I’m willing go bet a lot of people making weird bets like this are doing the equivalent of insider trading. The whole concept of betting on random news is ripe for the opportunity for people with insider knowledge to always win big off of the losses of gambling addicts.
That’s the point of those platforms, to bribe the people with that knowledge to reveal it.
Which, fwiw, night be a feature not a downside? Transparency if the fact is juicy enough.
Yeah unlike sports where at least the games are ostensibly fair, heavily scrutinized, and managed by organizations that try to stop this. Even then it still happens sometimes.
This system is just completely unenforceable insanity.
Of course it is and the creators know that. But it’s profitable
You have to be an idiot to gamble at these sites. I already feel like an idiot for having money in the stock market with all the insider trading, but thanks to inflation you’re fucked if you do and fucked if you don’t.
The stock market is a global suicide machine, change my mind
It’s a ponzi scheme supporting millions of people’s retirements, myself included.
Ideally we have social security, which is a much more regulated and carefully managed ponzi scheme but the people in power use it like a piggy bank because it’s not like they’re going to be around when it runs dry.
I live in a country with a quite strong social security scheme, but the money in our social security funds, like pensions, is mostly invested in the stock market anyways.
Good Take
Unless you had an active decision in oar were privy to the making of the attack happen.
The fact that you end up potentially gambling against insiders like this is one thing that makes these bet on anything sites so dumb to interact with in the first place. Which also makes me not really care about this particular grift.
Gambling is for idiots, so it works out.
IMHO there ought to be a peer-to-peer version so we can buy Trump Insurance without getting fucked from above.
Gambling on something like this is definitely risky, but it’s not as risky if you’re using it to bet on something more defined like sports or who will win the next presidential election.
If someone is going to rig the sports game, then it’s now rigged for all people betting on that game at all locations, not just here.
And at a decentralized platform like this, that should ultimately be safer than the alternatives.
I still want to know who made $$millions shorting American and United Airlines before 9/11.
It was $5 million, and the money is unclaimed on the Chicago stock exchange.
Someone has to know who placed the order.
all that is confidential unless SEC form 4.
400k seems relatively low for the usual scum. Could be a lower rank military personnel, or a staffer.
Yeah, the bet was only 32k. Honestly surprising more people didn’t have this idea
Or a team of them
This is huge opsec issue from now on. Basically you can start seeing military operations before they happen.
Has been for a while now. One of my buddies works in military intelligence. He combs social media for soldier whereabouts to inform military ops.
Social Media is its own beast, but there people can talk shit near anonymous, talk is cheap. With these betting sites, people are putting money in front, which people won’t do without some inside info.
Can we all go on polymarket and start a betting pool that Peter Thiel will not be violently assassinated by the end of the year?
Bad people don’t die. The more evil you absorb the longer you live. Like Kissinger living to 100.
Because it has to be here.
I suspect it’s the lack of stress due to being a sociopath. Not caring about others has to make life pretty easy in some respects.
Bad people don’t die
Selection bias. Bad people die all the time, and then we forget about them (or never learn about them) because they stop being in the spotlight.
Nobody talks about the Koch Brothers or the Waltons anymore, as they’ve degraded to irrelevance. Nobody talks about the Carnegies or Fords or Hoovers anymore, for the same reason.
Steve Jobs was an evil fuck and he’s gone now, so he’s off the radar.
Meanwhile, nobody had Lucky Palmer pegged as a sociopath ten years ago and now he’s doing James Bond Villain tier war crimes.
There are exceptions to the rule for example Rush Limbaugh and maybe soon Scott Adams.
Do I vote for or against to make it more likely?
The one who bets for Thiel being dead collects the money if that happens. They would also benefit from actually carrying out the deed. These markets are essentially crowdfunding for dirty stuff.
Or insurance against bad things continuing to happen.
You can, but you’re going to want to have him in your sights before you place the bet
This is the least of it. Representatives entire families are set for life. Somehow, everybody in their family gets stinking rich after election, and their book is always a “NYTimes best seller” because they are bought by the campaign (and dumped in a landfill), insider trading is rampant, super-PACs.
I’m okay with someone in the military picking up some extra cash. Family has to eat, whether government is “shut down” or not. I hope it was some smart ass buck private.
In the USA politics is the number three easiest way to achieve “financial security”, only inheritors and prosperity gospel preachers have it easier.
It’s not fucking military leaking unless they came in with Drunk Pete Hegseth.
*Pete Kegsbreath
Well yea, is it not blatantly obvious to everyone that bad actors will use this “bet on anything” bullshit to grift the system?
I’m certain the people who run the websites know this and don’t give a shit, because it’s profitable.
The weird thing is that it provides OPSEC to US opponents. Simply watch polymarket for a yolo bet
You can’t really stop it when you make a decentralized platform like that.
It’s like saying we made cash and we knew people would fund terrorism with it but oh well.
A decentralized betting platform has benefits. It also has detriments.
Any website involved is really just a front end. It’s on the blockchain and can be used regardless of website and its there forever now, but the website definitely makes it easier to use.
