Hacker News Reader

Comment by altmanaltman | Hacker News Reader

I would say prediction markets are more dangerous since they don't claim its gambling while sports gambling is much more explicit (not that the industry is a saint by any means)

View on HN

It's also an obvious and cynical regulatory dodge. Prediction markets make the bulk of their profit from sports betting.

obviously and definitely true in their current form. But it's maybe worth clarifying that before this last year or two, when Kalshi became an obvious regulatory dodge (including adding sports and really leaning into the gambling demographic), many were interested in prediction markets not just for that purpose: e.g. the rationalist community seems to have had a longstanding interest in the idea, manifold didn't have real money, and predictit (which is like a decade old) had academic origins.

As a tangent, it reminds me a bit of cryptocurrency: in the earliest days the interested parties have a mix of intellectual (can it be done? How can it be done?) and some idealistic (this technology will have utility, like reducing spam or libertarianism for crypto, or giving us a more accurate and precise understanding of the world for prediction markets) values. Of course, as both are directly financial, the third value is that one stands to get rich off of the technology. This third value might be adequately communally suppressed in the beginning, but the force of money gradually makes this third value the only one that matters, and both technologies become net-negatives on humanity.

Iowa Electronic Markets still exists. No need to give the commercial prediction markets any leeway.

IEM is still functioning but pretty dead since Kalshi put up election markets. Looking just now I see well under $100 in volume for all of August. (At least when Kalshi first put up those markets it gave me the only opportunity I've had to make a pure arbitrage.)

Might be something the populace is just too dumb to have - the people seem to overwhelmingly prefer their events to be pretty much games of chance (BTC price up/down at 15 minute intervals) or sports.

I figure Kalshi and Polymarket for dead before too long, if only because the "traditional" sportsbooks seem to have much better "government relations".

>the rationalist community seems to have had a longstanding interest in the idea

Easiest way to know its just valueless

Predication markets are literally causing people to start wildfires across the globe, I thought it was just a USA thing going on, but it's global.

Do you have any sources for this? My understanding is that all of the discussion about prediction market wildfires are completely speculative, nobody has actually started a wildfire for a prediction market payout yet.

If you win this bet, does the payout come delivered to your door by the police and fire chief?

I've been in the desert fighting fires for the last 4 months. The news isn't going rampant with the arson stories for reasons (who knows, scaring the public, informing the public, etc).

Open the watchduty app and start looking into how many fires are currently arson suspected/apprehended and how this is the largest national wildfire year we've ever had.

The Dick and Cleetus methheads doing this stuff aren't the brightest and most well informed tech risk takers out there. Most of them will get caught and never get a dime, who the hell knows how why or else they're causing fires, the FBI isn't investigating anyone. They don't tell us WHY an arson occurred. Who knows how many of these apps exist in other markets, etc. The last global wildfire article I saw said either 86 or 96 arsons were arrested. I can't remember if it was France or in Africa.

This is THE strangest wildfire year anyone has had and the news is nowhere.

I'm not the only ex-tech wildland person, plenty of laid off firefighters right now back to their old lives.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/17/climate/betting-wildfires-pol...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/14/arrested-suspi...

It used to be out-of-work firefighters doing it for a paycheque. Now I guess they can collect without leaving the couch.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com