[wsatb]

How do you defend these slimey companies? They’re actively running a mob casino and you still have people acting like government is the bad guys here. That doesn’t mean there can’t be better regulation of other markets, but comparing prediction markets to stock markets is a huge stretch.

[delichon]

Disagree, I find their product valuable and use them daily as a source of unusually high quality predictions. When used for this purpose insider trading is a feature that improves the quality of predictions. I see some fraud as in any market, but the overwhelming majority of transactions are voluntary, open and relatively informed within a highly transparent system.

I think that self fulfilling prophecy attempts by deep pockets trying to sway markets by bucking trends generally transfers money from more to less foolish bettors.

[sorokod]

A thought experiment: how would you feel about betting on a market that is an the outcome of a medical procedure? On a negative outcome? On a market for a negative outcome of your own procedure?

[gventura18]

Is it bad to take out a life insurance policy right before you have a medical procedure?

[arter45]

If the only person who can get the money is you (or your partner or children or whatever), it’s fine as a form of compensation for potential damages.

If anyone, including your surgeon, can take that life insurance policy based on your life, things can go bad pretty quickly (hint: what happens if a profit-maximizing surgeon would earn a lot more money from your policy than from his regular job?).

[hunterpayne]

This is why people who work in sports can't bet on sports. This is literally a solved problem. The current laws outlaw your examples already.

[warkdarrior]

Not if it's your own procedure.

If it is someone else's? Bad, because I'll just take a life insurance on them and then promise the doctor half of the proceeds if they ensure that the outcome of the procedure leads to an insurance payout.

[fer]

But killing someone is a crime, and fraud is a crime, the insurance in itself isn't.

[superloika]

You lived all your life without these evil companies. Life will go on when they are banished. I don't think you will miss "unusually high quality predictions" after a week.

[mint5]

What predictions? Why is it useful to know what the odds are for Trump to the word “postage stamp” in a specific speech?

Why are the sports odds useful? Word mention market and sports market are the majority of bets after all. Seems like >90% of wagers are useless noise.

Name 7 recent useful ones you actioned based on, one for each day of the last week. I’m very curious what those may be that you use it daily.

When I looked a the site and checked out a few non sport/word wagers, the actual bets were pretty unhelpful because while their summary sounded potentially informative the actual fine print showed that a weirdly constrained timeline of a specific thing was the actual deciding factor, making them useless.

[Jensson]

You can look at who is likely to become the next president for USA etc, it helps a lot to see what people who spent some effort looking into it thinks.

[hunterpayne]

Bad example. Americans can only very recently even place trades on PM and even then its through other companies and most people don't know about this. Those markets are often very thin and manipulated by the campaigns themselves.

A better example is wagers on things like when the Iran war will end. That's actually useful 'wisdom of the crowds', and any insider trading is already illegal. Maybe someday those markets would get big enough to allow companies to hedge risks. That's an actual useful application of PMs.

[freejazz]

Show me the insider trading on polymarket that is providing you with this crucial info. Show it to me now.

[philipallstar]

It's not a casino. You aren't betting against the house with polymarket, unlike with gambling sites. You're betting against other players.