[krick]

All this fearmongering about decision markets lately is really annoying. If you don't like gambling — just don't gamble and shut the fuck up. It's not for you to decide if gambling is good or bad for me. If I am stupid enough to bet anything on an outcome that clearly depends on a person who could, potentially, be betting as well — it's my problem, not yours.

[TheCowboy]

I've been active and profitably trading in prediction markets for a long time now, but I think this perspective is also not helpful.

Prediction markets exist within the laws and institutions of society to be able to function, and the public should debate and discuss how they're regulated. Problem gamblers do present a negative externality where third parties can bear the cost, especially when they have dependents.

[echelon]

Gambling outside of equities and securities is a negative externality. (Investment in startups, goods, etc. makes the economy spin. Investing in what hoop a ball goes through does no good at all.)

This puts plenty of people who shouldn't gamble into debt and lowers their societal fitness.

The other side of the gamble is probably losing on average too. Only the house and infrequent insiders win.

These private companies are fleecing our economy's dynamicity without reinvesting it in aligned positive externalities.

It's a cancer.

At least the lottery goes to education, in theory. My college was subsidized by the lotto, so there's that.

Kalshi and PolyMarket aren't doing anything positive.

[krick]

It is not for you to decide what one should or shouldn't do. Plenty of people want to gamble, and don't give a fuck of what you think they should or shouldn't do. And they are right: it's none of your fucking business.

Kalshi and PolyMarket are doing something absolutely wonderful for those people (i.e. the only people who should care about these "prediction markets" at all): they actually make betting fair, which was impossible before. It is not impossible now, because in fact there are much better decentralized markets than these (basically all you need to make a completely decentralized betting platform are Ethereum contracts), but they are handier to use and hence more popular. But it was impossible with traditional gambling, where a bookmaker can set any odds and reject any bets.

[echelon]

> It is not for you to decide what one should or shouldn't do.

What's the limit?

Murder? Taking fentanyl? Selling fentanyl? Shitting on the sidewalk? Taking photos of kids in public? Screaming fire in a theater? Defamation? Misleading poor people into thinking they can get ahead by spending their savings?

If there was no limit to what I should or should not do, I could just kill everyone I disagree with and take their money. But we know that's preposterous.

Here's the thing though: in aggregate, that's exactly what this is. Taking money from poor and undereducated people is like killing them. It's stealing their lives, indebting them, making them less fit, putting them on a lower trajectory for life. Killing their chances.

That's about the biggest fucking negative externality big tech has introduced to the world. And for what? To make a handful of people rich?

This does nothing for society. It's worse than crypto.

> Plenty of people want to gamble, and don't give a fuck of what you think they should or shouldn't do. And they are right: it's none of your fucking business.

Plenty of people want to rape kids, and it is our business to stop them. This argument is bunk.

A low level of gambling was okay because there was a controlled lever on it. Only a handful of casinos existed, and the government had the monopoly on the lottery program.

Now anyone can do it anytime. That is not good for our economy.

This is not a harmless activity. People are losing their financial well-being. Becoming addicted. Needing to fix their debt by becoming more in debt.

People getting exiting the workforce as productive members of society because they lose their shirt. That is not good for individuals or society.

We're damaging the robustness of our economy by allowing these entities to exist. They should be taxed at 100% of their gross revenue, and those funds should go to educating kids about statistics while they're young and impressionable.

[thejohnconway]

That’s not what people are worried about, it’s the rigging of real world events (including wars!) that has people worried.

[TheCowboy]

It's also a bit overblown. If you could rig a war, you would stand to make a lot more money playing the stock market than small potatoes prediction markets. A lot of money has been on the line based on which party wins elections even before prediction markets existed (see fracking or pipeline project approval as obvious examples).