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there is one upside, its a big incentive to indirectly leak things like album release dates and military operations. anything that helps get some secrets out is a positive in my book

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But they don't get secrets out, they just make a bet? Show me any information like this on any of the prediction markets...

No, this doesn't work. Predictions markets can only resolve to things that are publicly verifiable, so any leaked information is information that was destined to become public anyway. Furthermore, the leaker is disincentivized to leak in such a way that the act of leaking could compromise their insider knowlege; the structure of the markets means that leakers don't want you to have this information in any way that opponents could usefully invalidate.

They're just gambling. I'm not trying to argue for or against gambling here, but please stop trying to delude yourselves into thinking these gambling sites are anything other than gambling.

Unresolved markets transmit information too. A market doesn't need to resolve to transmit information.

Sure, and a white noise generator transmits information too.

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