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Comment by owlninja | Hacker News Reader

I read a book this year about sports gambling in the US [1], and it points out how nasty and predatory it is. I think "prediction markets" have even less regulation? I would talk to my sports fan buddies at work and they would say "oh, just how sportsbooks in Vegas operate already", but this is on-demand, in your face, constantly nudging you to bet with dark patterns and "comps". I used to want sports gambling legal in the US, but the way it has gone is incredibly disgusting and is starting to make watching sports almost annoying. The crawl on the bottom is no longer scores, but moneylines...

[1] "Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling" (2026) by Danny Funt

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It only really struck me in adulthood: the professional sports, particularly baseball and American football, are basically gambling delivery vehicles. They’re packed with nonstop betting opportunities for the duration of the events. Football games ceremonially start off with a coin toss, which is very much on the nose. The ‘fun game’ aspect of the sports are very difficult to find among all the bettable events.

A bit of a tangent, but many like the moneylines isn't because of gambling but because it tells you who's the favorite/underdog and by what margin. It's like in the equivalent of a chess game of knowing the player's ratings, which itself can directly lead to a nominal moneyline, but in most sports there's no formal predictive rating system.

It’s the kind of thing that would suck all enjoyment out of watching sports for me personally. I may well be in a minority though, possibly an old person thing too

Fellow old here too. I enjoy it because there's a lot of sports I follow intermittently. For instance I enjoy watching UFC on occasion, but often find by the time I catch another fight I often have no clue who the guys in the main event are!

I think I enjoy the odds because it adds a sort of unspoken storyline to a fight, because those fighters themselves also know who's the underdog and it adds a bit of a psychological edge to the contest.

It's a lot like watching a chess game where the same stuff unfolds where you expect the favorite to push. Will the underdog look to survive, try to come and prove he's not to be taken lightly, and so on. Good times.

I feel the same way, the odds are part of the story. The UFC has removed them now, I guess as part of the Paramount deal. This actually makes the events less interesting.

By the way, the UFC chews through athletes so fast (part of their somewhat exploitative business model), it's no wonder it's hard to keep up with the latest names.

There could easily be. There's no reason you couldn't publish some Elo-like thing on teams or players, if that was your interest - you don't need gambling to get a good idea of who the favorite is. But the interest is in gambling, so most people inclined to publish such a thing probably bet themselves/sell it as a product to gamblers.

But this is where stuff like prediction markets shine. In chess, for instance, the prediction market odds are going to be way closer to the outcome than might be expected because of the players' ratings. This is because skilled bettors are capable of considering things like exact matchups, history, short-term performance/form, and many other factors that a static rating can't really account for.

Incidentally this is also what makes chess games relatively profitable. Moderate-info bettors will do things like flip on their chess engine, look at the eval, and then bet on that. But a computer might say a position is a dead-draw when a stronger player can tell you 'white has big practical winning chances'.

You can build a model accounting for all the things you like, you don't have to limit yourself to Elo (its main selling point is that it's easy enough that players can easily calculate how many rating points they stand to lose/gain) or Glicko (almost as easy).

Even in the most optimistic case, betting market accuracy will be limited by the commission (if you have a better estimate than the market, but not sufficiently better that you'll make money on it, you don't bet), and I think even a not-terribly-smart model can get you there for chess games. We don't need betting markets for the prediction's sake.

Polymarket not only doesn't charge a commission for market makers (the people who put out offers), but actually gives them a percent of all fees collected from market takers to help ensure and incentivize market liquidity. So if you could create a model that offered even slightly worse than market accuracy, you'd have an infinite money machine. It does not seem to exist.

And I think the reason for that is because a lot of these factors are unquantifiable, subjective, and non-fixed. For instance determining the winning chances for a human in a chess position is surprisingly complex. There's even a huge chunk of profit to be made for somebody that could create such a model outside of printing money in prediction markets - it'd be an invaluable tool for players to use during opening preparation since positions where winning chances don't correlate with computer eval are sort of the money-shot in human prep that's often motivated by a desire to avoid computer prep. And that factor is just 1 amongst many that can weigh in on an expert bettor's opinion.

Predictions markets are more regulated than sports betting, because the events being predicted are wider, so they will naturally touch on a whole lot more regulation.

For example, can someone place a bet on an event that X person will be shot? That question now touches on a whole range of laws regarding murder, life insurance, incitation to violence, free speech? That you just don't touch at all in sports betting.

So where are those regulations?

I'm not a lawyer, and I originally made a claim about sportsbetting covering a a subset of prediction markets, so just being covered for more laws that are not necessarily related to bets.

But I made some research, and here's the main body that specifically targets 'regulation' regulations for prediction markets https://www.cftc.gov/LawRegulation/index.htm

I can see the argument that they are piggybacking off a body of regulations that wasn't designed for this. I'm not an attorney, so I don't know if that holds, but even if it does, it's undeniable that there are enough parallels between commodity futures and prediction markets and that's why it's being used to regulate so far.

If you argue for more or more specific regulation, it's probably going to be a fork, not regulation from scratch.

And as mentioned in other comments, there's existing laws around the subject of bets themselves that mean that there already exist loads of regulations around these subjects, in the end they are just contracts, which is one of the main branches of law and has a huge body of law and jurisprudence, so either it's inaccurate to say they are unregulated, or it regulation means something much more specific that I'm unaware of.

