10 ms·

Polymarket refuses to pay bets that US would 'invade' Venezuela

304 points by petethomas 10mo ago

https://archive.ph/sthzF https://archive.ph/sthzF

ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
Related: A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46508582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46508582
- lesuorac 10mo ago
  It seems the user's genius has been missed. Not only did they correctly hold a Yes bet about Maduro they also "correctly" made a bet about the US invading Venezuela and then they _sold_ it early at 18c for a profit as opposed to holding it to maturity (which would've been a "no"). They also did this the correct hold vs sell-early on 4 contracts.
  - mktk1001 10mo ago
    How do you define maturity time here? Is it when the incident occurred (in this case the downfall or the invasion)? Otherwise why is there a buffer between the time this incident took place to the time the contracts matured?
    - lesuorac 10mo ago
      Maturity is when the other party pays back the initial principal back which in this case is the $1. So for an example contract "Trump invokes War Powers against Venezuela by...?" - https://polymarket.com/event/trump-invokes-war-powers-against-venezuela-by?tid=1767880604838 https://polymarket.com/event/trump-invokes-war-powers-agains... It's maturity is ideally the date listed in the contract (i.e. by Jan 9th) but may extend for 10 days in case a report's publication was delayed. That said, you can sell contracts to other users (which is typically what happens ...) so when people buy a Yes contract for 5c they're not buying from Polymarket; they're buying it from somebody else. This allows you to make money before maturity. The reason for this is that you can mint YES+NO contracts by paying Polymarket $1 which nets you 0$ as you spent $1 and between the Yes and No contracts Polymarket pays back $1. But if you spend $1 for a YES+NO and sell the No for 50c to another user and the Yes for 70c then you net 20c or alternatively you sell the No for 5c to another user and hold the Yes to maturity and get the $1 back from Polymarket. Although to be clear, I don't exactly know all the inner workings of Polymarket so it could be the case that they've started to act more like a House than a Market and they're actually putting money on the other side of the contract (IIRC, Kalshi is starting to do that for Sports-based contracts either that or having a partner company do it as opposed to actual users).
stevenwoo 10mo ago
Okay blocked by paywall but other sites say Polymarket won’t pay because it says operation to kidnap Maduro is not the same as invading.
- dinkleberg 10mo ago
  This is a tangent, but man the world of traditional news sites must be really suffering. I've been noticing more and more that have this model where you can't see anything until you pay up. I have to assume they've tested it and found this approach works best, but I'm not signing up for your newspaper before I can even see the quality of the journalism. Back with print newspapers you could just buy a copy before getting a subscription. Now to get a taste you've got to pay for the $1 trial which will auto-convert into a $75/mo subscription. And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that to cancel that trial requires a phone call to a service rep.
  - UltraSane 10mo ago
    A lot of sights actually use very sophisticated prediction models to decide on what users and when to show paywalls.
llbbdd 10mo ago
It seems like this would happen all the time on Polymarket unless the specific terms are laid out at the outset of the bet. Like, how many American soldiers is an invasion?
- recursivecaveat 10mo ago
  Oh it does lol: https://www.wired.com/story/volodymyr-zelensky-suit-polymarket-rebellion/ https://www.wired.com/story/volodymyr-zelensky-suit-polymark...
- ceejayoz 10mo ago
  > Like, how many American soldiers is an invasion? Depends entirely on what they're doing. One could be an invasion. A million might not be. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_military_installations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_military_inst...)
hnburnsy 10mo ago
150 aircraft is not an invasion?
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- nerdsniper 10mo ago
  Number of aircraft don’t seem to contribute to whether or not it’s classified as “hostilities”, much less “invasion”. Is this ridiculous ? Certainly. But it’s fairly par for the course in terms of politically complex issues in the USA. The War Powers Resolution (WPR) of 1973 sets a 60-day limit for U.S. forces in hostilities without a formal declaration of war or congressional authorization, allowing for a potential 30-day extension for withdrawal, totaling 90 days, after which the President must remove troops. Airstrikes on Libya (2011): Obama administration argued they did not need Congressional authorization because the operations did not constitute "hostilities" as defined by the War Powers Resolution. Therefore, the Obama administration argued, the 60-day clock never started. The bombings involved 26,500 sorties over eight months, including 7,000 bombing sorties targeting Gaddafi's forces.
- SideburnsOfDoom 10mo ago
