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Comment by Chrisszz | Hacker News Reader

This is becoming the kind of "VC platform for online war investments". You: 1. Plan 2. Bet 3. Invest money upfront 4. Execute 5. Redeem your profits

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Giving people an easy way to profit (i.e. incentive) to use either direct political power or indirect power via bribes is going to have massive consequences on corruption.

We've made profiting off of corruption substantially easier. Anyone who thinks that isn't going to increase corruption is a moron.

Anyone who thinks having more corruption is a good thing is also a moron.

Traditional financial markets already give people really big incentives to cause all kinds of mischief. Eg buy a few puts, then publish some made up bad news about the company and profit.

Somehow that doesn't seem to be too much of a problem in practice.

I don't care if someone tanks MSFT stock artificially or deservedly.

I do care if someone pays the president of Cuba $300k to launch a rocket at a skyscraper in Miami to start a war so they can make $1M.

If you're invested in MSFT, you signed up to be some part of a casino.

If you just live in the real world, you ideally did not sign up for infinite corruption that actually impacts your life just because someone wants to bribe politicians to get an ROI.

> I do care if someone pays the president of Cuba $300k to launch a rocket at a skyscraper in Miami to start a war so they can make $1M.

Something is very wrong, if Cuba is so easily bought.

Btw, if that were so easy, why would counterparties even trade with the better at these prices? (And why wouldn't they also spend money influencing the president of Cuba?)

And: a war with Cuba with seriously dent share prices. So you can already do the bet you suggest by shorting stocks or buying put options.

Is there an infinite supply of fools money? There sort of has to be if it's clear that the outcomes are being manipulated by participants in the bets.

I guess people do walk into casinos and play games that are legally controlled to have outcomes favoring the casino.

If you are KGB you can intentionally lose in order to bribe someone.

This whole thing isa KGB propaganda tool + method to give bribes and should be banmed by the Western world.

It's also going to lead to assassination markets, either directly or indirectly.

> "Johnny CEO will be alive in 2027"

That might be banned from platforms (though not illegal), but this isn't:

> "Jonny CEO is the primary reason ComanyAbc stock is so overheated. CompanyAbc stock will close above X market cap on December 31, 2027."

That is an indirect proxy for assassination.

There are multiple things that could happen here:

- Assassin(s) place bets for outcome favored by assassination, then assassinate.

- Rival(s) place bets for outcome that do not favor assassination to either claim lack of responsibility or to attract bad outcomes. They might publicly announce it, then quietly work on implementing the outcome or let it arise naturally to take the other side of the bet.

I can think of a number of CEOs, politicians, and world leaders where this would put them in the crosshairs and make market participants very wealthy.

Even the "X candidate wins Y election" outcomes are subject to this.

> That might be banned from platforms (though not illegal)

They are currently trying to fix this: https://www.hickenlooper.senate.gov/press_releases/hickenloo...

chances of that passing are roughly in-line with chances of passing a bill to prevent our congressmen and senators from insider trading (you can also bet this as well :) )

True.. I didn't think about that lol

I mean, the moment the American Supreme Court gave the president immunity for acts in office, they basically gave him the ability to issue a price list for doing absolutely anything.

Could you explain what do you mean? What's the plan and execution here? Planning and executing invasion? If so, there are much better markets than polymarket for making such bets.

I understood the argument like this: If there is a bet going that a war doesn't start, and you're able to start said war... Then everyone betting on the war not starting is effectively providing venture capital funds for you to start that war.

So if eg. 20 mil is bet on it not starting, the actor holding the proverbial trigger only needs to "invest" sufficient funds to drain the bet and then capitalize on it by pulling the trigger, everyone being against it would've effectively invested into the war

The analogy breaks apart at VC, because they're expecting payout after successful funding, which this doesn't provide.

I think it's more like Kickstarter/crowdfunding for wars. Just as fucked up though

(The "start a war" setting I'm using here is just to illustrate the point. There are a lot more granular bets going on like (place) will be contested etc, effectively creating money pools for offensives)

There's not enough liquidity on polymarket for that. However there's enough liquidity on stock market and indeed it appears that there was a lot of insider trading around start of the war and ceasefire. Polymarket is really pennies when it comes to bets that can be also realized on the stock market.

Now, can you find enough liquidity in the market to turn a profit? Can you find it before it becomes aparent something is off in the bet?

It's a 0-1 bet that resolves one way or the other. If you were able to place the bet, the liquidity is there. But, yeah, if you can't make the bet in the first place without significantly pushing the market then you won't make as much.

Prediction markets should not be legal.

I feel like there is two ways to frame this.

The first people betting on the outcome they want vs outcome they think will happen.

I think the second obviously make sense. If you had two experts arguing over how a war would go and they where willing to make a bet on it that is good because they are putting “their money where their mouth is” or have “skin in the game”. That’s a good thing.

The first implies manipulation or just a moralistic problem.

The issue I guess is it’s not possible to have one without the other. But I would guess most people are betting because of the second reason and not the first.

honestly the profits aren't big enough when you can just go into business if you have that kind of influence

I would also argue that for a bet on war involving the United States, Middle East, Russia or China oil products are a better bet - and it is the world's second most liquid market after forex markets.

> liquid market

USO -- net assets over $2B, tradable by anyone with a brokerage account:

https://www.uscfinvestments.com/uso

Corruption is surprisingly cheap. That doesn't mean we should ignore or allow it.

That's not what I said, I said that big decision makers aren't causing wars over Polymarket. They're profiting in other, much bigger ways.

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