4 ms·

This is why election betting being legal and even frequently cited these days is kinda crazy to me.

• jaredklewis 2y ago
  It seems intuitively unlikely that a candidate would intentionally throw an election to cash in on a bet from prediction markets. There are major differences with sports: - Player salaries are generally independent of the outcome of an individual game. So losing any given game does not have a financial downside for the player. If you lose the election, you get nothing, versus if you win, the benefits are massive. - A sport player can intentionally miss shots, which has only a small reputational cost, but can drastically alter the outcome of the game. But IME, voters are usually voting against the other party, not for a particular party or candidate. So whatever the candidate does to throw the election has to be so terrible to their own reputation, that voters despise them more than they do the party they typically vote against. So the cost to the candidate is huge. They basically have to compltely ruin their reputation. - Upside is too small. Total market volume for prediction markets is tiny, hundreds of millions for the entire year. More than $100 billion is wagered every year on sports bets. Hard to see given the immense cost to the candidates, how the incentives could be great enough. Even in sports, I think players that are open to throwing a game are by far in the minority. Given the much greater cost political candidates would face to do the same
  • adamrezich 2y ago
    > It seems intuitively unlikely that a candidate would intentionally throw an election to cash in on a bet from prediction markets. That's not the only way in which election betting can affect the results of an election.