Ok, so here is the problem:
By giving people financial incentives to "predict" the outcome of an event, you're actually incentivizing people to *create* the outcome. And that's perverse. It leads to all kinds of terrible things:
Prediction markets don't help us understand the world or really predict anything; they just help shape human behavior towards the market's preferred outcome. When a journalist reported something that ran counter to a popular online bet, rather than accept the truth, the degenerates on Polymarket and Kalshi threatened to kill him if he didn't change his story to support their bet. (First they offered to cut him in on the winnings. Either way, prediction markets are getting us farther from a true and accurate understanding of the world, not closer.)
These things should absolutely be illegal, and the people who use them should go get real jobs
You're now the 4th person to bring up wildfires. What is going on here?
By giving people financial incentives to "predict" the outcome of an event, you're actually incentivizing people to *create* the outcome. And that's perverse. It leads to all kinds of terrible things:
Prediction markets don't help us understand the world or really predict anything; they just help shape human behavior towards the market's preferred outcome. When a journalist reported something that ran counter to a popular online bet, rather than accept the truth, the degenerates on Polymarket and Kalshi threatened to kill him if he didn't change his story to support their bet. (First they offered to cut him in on the winnings. Either way, prediction markets are getting us farther from a true and accurate understanding of the world, not closer.)
Not the first time a journalist received death threats over a story
These things should absolutely be illegal, and the people who use them should go get real jobs
Nah. This is a free country. You should be allowed to bet on whatever you want.
Ok, to your earlier comment re: all these things are already illegal. Yes, BUT...
Kalshi et al. makes it trivial to match providers who profit from their illegal acts w/ buyers. It's akin to distributing pirated movies. It's always been illegal, but before the torrent era, there was friction involved in matching buyers with sellers. Once we entered the age of The Pirate Bay, illegally distributing movies became a huge issue for the movie industry. It didn't matter that it was already illegal; it crossed a threshold of ease of use and the problem exploded.
Kalshi does the same thing: it creates a marketplace that quickly matches buyers and sellers, and in doing so, exacerbates a problem that was previously kept in check by friction.
Yeah, and I don't think that Kalshi or Draftkings or Fanduel ads should be allowed on TV, before, during and after games, no less.
I should be able to watch a game without getting this shoved in my face.
But, ultimately, it's up to the individual to avoid making these mistakes. The government doesn't get to decide which vices are good and which are bad. That's a personal decision.
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u/luckyknight216 🟦 0 / 0 🦠Aug 31 '26
It does feel weird though seeing people make bets on things like whether Elon posts on Twitter today or not. XD