[crazygringo]

I mean, the thing is, insiders will disagree. Nobody has a crystal ball to predict the future perfectly.

Military operations go awry. Countries react in unexpected ways. Leaders change their minds.

And as a potential event gets closer, insider information changes. Different insiders have different sets of partial knowledge.

You don't even need scheming and tricking. Just regular reality is already complicated enough.

[zarzavat]

That's not how insider trading works though.

Let's say that you know that event Y is going to be announced that will make event X more likely. Before Y is announced you buy shares in X on a prediction market or buy some asset that has price correlated with X. After the announcement you liquidate your position and pocket the difference.

Whether X actually happens or not is irrelevant to you. All that's relevant is the timing of the announcement of Y and the directional effect of Y on X.