  It depends on what you do with the aircraft. Also, on-the-day commentary about "regime change" was very much premature. A "regime" is not a single person, it is a ruling group, a system (1). The existing regime in Venezuela is still very much in place. It is undergoing change for sure, even having a crisis (2). But as this implies, it has not yet been swapped out for something else. 1) https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/regime https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/regime 2) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/07/caracas-venezuela-paramilitary-groups https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/07/caracas-venezu...
  - tastyface 10mo ago
    So... Maduro was captured solely for his *personal* crimes? If not, then why was he captured?
ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
https://archive.ph/meJqK https://archive.ph/meJqK
ekjhgkejhgk 10mo ago
To add, that's not the same as "not paying out", it's settling in the opposite direction.
- londons_explore 10mo ago
  And my understanding is polymarket themselves don't have much financial incentive to settle one way or the other.
  - pests 10mo ago
    I think its a bit more complicated than this. Disputed outcomes are decided by votes from UMA token holders, which are anonymously owned. I remember reading a theory (with evidence, can't find the article now) that the venn diagram between Polymarket owners/stakeholders and UMA whales is close to a circle.
    - xorcist 10mo ago
      I am surprised to learn this. Can you influence outcomes on Polymarket by purchasing enough UMA tokens? Why would people accept this? Especially if ownership is anonymous and could overlap with market actors?
      - margalabargala 10mo ago
        People will accept it as long as it mostly operates in an expected manner and they get their payout. People are very good at convincing themselves that because something has not happened, therefore it will not. When UMA is eventually abused to make a lot of money, then perhaps things will change.
      - smithoc 10mo ago
        For the same people accept Tether's claims of solvency even though they refuse audits and obviously lie about ownership of various assets. For the same reason people ignore wash trading. For the same reason people continue using Sam-coins even after FTX's implosion. Because A) they're not paying attention, B) they're in denial and C) because they think they can profit in the short term before it collapses, or that the odds are in their favor to profit despite the risks.
galkk 10mo ago
Idk for certain, but it feels like very bad decision on polymarket’s side. If they start engage in such technicalities, eventually it would mean that typical bet should be several screens long lawyerspeak/legalese, like EULA, otherwise it can be just rejected more or less arbitrary, based on wordplay, and that will scare off potential bettors.
- jjmarr 10mo ago
  Standard Polymarket legalese for invasions requires the goal of indefinite "control of territory" for this reason. Raids don't qualify. This issue already happened with the war in the Middle East when Israel engaged in cross border raids that weren't intended to establish permanent control.
  - lukev 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    - Aloisius 10mo ago
      Why would speech count as action? Am I running if I say "I'm running now" while I sit in my chair?
      - toss1 10mo ago
        It does in situations where the speech is itself an action. E.g., "I declare the meeting open", or "The race starts when I say 'Go'... Take your marks, Set, Go!", etc.
      - shimman 10mo ago
        Well the difference is you're a random commentator and the other is the sitting US President. One person's words matter more than the others, at least globally, I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure it out.
joezydeco 10mo ago
Excellent. I'll use that in my travel insurance claim because I've been stuck in the USVI all week and I'm confident my carrier will deny all claims because they will claim this is a declared/undeclared war, which is not covered. If this is a DEA extradition, I'm good.
- angry_octet 10mo ago
  One of the few valid uses for polymarket is hedging against events that are hard to insure for. E.g. it made sense to bet on a Trump win (at least early on when odds were good) if you would lose out from him winning.
mindcrash 10mo ago
Some Venezulean sources claim US troops on a helicopter initially tried to capture a beach to turn it into a beachhead and forward operating site but had to return to the battle group without successful deployment (or any deployment at all) after it came under Venezulean fire: https://xcancel.com/lolams768/status/2007845728333484207#m https://xcancel.com/lolams768/status/2007845728333484207#m With this in mind, the abduction of Maduro apparently was a desperate "Plan B", and it looks like everything the Trump admin is saying now is being pulled right out of thin air because this op clearly wasn't executed as planned at all. Make of that what you will.
- afavour 10mo ago
  I’m not wholly convinced, I think you’d have had US sources corroborating that by now.
- notahacker 10mo ago
  Seems unlikely the US had scores of boats lined up for a well-planned invasion which they chickened out of at the first sign of return fire and then "desperately" captured the enemy president some miles inland in a relatively bloodless operation instead. A small detachment of US troops didn't succeed in taking some sort of secondary objective like taking out a coastguard station or comms node, maybe.
