This is not an assassination market, it's a prediction market, but it can well work as an assassination market. If an universally reviled person has an 1:2 bet against him, this would not incentivize killers to take the huge risks of an assassination only to double their money.
Instead, they would be incentivized to kill other persons for whom players are betting they will live. On the other hand, players know that, so they will never bet against an assassination, except in the case they really do want to lose, thus transferring their loses as payment to the assassin.
When you have to put "assassination market" in quotes because you know that's not what it is. By pure coincidence the journalist finds a "new market" where a whole _single person_ is betting on whether DJT will survive 2018. Truely groundbreaking, shocking.
Besides being absolutely nothing new; The realer versions of this have existed on the deep web for over 5 years where people could bet with BTC (assmkedzgorodn7o).
What your parent is trying to say is that this is not yet a real problem. It is a "market" of one person.
Maybe Augur could potentially be used this way. It is not currently being used this way. This article is trying very hard to rile you up about these dangerous assassination markets but is pretty dishonest about the fact that it's talking about a possibility, not a reality.
It's also not like Augur has suddenly made assassination markets possible, they already exist and the world has failed to come to an end because of it.
If you're not just trying to cause outrage, you use more neutral language like "die" instead of "be killed" in your definition of the market. And really, for a functioning market you need a number of bettors who aren't actively involved in assassinating or preventing assassinations.
I'll assume this is flagged because it's not favorable to broadcast this feature to the public, and "investors" aka HODLers here at Hackernews would want to hide this event.
Instead, they would be incentivized to kill other persons for whom players are betting they will live. On the other hand, players know that, so they will never bet against an assassination, except in the case they really do want to lose, thus transferring their loses as payment to the assassin.