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Comment by Frannky | Hacker News Reader

I do wonder why, like clockwork, there’s an article against prediction markets. I do wonder if the problem with them is that it creates an incentive to share the truth, or for very smart people to predict it, and for others to use the predictions as a valuable reference point. It would be interesting to track what is shared and how often to see if there are some patterns

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It’s a good thing writing about money laundering and gambling addiction, no? Smart people are only smart until they aren’t.

> I do wonder if the problem with them is that it creates an incentive to share the truth, or for very smart people to predict it....

You missed the obvious one: it creates a path for people with insider knowledge to monetize it at the expense of employers, institutions, etc.

The guy using his access to classified information to make a few hundred thousand bucks in a day is not interested in "sharing the truth" for the benefit of society.

> monetize it at the expense of

Right, and I'd also like to preempt any apologetics trying to cloak it as socially-beneficial "information discovery."

Many of these betting/insider-trading scenarios are structured so that the information only becomes revealed at the same moment it becomes worthless. (In some cases, that's just a return to its default state.) Like the value of knowing the winning numbers from an expired lotto draw.

When I saw Ratsphere types pushing these kinds of markets years ago getting insider information was the primary selling point.

It’s not inherently stupid - I’d much rather that some lowly analyst sell out an impending stock hit for a few grand than well-positioned insiders soak the market for 10,000x that. There’s obvious moral hazards, though.

They dont share the truth. People betting there are not "smart" they are gamblers and suckers. And theit guesses are not a valuable prediction points.

Keep drinking that sweet sweet polymarket kool aid

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