  - jandrese 10mo ago
    I agree that it stretches credulity but one scenario is that they were promised the Venezuelan military would stand down and let the US conduct its operation with minimal resistance. If that was not the case then the minimal troops for the beachhead may have decided that the token landing for PR purposes was not necessary and bugged out. One of the strangest things about the entire operation is how the US left absolutely nobody behind to administer the country. Not even a consultant. The Venezuelan VP is now in charge and the government is largely intact. It's hard to see how this affects any meaningful change in the country. I did find it amusing that the opposition leader released a statement with her lips firmly planted on Trumps ass and even talked about "sharing" the Nobel Peace Prize just to see if he's enough of an idiot that such obvious flattery would work.
QuesnayJr 10mo ago
I don't know how Polymarket works. Were people betting against Polymarket, or was Polymarket just making book and someone else is on the other side of the bets.
- LeoPanthera 10mo ago
  The latter. The other side now wins, in theory.
- ChadNauseam 10mo ago
  I think most questions on polymarket use order books now. But they used to use AMMs (where people bet against polymarket) and their FAQ says some questions still use them
  - lxgr 10mo ago
    Were the liquidity pools backing the AMMs actually operated by Polymarket?
    - ChadNauseam 10mo ago
      At the beginning, yes. Or polymarket employees, anyway
- lxgr 10mo ago
  > Is Polymarket The House? > No, Polymarket is not the house. All trades happen peer-to-peer (p2p). (from https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/FAQ/is-polymarket-the-house https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/FAQ/is-polymark...)
  - TZubiri 10mo ago
    > Is Polymarket The House? This term is a bit ambiguous, and there's some nuances that make it different from both sportsbooks and poker. They don't ever take a nominal cut, their revenue model is in holding USD deposits and making money of interest. > No, Polymarket is not the house. All trades happen peer-to-peer (p2p). The documentation is purposefully misleading, but it's true that unlike a sportsbook, they don't take the risk of bets. It's a classic case of a blockchain company exaggerating to what extent they are on the blockchain and to what extent they are centralized and just minimally wrapping the blockchain, like when NFTs were actually a URL to an image. Trades do NOT happen p2p, polymarket functions as an escrow, payments are sent to polymarket accounts and released by polymarket. Each prediction market does have their own contract, but Polymarket staff rules on each event through off-chain (although they are based on the wording used in the specific event). New events are solely released by polymarket staff (although users can 'suggest' markets).
FergusArgyll 10mo ago
clickbait headline. Polymarket doesn't decide https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/markets/how-are-markets-resolved https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/markets/how-are...
- giarc 10mo ago
  Who are Uma token holders? I'm assuming some token people can buy? Could someone not corner that market, then make a ton of longshot bets, then dispute them all and win every case as majority Uma token holder? "After the debate period, Uma token holders vote (this process takes approximately 48 hours) and one of four outcomes happens:"
  - Agreed3750 10mo ago
    That is true. UMA tokens are just a coin on the blockchain that can be bought. The resolution is put up for a vote. People can vote by staking their tokens and the losing side(s) lose their tokens. The winning side are rewarded the tokens of losing sides. In theory you can just buy out these votes with enough money/tokens
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    - Scea91 10mo ago
      UMA's security model assumes the cost to corrupt the oracle exceeds the profit from corruption. It is quite interesting because it doesn't consider the Polymarket side at all in the calculation. Doesn't this whole model break down when the Polymarket market far exceeds UMA's market cap?
      - forgotTheLast 10mo ago
        Wouldn't UMA tokens increase in value proportionally to Polymarket's market cap, considering they're basically a unit of control of that market cap?
terminalshort 10mo ago
Seems like a good call. This was a quick in and out raid, not an invasion. To be an invasion there needs to be a sustained on the ground presence of the invading force. If this is an invasion, then the Bin Laden raid was also an invasion of Pakistan.
- ryandvm 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  - thechao 10mo ago
    That's just a rescue op, bro.
  - terminalshort 10mo ago
    Correct. That would not be an invasion because it is pretty obvious that extraction raids are not invasions.
  - SpicyLemonZest 10mo ago
    Open to running the experiment! Ultimately, "invasion" is one of those terms that gets used for rhetorical effect more than a concrete claim about the world. If you think the US "invaded" Venezuela, and I think it's better to say they "attacked" Venezuela and "kidnapped" the president, we're not normally going to get into an argument about it - we'll just each use the terms that make sense to us, since we clearly agree about the facts of the terrible thing that happened. But Polymarket has to force the dumb semantic argument because they have to resolve the prediction one way or another. (One of the reasons to be skeptical of prediction markets as applied to geopolitics.)