I read your statement and my reaction is what you describe is less regulated than sports betting. For example, in sports betting there are laws by major leagues that players can not bet on games they are in. On prediction markets, if someone has insider knowledge, or can control whatever verification source is set for a bet, they can win (I believe there was an article posted earlier about some journalist reporting on a bomb that fell on an area and was pressured to change the wording to say it fell or was bombed). Additionally, as some of the prediction market wagers have weird grey areas, there are predictions that have additional sub text added after a market has been open/wages have been made which completely change the bet - that is just fast and loose and less regulation IMO

My main proposition was that prediction markets include sports betting as well as a bunch of other things, and they are therefore more regulated.

Did some research, and Kalshi (US based) is regulated by the CFTC, so they are already regulated by the same stuff that regulates securities, including price manipulation.

The subject of insider information is different because these are not public securities, there's no fiduciary responsibility. But it's not that there are no regulations, it's just that that specific regulation that we associate with the 2008 crisis just doesn't apply. But that doesn't mean there's no regulation, there's heaps, feel free to check out the CFTC website.

Lol. This is some quality sv psychosis content.

But ok, let’s follow your thought process. Couldn’t someone place a bet on a sporting event and then murder a key player? Wouldn’t all the same laws be triggered?

Laws against criminal activity aren’t regulations. Regulations are limitations and oversight requirements on business activities.

> Couldn’t someone place a bet on a sporting event and then murder a key player?

Probably not, no. I would be very surprised if the sports betting shops didn't have some sort of "force majeure" clauses.

That seems like a good safeguard.

I don’t see any force majeure clauses here https://polymarket.com/event/trump-out-as-president-before-2... but maybe they’re hidden in the fine print?

>" can someone place a bet on an event that X person will be shot? "

> Couldn’t someone place a bet on a sporting event and then murder a key player?

I don't follow, these are separate hypotheticals. For the record the answers would be:

1a) Can? Yes

1b) Legal? No, listing itself against public policy.

2a) Can? Yes

2b) Legal? No, murder is illegal

2c) Wager profits retained? No, slayer rule/No profit theory.

Re: 1b “public policy” is not law, so no it’s not “illegal” just against the betting site rules. Easily skirted by making the bet not directly about death, e.g. https://polymarket.com/event/trump-out-as-president-before-2...

Re: 2c also applies to scenario 1, if you get caught you can’t retain the money.

So, to your point about which is more regulated - there is no difference in the amount of regulation between the two scenarios.

>Re: 1b “public policy” is not law, so no it’s not “illegal” just against the betting site rules

Not a lawyer, but jurisprudence (case law) is law, especially in Common Law jurisdictions like the US it has even more weight than actually codified law (unlike for example napoleonic Civil Law like in Argentina or France).

"Restatement (Second) of Contracts" (1989), Chapter 8, has a pretty extensive list of restatement and examples of case law of contract nullity by being against public policy.

Additionally, it's even a more basic rule that contracts are void ab initio if they are about breaking a law, I can see how it might be argued that a contract about a murder is not about breaking the law, but it's debatable and probably fact dependent.

There's also probably statutes or UCC that explicitly state such rules, but that's secondary.

>Easily skirted by making the bet not directly about death, e.g. https://polymarket.com/event/trump-out-as-president-before-2...

Worth noting that polymarket is not in US Jurisdiction, so no, it's not regulated. Kalshi is in US jurisdiction and is regulated by US laws.

There was a case that reached some appeal court about election bet in Kalshi, and Kalshi won, you may agree or disagree, but it is under regulation.

>Re: 2c also applies to scenario 1, if you get caught you can’t retain the money.

Not necessarily, because both parties would be at fault in scenario 1. In scenario 2, the law would not declare the contract void, but award the payment to the non murdering party. In case 1 the whole contract is void, and the court will probably not get involved in any action whether forcing award of monies, nor forcing a party to return money, letting "the loss lies where it falls", in pari delicto.

>So, to your point about which is more regulated - there is no difference in the amount of regulation between the two scenarios.

It was a very basic mathematical claim, prediction markets include sports bets, so therefore they touch more regulations. The regulations the prediction markets touch is huge, as it can be about anything really, it must follow the regulations of almost every branch of contract law.

> In case 1 the whole contract is void, and the court will probably not get involved

So less regulation. Case 1 is the polymarket/kalshi case.

> It was a very basic mathematical claim, prediction markets include sports bets, so therefore they touch more regulations.

Uber is a taxi company and more. Uber is (or was) still less regulated than taxi industry.

You’re claiming it’s simple math, while grouping things that are categorically different into the same bucket.

If Poly and Kalshi were actually prediction markets, then betting on a person getting shot and then murdering them yourself would both be allowed (by corporation only) and even encouraged. Because this is exactly what a perfect prediction is - you predict and then that happens with 100% guarantee. You are the best predictor and win.

But if Poly and Kalshi are gambling joints, then of course fixing gambling bets is no no, and that is what actually happens. They ban wins of market predictors who actually correctly predicted something but did it by fixing the game. A market prediction service wouldn't care about that, but gambling joint would.

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