Polymarket and Kalshi are NOT gambling companies. How could you say that?
I'm literally crying right now. When will the misinformation stop?
Please understand that it can't be gambling if there is a chart like it's the stock market and if there is an app where you can look at the chart before you bet- I mean invest in the prediction market.
Charts and graphs mean that this is science and science can't be gambling.
Hey anyone want to start a "prediction market" for scientific discoveries? Paper publication and peer review results? We could get as rich as sin.
By sinning.
At some point I start feeling foolish for not just giving up and joining the circus. We would need a good lawyer though. Who knows the law around here?
"But a prediction market for scientific discoveries might have perverse impacts on journals, and scientists."
No no no... gambling on things has no impact on the things. No one would ever use inside influence to make a quick buck by changing the outcome of an event with a lot of bets placed on it. This is all pure and above board and an excellent idea.
This "prediction market" rebranding of gambling is Thirty Years Old. They were talking about this when I was in college.
"Since people have to bet money the predictions of these markets are more accurate than polls."
This statement can be true... for a time. It's true as long as only a small number of people are paying attention to the markets. As the profile of the markets grows their predictive ability tanks and perverse feedback loops are created.
Eventually there is enough money in the market that manipulating the results becomes too lucrative to avoid.
This is why even though this "idea" was proposed 30 years ago very few people were biting. We have entered a regulation-free space suddenly where we may learn why these things are a terrible idea.
But, people have known this for thousands of years. It's why gambling is "a sin" -- it produces nothing and only incentivizes lying and cheating.
There is a reason people associate gambling with some guy who comes and breaks your legs for not paying your debt. It's bottom feeder stuff, you sell a bet or you make loans when you have nothing of real value to offer the world. And people latch on to all of these desperate dreams and end up murderously angry at each other.
We KNOW this is how it works.
Putting it in an app with a cute little chart and calling it a "prediction market" won't change that one bit.
Though I have to admit that claiming that having people betting somehow creates value by creating predictions of future events is very creative.
But if predictions were your product you'd be selling the predictions. The whole operation would be inverted. You'd select random people to place bets, give them play money and keep the results secret to sell.
But no one cares. It's just gambling and people will get hurt because of it.
myrmepropagandist
Peter
Jeremy Foote