  - dang 10mo ago
    "Don't be snarky." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - 10mo ago
LorenDB 10mo ago
Can we stop calling these platforms "prediction markets" and start calling them "gambling apps"?
- CGMthrowaway 10mo ago
  They are closer to binary options on things other than stocks
  - ceejayoz 10mo ago
    That's gambling.
    - CGMthrowaway 10mo ago
      Depends
- Dylan16807 10mo ago
  It's useful to keep the word "prediction" in there, and "gambling" implies almost total randomness so I'd rather use a word like "betting". "Prediction betting" maybe? "News betting"?
  - furyofantares 10mo ago
    Yeah, but then they (or at least Kalshi) advertise that you can get rich betting on tomorrow's weather. I love the idea of prediction markets, AND I personally enjoy gambling, but legalized gambling has been a disaster in the united states, and (some?) prediction markets are shamefully leaning into that side of it as hard as they can.
thinkingemote 10mo ago
In 1983 the US (actually) invaded Grenada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Grenada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Gren...
drnick1 10mo ago
Heads I win, tails you lose.
creatonez 10mo ago
Wait... didn't they advertise some utterly perfect blockchain oracle that could resolve disputes in the most objective way possible? Is Polymarket overriding that, or is that system what is inevitably failing (due to it being impossible to solve the oracle problem, despite blockchain advocates' claims to the contrary)?
- lxgr 10mo ago
  That's a good point. I think the assertion that Polymarket is actively doing (or not doing) anything here is at least incomplete. As far as I know, resolutions are still via UMA, which is (at least formally) an independent entity. No idea how big overlaps in personnel and control are in reality.
inetknght 10mo ago
Good. Shame on anyone who makes bets on human lives.
- guessmyname 10mo ago
  I give permission to anyone to make bets on my human life, I don’t mind at all :-)
  - arbitrary_name 10mo ago
    Then I don't think you've thought your position through very well.
  - nimih 10mo ago
    FWIW, this is usually called buying either "life insurance" or a "life annuity," depending on whether you want to take a short or long position. The underwriters of such bets tend to be reticent about offering them to 3rd parties, though, for what are probably obvious reasons.
    - lxgr 10mo ago
      I don’t think it’s even legal in at least the US, also for obvious reasons.
      - llm_nerd 10mo ago
        Not really a counterpoint, but interestingly there used to be a fairly widespread practice of corporations buying life insurance for low level employees. It was often called "Dead Peasant Insurance", and when the employee died the corporation benefited. It never made an iota of economic sense -- if insurance underwriters are on the wrong end of that deal, they aren't doing their jobs very well -- but a number of large corporations would do it, and gleefully pocket the payouts when rank and file employees died.
  - lxgr 10mo ago
    Are you sure you’d like random people putting a price on your head? A sufficiently liquid prediction market on a human life is indistinguishable from a bounty. That’s exactly why you can only take out life insurance if you have some reasonable financial stake in somebody staying alive and not the opposite.
ilaksh 10mo ago
It's yet to be proven that the oil situation there is really going to change. It could turn out to be a classic "Mission Accomplished" where X weeks or months down the line we see an actual invasion.
nabla9 10mo ago
US did not invade Venezuela by the definition of the bet. >This market will resolve to "Yes" if the United States commences a military offensive intended to establish control over any portion of Venezuela between November 3, 2025, and January 31, 2026, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No". >For the purposes of this market, land de facto controlled by Venezuela or the United States as of September 6, 2025, 12:00 PM ET, will be considered the sovereign territory of that country. >The resolution source for this market will be a consensus of credible sources.
- ajross 10mo ago
  POTUS literally, literally announced that the US had control over all (!) of Venezuela. Now, sure, that's kind of a lie. But (ahem) By The Definition of The Bet, actual control is not required. Only a military offensive intended to establish control. What purer definition of intent can you have than the decisionmaker's literal statement? QED. No, this is cheating. Now, sure, the bets placed seemed very likely to be fraudulent. Which is cheating too. But there's not "technically" here. Polymarket is playing games with its bets. And that's fraud, even if it's got company.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - lxgr 10mo ago
    Polymarket is not a broker, counterparty, or even resolver, so the only thing they can arguably be criticized for is hosting a market without a sufficiently clear definition of "invasion".
