* you can place large bets on events you have influence on the outcome for and make large amounts of money
* you can place large bets on events and then threaten people who have influence with a big stick
* you can place large bets expecting to lose money in order to change the outcome or a related outcome expecting people to look at the odds and change their behavior
And probably lots of other ways.
It corrupts events and on a world stage with unethical government in vogue... it's not impossible for people to manipulate a war in order to make bets go their way.
I think prediction markets worked as an idea to provide a wisdom of the crowd view when they were being used in good faith, but rewards cause people to prioritise winning and gaming the system pays better than playing fairly.
You either allow a free for all, or they should be simply outright banned. I mean, they should probably be banned either way - but without the prediction part this is not a single redeeming factor for them to exist.
The consequences for someone betting on classified information would need to come from the agency/government/etc. that finds out their staff is engaging in betting on privileged information. The market itself is simply taking bets and doing what it's designed to do. The bettor gets to decide if the risk is worth it.
But there are two large concrete betting markets now. And they advertise not as a "world state discovery system" but as a gambling platform for people to try their luck on. They are also large businesses that are making their owners rich. Falling back on "oh we are just interested in the intellectual exercise of information discovery" is not tenable at this point.
That seems like a big one
All war is for profit anyway - on sufficiently long time scales, stopping war is the imperative.
No. It’s an unintended side effect that risks breaking trust in the system by (the majority of) players who don’t have insider knowledge.
The only way you get more wisdom from “the crowd” is if it teases folks who hold non-public (or at least less public) information into the market to refine the odds towards what they should be.
Without insider information the entire concept is dead on arrival.
Yes randos are gonna gamble because they either don’t understand the game they are playing or are simple degenerate gamblers who want something else to gamble on. Others are going to think they know better or have limited insider information that isn’t worth as much as they think, or is not as accurate as they believe. And the delusional who simply think they know better for no logical reason but have convinced themselves otherwise.
If the market that is taking the bet also filled the jar, then sure it’s just outright fraud at that point. But the market exists to get the real information into the open. Betting that an insider just isn’t going to play is a variable you consider when placing your bet imo.
An efficient "prediction market" would more quickly resolve to its expected outcome due to not only skin-in-the-game bets by experts, but also the influence of insiders.
Furthermore, bets are likely to shape outcomes. Betting someone will be assassinated (not allowed on Polymarket) would likely increase the probability of that outcome had there been no bet at all.
If there was, I think you'd see quite a few public figures on the list.
And I think it _would_ cause folks to die. Which is why it's banned or regulated. (I'm actually not sure what the legal status is, just that Polymarket and US prediction markets disallow it.)
Ignorance is strength.
Openly corrupt markets that feature insiders with secret knowledge taking money from gambling addicts and rubes is actually good cause the crowd is now wiser.
Someone must have just mistakenly put in regulations against insider trading before, for no good reason. Luckily this isn’t anything like the normal tech play of figuring out a loophole or flat out ignoring the law and hoping you get too big before the regulators catch up.
With these betting markets, do you think it's critical that they exist, but with bans on insider bets? Because I'm not sure anyone you are moralizing at is taking up the argument that it's critical that they exist.
No, I don’t think they should exist at all.
You cannot have an open-ended prediction market with the same protections. It's just impossible from a practical standpoint, much less theoretical one.
I don't think these should be legal since it's just enabling more random gambling, fraud, etc. or even worse for no clear societal gain. But if they do exist, the only purpose for them is to lure out insider information into the open. Pretending they are just folks gambling on 'random' outcomes like a fair coin flip is naive at best.
maybe I'm dumb but I thought gambling is the whole point
Gambling is a billion dollar business.
People find gambling fun. Owners of gambling services make a lot of money. The prediction markets both run ads that present themselves as gambling products.
Both of these things are points that can sustain large businesses.