When you say "effectively uncertain outcome", do you include situations where the events are random but the odds are predictable?
Let me give you an example. On average, there are 14 storms big enough to be named in the 6 month long Atlantic hurricane season. If a prediction market was saying 30% odds of a storm big enough to be named every day for all 183 days, betting against that would be free money. Would you call it gambling to make the same bet on all 183 days? The day-by-day outcome is uncertain, but the overall outcome is extremely certain.
Yes, I would call it gambling simply because someone has to take the other side of the bet and lose.
The entire point of there being a gambling "line" is because two parties have to agree on a wager that they both think has positive EV. That's effectively gambling. Somebody has to lose for the other party to win.
Obviously if the counter-party is an institution with a legitimate need to hedge, it becomes an insurance policy, but that is a world of difference than just two counterparties wanting to make bets for fun.
I don't follow. What's the definition of "pure" gambling here? Do you consider for example poker to be pure? Sports betting?
Personally I consider any monetary wager where the individual isn't personally invested in corresponding productive events to constitute gambling. By that logic poker, horse races, prediction markets, futures, and even the vast majority of day trading all constitute forms of gambling.
Betting on which card will be on top of a freshly shuffled deck is pure gambling. It is a game of pure chance.
Betting on sports is not pure chance. If I play a game of tennis against roger federer, I am sure to lose. I can predict this event with 100% certainty.
Bitcoin up or down is another non-chance event. I can easily sway the price of bitcoin by just buying some.
Recently there was a market to predict how long the US government shutdown would last. This is not gambling--you can look at historical data of shutdown durations and form a prediction based on researching each politician's views.
Sure, an idiot might gamble by just picking an option at random, but the game itself isn't gambling because it's not a game of pure chance.
Okay. So by that logic poker is gambling but not "pure" gambling. Fair enough.
So as previously stated I can tell the difference but still have no idea what point you were originally trying to make. Prediction markets are still a form of gambling however impure, no? Just as betting on a horse race is.
Is the bookie gambling on the race? Is Jim Simons? Gambling is not innate to the games themselves, it's only gambling if the player chooses to treat it like a game of pure chance.
Lotteries are pure gambling because you can't influence things, I guess that is what he meant. The examples you mentioned are then "impure gambling" since its inherently possible to influence the outcome without breaking the rules. It isn't illegal to bet on a hose that you gave extra good shoes and so on.