    - ajross 10mo ago
      How can they not be a "broker" when they handled the transaction?! How can they not be a "resolver" when they're the ones refusing to pay based on their own determination? Also, what definition of "invasion" are you thinking of (please cite) which does not apply here? With all respect, that's 100% bonkers.
oceanplexian 10mo ago
Anyone who's done sports betting would already know this wouldn't pay out. I ended up losing a $500 bet in Las Vegas on a Soccer game because the game went into extra time. Even though the team I bet on won, the fine print didn't cover it and they took all my money. The betting companies are ruthless and will screw you in every way possible.
- giancarlostoro 10mo ago
  Did they even have "extra time" as an option? This feels like a scam if every bet "lost" their money.
  - dudefeliciano 10mo ago
    If the teams go over time it’s a tie by (regular) game end
    - giancarlostoro 10mo ago
      Ah makes sense.
- dash2 10mo ago
  Polymarket isn't on the other side of those bets though. It's a two-sided market. I don't think Polymarket even sets the terms of the bets, or adjudicates them?
- TZubiri 10mo ago
  You know there's crazy conspiracies and there's sensible conspiracies. That casinos are out to fuck you is a sensible conspiracy that no one doubts, so I will look like a naïve idiot when claiming that the casino/sportsbook isn't actually out to get you in this case. What you ran into is a fairly standard term, and you were equally likely to be benefitted by it. If you would have bet that the team tied, and the match went to extra time before deciding on a victor, you would have gotten an unexpected payout. There's other ways they fuck you over, this just isn't one of them.
rmah 10mo ago
Many people seem to be assuming some sort of bias on Polymarket's part. Without evidence, these seems unlikely as whichever side of the bet wins, Polymarket makes the same amount of $. That is, they have no stake in the outcome. The only time you can blame them is if they pay out to neither side and pocket all funds at stake. Which, as far as I can tell, no one is accusing them of.
- lxgr 10mo ago
  > pay out to neither side and pocket all funds at stake That's also not possible, as far as I understand. If the smart contracts are worth their salt, the only possible outcomes per binary option is to pay out in full to either "yes" or to "no" holders, not to any other unrelated party, including Polymarket. The real risk is somebody subverting a sufficiently large proportion of (anonymous, stake-based) arbiters on UMA, which is the on-chain entity that actually arbitrates outcomes and as such releases funds to one side or the other. Then, somebody could buy the "wrong" outcome tokens for cheap and flip the payout their way. No idea how feasible that is and which game-theoretic protections UMA/Polymarket have against that possibility, but I don't think we've seen a smoking gun for that yet.
  - morshu9001 10mo ago
    Maybe I don't understand it enough, but I don't see how it's hard at all to manipulate this with a lot of money. Buy a lot of the wrong resolution, and all the other individuals will be too afraid to buy the right one.
  - quamserena 10mo ago
    This has happened multiple times [0]. You shouldn't put your money into Polymarket [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1jki1lj/polymarket_voters_just_verifiably_got_scammed/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1jki1lj/pol...
- xorcist 10mo ago
  > whichever side of the bet wins, Polymarket makes the same amount How would we know if Polymarket was an active participant in these bets?
charlieyu1 10mo ago
Not so great to bet on 97% chance Jesus not returning before 2027 now
mellosouls 10mo ago
This may be a bit misleading. Polymarket settles bets via a blockchain-based voting mechanism which, in theory, reduces to a simple YES/NO decision based on two inputs: the contract wording and whether the specified conditions were met by the relevant date. While that sounds neutral in principle, in practice it’s vulnerable to interpretation of ambiguous wording and to classic vote-weight effects, where financially motivated participants can tilt outcomes away from the most reasonable reading in order to profit. It’s actually a genuinely interesting system and an unresolved design problem - one that Polymarket doesn’t yet seem to have fully solved.
max_ 10mo ago
Look up "The Oracle Problem"
fenlaw 10mo ago
I wonder how much “insider trading” is going on within Polymarket. I wouldn’t be surprised if major policy decisions have already been influenced in some way by it.
- advisedwang 10mo ago
  At least $400,000 worth: https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/maduro-polymarket-bet-a2e5d100 https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/maduro-polymarket-bet-a2e...
kwar13 10mo ago
Polymarket uses UMA as the resolution mechanism. It's not quite Polymarket, but UMA. See Zelenskyy's suit last year.
00N8 10mo ago
