Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by somenameforme 28 days ago
It depends on the market of course. In looking it up the only markets that have ever come even close to that sort of payout are things like presidential elections where the risks of insiderism or gaming are negligible, and there's extremely large public interest in it.

Nobody's making millions betting on things like the weather.
1 comments
freejazz 28 days ago
>where the risks of insiderism or gaming are negligible, and there's extremely large public interest in it.

So what's the point of polymarket, then? If at best we get "negligible" "insiderism", how is it that we are supposed to be benefitting from this as a society the way OP and others insist that revealing insider preferences "would"

link
WarmWash 27 days ago
Because it's the most effective tool we know of for surfacing the true odds of something (Which also includes the fact that insiders will place outsized bets to move the needle towards the truth.)

An example would be the latest presidential election, where professional pollsters at them at almost 50/50, but the prediction markets had trump by a landslide. He went on to win even the popular vote.

The benefit comes to people who don't even participate, and just take notes.

link
freejazz 27 days ago
>An example would be the latest presidential election, where professional pollsters at them at almost 50/50, but the prediction markets had trump by a landslide. He went on to win even the popular vote.

Trump didn't win by a landslide and he barely won the popular vote...

>The benefit comes to people who don't even participate, and just take notes.

Praying someone has an example besides the election, to which it seems to have made absolutely no difference at all

link
somenameforme 27 days ago
It's not supposed to make a difference but to provide information to people, which it does a great job of. Go browse Polymarket and the odds they lay on most of everything are about as close as one can get as to the "real" odds of that thing. They're essentially like a superhuman pollster. I'm a big fan of them but have not placed a single bet. It's simply that if you want to see what's happening in the world, a browse of their front page is way more informative than browsing a e.g. news website, especially in modern times.

As for the election, a Republican winning the popular vote by a couple million can't be called a landslide in nominal terms, but it is in terms of normal results. The DNC currently completely controls California and New York. After those 2 states alone Trump was down 7 million votes in 2020. The rest of the states tend to be either very small or relatively competitive. To make up the popular vote amongst them requires a very large edge. Polymarket had Trump as a 2:1 favorite the day before the election, and he would indeed go on to win every single swing state. The corporate media and their associated pollsters had Harris ahead.

link
freejazz 27 days ago
If the information does not make a difference, what is the point of the information? White noise is "information". Yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre is "information". What is the point?

> As for the election, a Republican winning the popular vote by a couple million can't be called a landslide in nominal terms, but it is in terms of normal results. The DNC currently completely controls California and New York. After those 2 states alone Trump was down 7 million votes in 2020. The rest of the states tend to be either very small or relatively competitive. To make up the popular vote amongst them requires a very large edge. Polymarket had Trump as a 2:1 favorite the day before the election, and he would indeed go on to win every single swing state.

And the numbers were actually much more closer to what the national media outlets reported... so again, what is the value of the "information" on polymarket? All it reflected was that there were a couple of whales that were betting hard for Trump. The results did not remotely reflect the polymarket odds at all as you concede. I'm not sure how you think that doesn't end the conversation, but it seems to be more of a political point you are making that is divorced from the reality of the numbers reported.

link
somenameforme 27 days ago
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. Perhaps I don't know what you mean by "make a difference." But providing accurate odds on a wide array of topics isn't yelling fire in a crowded theater and the results of the election did reflect the polymarket odds.
link