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Comment by idiotsecant | Hacker News Reader

This is exactly the sort of bad incentives that lead to things like deliberately throwing drug trials. Very small amounts of money make people do horrible things every day, by what magic would this be an exception?

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Usually the reverse problem is happening - company does pump its stock based on potentially having their drug accepted but it’s usually the case that it will be rejected - but you don’t k ow that for sure for many years - prediction market may help here

But through short selling the stock market already allows the ability to bet against a company.

> Very small amounts of money make people do horrible things every day,

What is this referring to?

Russia and Iran are known to hire teenagers online to kill targets in Europe for little money.

I never heard of this. Do we know somebody who was killed this way?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrjyevmv61o

This group has been linked to 35 murders since 2022

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/09/to-build-a-fir...

I don't know about teenagers but my last boss was bragging about how little money it costs to have someone killed.

I think he was trying to boost morale.

Turns out the Spokane wildfire was arson initiated. While Kalshi and PM have bets going on wildfire predictions.

I don't think there's a smoking Molotov there yet, but the incentives sure don't seem great!

Doesn't seem a huge leap there. Nor does a pissed off janitor who could turn $100 into $1,000 by trashing the wrong samples. Or a bigger player who can turn their $500k into $5M by paying that janitor $1,000.

A janitor doesn't need prediction markets. They could just short the stock (and profit way more that way)

The janitor doesnt need a prediction market, but that's 100% who Kalshi and PM are currently blasting ads at, because the janitors with $100 to kill are the bag holders that pay the insiders.

At least in general, not for this specific Evil Janitor, who is the rarer unsophisticated-schemer/patsy/insider in my contrived hypothetical.

You’re imagining a 10x payout for sabotaging a trial. That would be a trial with about 90% odds of succeeding when most trials are likely to fail. And this isn’t a high school science experiment a single janitor can easily sabotage. Any drug with high odds for approval has already shown significant evidence of efficacy and safety. Tampering would not shut down the whole development process with hundreds of millions poured into it.

N=1 here, but I'm sure you can find many many more examples.

In a mass shooting in Boise, Idaho, a woman stole items off a fallen security guard that was lying on the floor.

https://idahonews.com/news/local/police-idaho-woman-stole-it...

A system that’s more robust to meddling than you’re imagining

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