There was a similar situation last summer over a prediction market on whether Iran's Fordow nuclear facility would be destroyed by a certain date. That one was resolved as "yes it got destroyed" after the air strike on the facility. A lot of people on the other side of that bet were complaining because it seemed like an arbitrary guess: All we can really tell from publicly available info is that it was hit. The actual effect may have been anywhere from superficial light damage to comprehensive destruction, with no way to be sure without access to the underground facility. I didn't bet on that one, but I'd seen something about it on Twitter & gotten curious how they could come to a firm conclusion one way or the other. AFAICT the market didn't have a solid way to be sure & were just taking a White House press briefing that said it was probably destroyed at face value.
DannyBee 10mo ago
Lawyer here - i'm sure the TOS says they can do what they want, and most of the fight will be over the validity of that TOS/etc. Ignoring that for a second, most of these comments miss the point - they are arguing over control of oil fields, etc. The resolution terms are clear: >This market will resolve to "Yes" if the United States commences a military offensive intended to establish control over any portion of Venezuela between November 3, 2025, and January 31, 2026, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No". They commenced a military operation. It was (apparently) a helicopter evac. I guarantee you 100% at some point they intended to, and did control, the roof of a building or an area of land in order to perform the helicopter evac. I bet they even said so, over the radio. I bet if it's not classified (unclear), you could get the operators to testify to this. Even if it had been a boat evac they would do the same for the boat landing/evac area. There is a 0% chance the planned military operation did not involve deliberately controlling some area, for some length of time, for exfil. The terms do not require they establish permanent control, or control for any significant length of time.
chaostheory 10mo ago
If this ends up with a lawsuit, maybe we can figure out who, in the WH or associated with the WH, is gambling on Polymarket.
perryizgr8 10mo ago
In any bet you need a judge who decides which way the conditions of the bet resolved. The judge is someone trusted by both parties to be impartial and fair. If a lot of people stop trusting polymarket to act fairly and impartially, that will simply mean fewer people participating in the bets.
throwaway2037 10mo ago
Some related background: Credit Default Swaps (CDS) are a way to buy and sell "credit event" insurance (bankruptcy, late payments, etc.). In practice, the insurance pricing part doesn't work very well, but it provides a good, if small, marketplace for speculators on both sides to bet on the likelihood of (1) credit events and (2) recovery (what % of debt can be salvaged after a credit event). Interestingly, this near real-time information has a bi-directional feedback loop versus the equity price (if listed). Last I knew, all of these contracts are OTC (over the counter) but follow an industry standard template called an ISDA agreement. (These are actively used in the largest securities markets in the world: North America, Europe, and Japan.) On the surface, it sounds pretty simple -- as an institutional investor, you can buy and sell insurance for credit events on corporations and nations. In practice, there are simple credit events, and there are complex credit events (example: how are minority vs majority state owned enterprises handled during credit events... complex!) About the second type: There has been near continuous lawsuits and arguments over the last 20 years about what exactly is covered by the standard ISDA agreement. How recovery is determined (how the CDS settles is actually separate from the actual recovery because the actual one can take years) has also been the subject of heavy debate. Also, there have been less-than-ethical market participants who have tried to manipulate various events to trigger or delay them... or affect recovery rates. All of these have been subject to lawsuits and/or regulator investigations. I'm not an expert in this product, but the results of all of this legal activity has served to further clarify what exactly is covered by these ISDA agreements. (I think there have been minor adjustments to them over the years.) Mind you: These arguments are happening between highly sophisticated parties and governed by excellent legal systems and well-respected regulators (US/EU/JP). For this case of Polymarket's behaviour, I'm not surprised that this "bet" ran into trouble. After all, if your entity is governed by the laws of Panama, well then, all bets are off. I have nothing against Panama, but there is probably a good reason that large numbers of offshore commercial contracts are not subject to Panamanian law (like they are for New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, etc.) -- trust is low and their contract law and accompanying legal system probably pales into comparison to the world's best. The solution seems to be for a competitor to emerge that willingly submits to a serious regulator and legal jurisdiction. Personally, I don't see this happening any time soon. Just like crypto exchanges before, I wondered why the world's largest investment banks did not start one of their own. In hindsight, the answer is obvious: Legal and reputational risk, not limited to AML/KYC. I am wondering the same right now about "predictions markets". Hot take: Can we stop using this slimy term "predictions markets" and just call it "gambling for geopolitical events"? That feels more honest to me.

