[tombert]

It baffles me that Polymarket is legal.

Even if there wasn't any kind of insider betting going on, it just seems so disgusting to turn literally everything into a casino.

There's a bet going on right now about Jesus coming back before 2027 [1], and a part of me wants to do it because I'm pretty confident Jesus isn't coming back by the end of the year (or any year), but it seems kind of wrong to try and extract money out of people who are gambling away their money.

[1] https://polymarket.com/event/will-jesus-christ-return-before...

[bryant]

The returns on [1] seem to be worse than CDs, and with no government insurance, so it's not worth it at the current payout. But if a religious event spikes the odds, it'll be worth taking the other side of this bet.

[tombert]

Yeah, maybe I could fabricate a Nostradamus quote that implies that removing tariffs will spark an apocalypse or something.

[0x3f]

Polymarket's legality has not yet been tested in many places, although I don't personally object to it being legal, there's a chance it might not be.

Also, I'd advise against betting on the Jesus market. You can't actually read the price as a probability here due to time value of money, opportunity cost, etc. So you'd lose money (or at best, gain nothing) by betting against it. It's priced correctly.

[tombert]

> Also, I'd advise against betting on the Jesus market. You can't actually read the price as a probability here due to time value of money, opportunity cost, etc. So you'd lose money (or at best, gain nothing) by betting against it. It's priced correctly.

Yeah, and assuming Jesus doesn't come back that's only about a 3.6% return rate, which is what Treasury Bills are getting right now [1]. At that point I might as well do that and avoid paying state tax on my interest.

[1] https://home.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/...

[0x3f]

Exactly, the existence of alternatives is mostly what keeps the price non-zero. I think counterparties who are actually betting on Jesus returning will be quite rare. So I wouldn't feel bad about taking money from saps, more about just getting a bad rate of return for yourself.

[tombert]

Yeah, maybe a bad example on my end.

Still, I just find the idea of turning everything in politics into a casino kind of gross. Taken to the extreme it can get pretty disgusting.

Like, imagine that there were a Polymarket of "Will COVID deaths break 1 million?" or "Will <Insert Serial Killer> Take His Fifth Victim?".

These are hyperbolic examples and I'm not saying that anything on Polymarket is that bad, but even the stuff that's currently on there right now like "Khamenei out as Supreme Leader of Iran by March 31?" [1] or "Israel strikes Iran by February 28, 2026?" [2] seems kind of crass. These are real issues that have real consequences that affect many real humans (who are no less valuable than me) and people are treating this shit like a fucking game.

I'm not accusing you of that, to be clear, it's just why I find Polymarket to be gross and I'm not sure it should be legal.

[1] https://polymarket.com/event/khamenei-out-as-supreme-leader-...

[2] https://polymarket.com/event/israel-strikes-iran-by-february...

[0x3f]

The market already bets on war and death, and has done for probably centuries, only it's mostly institutional players. Seems to me Polymarket just democratizes that, both for bettors and potentially consumers of the probabilities.

I would say the average person is terrible at aggregating media and making predictions, at least this way they can access expert opinion for free.

Of course as yet it's still niche nerd stuff but if I were in Iran, I'd probably find a signal about imminent strikes or future regime change quite useful.

[names_are_hard]

I'm in Israel. If you turn on the TV lately, you will inevitably hear a bunch of talking heads endlessly analyzing every word Trump said, and the movement of various US military apparatus, and then sharing "expert" insights into when there's going to be an escalation.

I can't do anything about this, except decide when it's time to pack my go-bag and leave it near the door so I'm ready to go to the bomb shelter in middle of the night. To that end, polymarket odds are helpful. I'd never bet any money myself, of course.

In related news, I read recently that the IDF is currently investigating some personnel who evidently made money predicting the last Israel-Iran flare up using inside information. Naturally this is quite unlawful.

[tombert]

I don't like it when governments and military contractors and billionaires gamble with human lives either.

Even if you can derive some utility out of the metrics doesn't mean it's good. One can find silver linings in many illegal things but that doesn't imply that it should be legal.