet on what sites will be down. The whole market can be automated fairly easily to check whether a given website is responding.
This should divert a substantial proportion of the world's DDoS capacity.
Bet on which companies will be hacked next! Divert some hacker capacity…
I mean yes, better than no transport, but it's ridiculous. And if you have an appointment in the morning, 2h of delay are a deal breaker.
An insurance of sorts, so to speak.
In Argentina, you can have delays too, as in "there are no trains today".
Getting a degree. Investing in a business. Investing in a relationship. Having kids. Smoking. Booking a flight cheaper but with no possibility of cancellation. Moving town. Not moving town.
I could go on forever.
Everything is a gamble. Some forms of gambling are more socially acceptable than others.
The difference, in everyhthing, is emotional control and knowing how much you stand to lose if it goes wrong.
This does hit home though: I did miss an international flight due to the S-Bahn out of Munich. Eventually they were like "this train is so delayed, we're going to make everyone get off and catch the next one". ::shrugs::
...and the Munich airport is just painful in general (the flight status boards shorten the flight numbers with ellipsis for instance).
I like it :-)
(Asking since polymarket is forbidden in DE)