304 points by petethomas 10mo ago

https://archive.ph/sthzF https://archive.ph/sthzF

Related: A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46508582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46508582

lesuorac 10mo ago
It seems the user's genius has been missed. Not only did they correctly hold a Yes bet about Maduro they also "correctly" made a bet about the US invading Venezuela and then they _sold_ it early at 18c for a profit as opposed to holding it to maturity (which would've been a "no"). They also did this the correct hold vs sell-early on 4 contracts.
- mktk1001 10mo ago
  How do you define maturity time here? Is it when the incident occurred (in this case the downfall or the invasion)? Otherwise why is there a buffer between the time this incident took place to the time the contracts matured?
  - lesuorac 10mo ago
    Maturity is when the other party pays back the initial principal back which in this case is the $1. So for an example contract "Trump invokes War Powers against Venezuela by...?" - https://polymarket.com/event/trump-invokes-war-powers-against-venezuela-by?tid=1767880604838 https://polymarket.com/event/trump-invokes-war-powers-agains... It's maturity is ideally the date listed in the contract (i.e. by Jan 9th) but may extend for 10 days in case a report's publication was delayed. That said, you can sell contracts to other users (which is typically what happens ...) so when people buy a Yes contract for 5c they're not buying from Polymarket; they're buying it from somebody else. This allows you to make money before maturity. The reason for this is that you can mint YES+NO contracts by paying Polymarket $1 which nets you 0$ as you spent $1 and between the Yes and No contracts Polymarket pays back $1. But if you spend $1 for a YES+NO and sell the No for 50c to another user and the Yes for 70c then you net 20c or alternatively you sell the No for 5c to another user and hold the Yes to maturity and get the $1 back from Polymarket. Although to be clear, I don't exactly know all the inner workings of Polymarket so it could be the case that they've started to act more like a House than a Market and they're actually putting money on the other side of the contract (IIRC, Kalshi is starting to do that for Sports-based contracts either that or having a partner company do it as opposed to actual users).

stevenwoo 10mo ago

Okay blocked by paywall but other sites say Polymarket won’t pay because it says operation to kidnap Maduro is not the same as invading.

dinkleberg 10mo ago
This is a tangent, but man the world of traditional news sites must be really suffering. I've been noticing more and more that have this model where you can't see anything until you pay up. I have to assume they've tested it and found this approach works best, but I'm not signing up for your newspaper before I can even see the quality of the journalism. Back with print newspapers you could just buy a copy before getting a subscription. Now to get a taste you've got to pay for the $1 trial which will auto-convert into a $75/mo subscription. And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that to cancel that trial requires a phone call to a service rep.
- UltraSane 10mo ago
  A lot of sights actually use very sophisticated prediction models to decide on what users and when to show paywalls.

