• ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    I’m willing go bet a lot of people making weird bets like this are doing the equivalent of insider trading. The whole concept of betting on random news is ripe for the opportunity for people with insider knowledge to always win big off of the losses of gambling addicts.

    • plyth@feddit.org
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      3 days ago

      That’s the point of those platforms, to bribe the people with that knowledge to reveal it.

      • ronl2k@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        What would happen to those platforms if governments and rich people deliberately made a bunch of $35k bets that were designed to lose, making all the copycat gamblers lose?

        BTW, who is responsible for preventing new bets after the event has occurred, but before the event expiration time?

      • Artisian@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Which, fwiw, night be a feature not a downside? Transparency if the fact is juicy enough.

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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      3 days ago

      Yeah unlike sports where at least the games are ostensibly fair, heavily scrutinized, and managed by organizations that try to stop this. Even then it still happens sometimes.

      This system is just completely unenforceable insanity.

  • randoot@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    You have to be an idiot to gamble at these sites. I already feel like an idiot for having money in the stock market with all the insider trading, but thanks to inflation you’re fucked if you do and fucked if you don’t.

      • nandeEbisu@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        It’s a ponzi scheme supporting millions of people’s retirements, myself included.

        Ideally we have social security, which is a much more regulated and carefully managed ponzi scheme but the people in power use it like a piggy bank because it’s not like they’re going to be around when it runs dry.

        • Ronno@feddit.nl
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          3 days ago

          I live in a country with a quite strong social security scheme, but the money in our social security funds, like pensions, is mostly invested in the stock market anyways.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The fact that you end up potentially gambling against insiders like this is one thing that makes these bet on anything sites so dumb to interact with in the first place. Which also makes me not really care about this particular grift.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      IMHO there ought to be a peer-to-peer version so we can buy Trump Insurance without getting fucked from above.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Gambling on something like this is definitely risky, but it’s not as risky if you’re using it to bet on something more defined like sports or who will win the next presidential election.

      If someone is going to rig the sports game, then it’s now rigged for all people betting on that game at all locations, not just here.

      And at a decentralized platform like this, that should ultimately be safer than the alternatives.

  • cheesybuddha@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Well yea, is it not blatantly obvious to everyone that bad actors will use this “bet on anything” bullshit to grift the system?

    I’m certain the people who run the websites know this and don’t give a shit, because it’s profitable.

      • ronl2k@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        This is the most important comment on the issue. It’s pretty much giving US secrets away ahead of time.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      You can’t really stop it when you make a decentralized platform like that.

      It’s like saying we made cash and we knew people would fund terrorism with it but oh well.

      A decentralized betting platform has benefits. It also has detriments.

      Any website involved is really just a front end. It’s on the blockchain and can be used regardless of website and its there forever now, but the website definitely makes it easier to use.

      • cheesybuddha@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Grifting and and inequality is a baked in part of capitalism. I don’t think you can get around it without fundamentally shifting your approach to money

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Also worth adding…

        If the owners do have a way to prevent something at the smart contract level, and that was ever compromised (e.g arrested by FBI) and someone was able to just prevent all bets, absolutely nothing is stopping someone else from copying the contracts, removing that ability, and re uploading it.

    • bunchberry@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Bad people don’t die. The more evil you absorb the longer you live. Like Kissinger living to 100.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Bad people don’t die

        Selection bias. Bad people die all the time, and then we forget about them (or never learn about them) because they stop being in the spotlight.

        Nobody talks about the Koch Brothers or the Waltons anymore, as they’ve degraded to irrelevance. Nobody talks about the Carnegies or Fords or Hoovers anymore, for the same reason.

        Steve Jobs was an evil fuck and he’s gone now, so he’s off the radar.

        Meanwhile, nobody had Lucky Palmer pegged as a sociopath ten years ago and now he’s doing James Bond Villain tier war crimes.

      • [object Object]@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        The one who bets for Thiel being dead collects the money if that happens. They would also benefit from actually carrying out the deed. These markets are essentially crowdfunding for dirty stuff.

  • huquad@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    400k seems relatively low for the usual scum. Could be a lower rank military personnel, or a staffer.

    • Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz
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      2 days ago

      This is huge opsec issue from now on. Basically you can start seeing military operations before they happen.

      • huquad@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Has been for a while now. One of my buddies works in military intelligence. He combs social media for soldier whereabouts to inform military ops.

        • Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz
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          Social Media is its own beast, but there people can talk shit near anonymous, talk is cheap. With these betting sites, people are putting money in front, which people won’t do without some inside info.

  • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    This is the least of it. Representatives entire families are set for life. Somehow, everybody in their family gets stinking rich after election, and their book is always a “NYTimes best seller” because they are bought by the campaign (and dumped in a landfill), insider trading is rampant, super-PACs.

    I’m okay with someone in the military picking up some extra cash. Family has to eat, whether government is “shut down” or not. I hope it was some smart ass buck private.

    In the USA politics is the number three easiest way to achieve “financial security”, only inheritors and prosperity gospel preachers have it easier.

  • palmtrees2309@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Polymarket, Kalshi and others are Insider trading systems camoflauged as a “Truth Seeker” but at the end, It is a gamble even worse than a gambling casino. The insider trader has a incentive to stack odds against oneself and “beat” a better likelihood in the market. Even as a truth finder, It works at the last second before the actual reveal.

    • ronl2k@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      what are the other predictions

      They don’t matter since they were probably used to hide the insider knowledge of the Maduro kidnapping.

    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      The real answer is nuanced, but a combination of “it wasn’t, until bribary”, “enforcement is difficult”, “it’s built to be nuanced around regulation”, “it depends where”, and “it’s decentralized”

      • theneverfox@pawb.social
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        3 days ago

        It’s unrelated gambling to be specific. You can fix the results or have insider knowledge

    • Yeather@lemmy.ca
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      3 days ago

      Legally they are not betting against the house. People are betting against each other on if a certain event will happen, and the site takes a set percentage for facilitating the bets. This makes it legal under gambling laws in most US States.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        It probably can’t be stopped either at this point.

        Assuming it was illegal, they could arrest the developers because they are earning money on it, but arresting them and taking the website down won’t stop people from using it as it’s smart contract based on a blockchain. The website is just the front end, the blockchain/smart contract is the backend.

        So now you gotta go after the individuals using it, who could annonymize their funds through something like Tornado Cash, making it pretty hard to stop.

        • Yeather@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          No, roulette is still betting against the house. A more apt comparison is poker, the house has nothing to do with the outcome or the game and has no stakes in the winner or loser when legal. This is why many will either take a percentage of the pot to recoop the cost of facilitating the game and dealer, about 2% I think, or have a membership fee. In many states poker only card houses or card clubs are completely legal.

    • BigPotato@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I bet you a dollar that the ratio of votes on your post will be some number by January 11th.

      I bet you a dollar that President Trump will not live to see 2037.

      We’re just two people making bets here. Anyone want to sidebar on this action?

  • Darkness343@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    This is just a big Stellaris simulation. It’s just that we haven’t founded the United Nations of Earth and reached the year 2200 yet.