Grifting and and inequality is a baked in part of capitalism. I don’t think you can get around it without fundamentally shifting your approach to money
Also worth adding…
If the owners do have a way to prevent something at the smart contract level, and that was ever compromised (e.g arrested by FBI) and someone was able to just prevent all bets, absolutely nothing is stopping someone else from copying the contracts, removing that ability, and re uploading it.
Polymarket, Kalshi and others are Insider trading systems camoflauged as a “Truth Seeker” but at the end, It is a gamble even worse than a gambling casino. The insider trader has a incentive to stack odds against oneself and “beat” a better likelihood in the market. Even as a truth finder, It works at the last second before the actual reveal.
Corrupt politicians are corrupt. More at 11.
This is an interation above simply taking a few hundred stuffed into a potato chip bag.
TIL there’s a website where anyone can bet on anything.
What?! What are the odds?!
Put me down for a tenner
You lost
Fuck
Hey, gimme another ten bucks. Your luck can only get better, right???
I’ll bet you 10 bucks that I’ll lose this 10 bucks I’m betting you.
Fuck! I owe you $10, but I’ve only got this $20. Hey, give me two tens for a $20.
Ever since “Predictive markets” were made legal in 2015 has unfortunately made gambling much more degenerate in the US.
Look for trumps dead bet
Ooh, without even looking I suspect it’s close to even?
Edit: just looked and couldn’t find it? I tried searching “Trump (dies, dead, death, deceased)” and it didn’t come up.
I don’t think they allow for that sort of bets. But I found this bizarre one
Are there any bets on whether or not the Twin Towers are still there and David Copperfield only made it look like they’d been destroyed?
Of course there aren’t. Everyone knows Chris “The Mindfreak” Angel did that
Polymarket definitely has a right wing stink to it.
Grifter’s gonna grift.
My question is what are the other predictions
How is this legal
Crime is legal now
I hate that I was primed for a world with rules when there are none.
Well, you still have to follow the rules. Unless you want to get shot of put into a box for the rest of your life.
Always has been if you’re rich.
Gambling.
It’s disgusting but not necessarily illegal.
It’s unrelated gambling to be specific. You can fix the results or have insider knowledge
I bet you a dollar that the ratio of votes on your post will be some number by January 11th.
I bet you a dollar that President Trump will not live to see 2037.
We’re just two people making bets here. Anyone want to sidebar on this action?
I’ll make a bet on how many bets you get!
When there is no punishment, the system must be working perfectly.
This is just a big Stellaris simulation. It’s just that we haven’t founded the United Nations of Earth and reached the year 2200 yet.
The obvious question is: what other bets did they make? (though those may of course be decoys)
How does one bet on random things like this. What’s the website? I have a few predictions of my own…
It seems to be this site: https://polymarket.com/
How does this work?
Who verifies, that a bet is done and which statement was correct?
Anyone can dispute a proposed market resolution if they feel it was proposed in error. Once a market is proposed for resolution it goes into a challenge period of 2 hours. If no one challenges the proposal the resolution is deemed valid and the proposer receives their bond back plus the reward. During the 2-hour challenge period, anyone may dispute the proposal on the UMA dapp by posting a challenge bond of the same amount as the proposer bond (usually $750). This begins the debate period of 24-48 hours (votes happen every other day and there will always be at least 24 hours for discussion). Anyone wishing to contribute evidence to the discussion can do so in the Uma Discord server in the #evidence-rationale and #voting-discussion channels. After the debate period, Uma token holders vote (this process takes approximately 48 hours)
https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/markets/how-are-markets-resolved
https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/markets/dispute
I… what? And they’re using Discord to discuss stuff? Sounds legit
Oh God, it’s even more idiotic than I could have possibly imagined.
Its even worse than that
The whales can manipulate the bets and make themselves win even if it doesn’t happen.
I love crypto, but this shit is a pure scam.
Thank you very much for the explanation!
Although I find 2h a bit short, especially for small betting pools, where there is a high chance that mostly people sleep, work or do something else
I also read that there’s some rule chaneges (on what is considered yes/no) by polymark on some bets and general complaints, don’t know if those are just sore losers or valid but I’d read up on that if you want to bet on the platform, I’ve never used the service.
So, I can bet on whether I’m gonna shit my pants this year? Great way to lift my spirits if I were to shit my pants.
You’d have to convince enough people that you aren’t going to shit your pants first “@fartographer@lemmy.world”
Hey y’all. It’s been a while since I’ve shit my pants. And I really think I can make it a full year this time!
If you offer enough odds, someone would take it just to make you shit your pants and prove it. A one penny bet with $10,000 payout? Maybe you forget about it and come 2026 some idiot takes you for a wad-o-cash.
I’m wondering the same thing as well, seems very risky
So goodbye to your money for me
There’s some bets I wouldn’t mind losing.
Hate to have to break it to you, but placing bets doesn’t alter the outcome.
When the total amount wagered is large relative to the event, it creates an incentive for people to do things about it.
eh, when there’s large discrepancies it’s more so about making $ on the swings up until the event passes. it’s called arbitrage, it’s not gambling if you know the actual likely result…then it’s just mathing out the risk/reward and win/loss ratios
Is that what you’re going to do?
By myself? Too poor.
Kalshi is the other big one