llbbdd 10mo ago

It seems like this would happen all the time on Polymarket unless the specific terms are laid out at the outset of the bet. Like, how many American soldiers is an invasion?

recursivecaveat 10mo ago
Oh it does lol: https://www.wired.com/story/volodymyr-zelensky-suit-polymarket-rebellion/ https://www.wired.com/story/volodymyr-zelensky-suit-polymark...
ceejayoz 10mo ago
> Like, how many American soldiers is an invasion? Depends entirely on what they're doing. One could be an invasion. A million might not be. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_military_installations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_military_inst...)

hnburnsy 10mo ago

150 aircraft is not an invasion?

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
nerdsniper 10mo ago
Number of aircraft don’t seem to contribute to whether or not it’s classified as “hostilities”, much less “invasion”. Is this ridiculous ? Certainly. But it’s fairly par for the course in terms of politically complex issues in the USA. The War Powers Resolution (WPR) of 1973 sets a 60-day limit for U.S. forces in hostilities without a formal declaration of war or congressional authorization, allowing for a potential 30-day extension for withdrawal, totaling 90 days, after which the President must remove troops. Airstrikes on Libya (2011): Obama administration argued they did not need Congressional authorization because the operations did not constitute "hostilities" as defined by the War Powers Resolution. Therefore, the Obama administration argued, the 60-day clock never started. The bombings involved 26,500 sorties over eight months, including 7,000 bombing sorties targeting Gaddafi's forces.
SideburnsOfDoom 10mo ago
It depends on what you do with the aircraft. Also, on-the-day commentary about "regime change" was very much premature. A "regime" is not a single person, it is a ruling group, a system (1). The existing regime in Venezuela is still very much in place. It is undergoing change for sure, even having a crisis (2). But as this implies, it has not yet been swapped out for something else. 1) https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/regime https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/regime 2) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/07/caracas-venezuela-paramilitary-groups https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/07/caracas-venezu...
- tastyface 10mo ago
  So... Maduro was captured solely for his *personal* crimes? If not, then why was he captured?

ChrisArchitect 10mo ago

https://archive.ph/meJqK https://archive.ph/meJqK

ekjhgkejhgk 10mo ago

To add, that's not the same as "not paying out", it's settling in the opposite direction.

londons_explore 10mo ago
And my understanding is polymarket themselves don't have much financial incentive to settle one way or the other.
- pests 10mo ago
  I think its a bit more complicated than this. Disputed outcomes are decided by votes from UMA token holders, which are anonymously owned. I remember reading a theory (with evidence, can't find the article now) that the venn diagram between Polymarket owners/stakeholders and UMA whales is close to a circle.
  - xorcist 10mo ago
    I am surprised to learn this. Can you influence outcomes on Polymarket by purchasing enough UMA tokens? Why would people accept this? Especially if ownership is anonymous and could overlap with market actors?
    - margalabargala 10mo ago
      People will accept it as long as it mostly operates in an expected manner and they get their payout. People are very good at convincing themselves that because something has not happened, therefore it will not. When UMA is eventually abused to make a lot of money, then perhaps things will change.
    - smithoc 10mo ago
      For the same people accept Tether's claims of solvency even though they refuse audits and obviously lie about ownership of various assets. For the same reason people ignore wash trading. For the same reason people continue using Sam-coins even after FTX's implosion. Because A) they're not paying attention, B) they're in denial and C) because they think they can profit in the short term before it collapses, or that the odds are in their favor to profit despite the risks.

galkk 10mo ago

Idk for certain, but it feels like very bad decision on polymarket’s side. If they start engage in such technicalities, eventually it would mean that typical bet should be several screens long lawyerspeak/legalese, like EULA, otherwise it can be just rejected more or less arbitrary, based on wordplay, and that will scare off potential bettors.

jjmarr 10mo ago
Standard Polymarket legalese for invasions requires the goal of indefinite "control of territory" for this reason. Raids don't qualify. This issue already happened with the war in the Middle East when Israel engaged in cross border raids that weren't intended to establish permanent control.
- lukev 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Aloisius 10mo ago
    Why would speech count as action? Am I running if I say "I'm running now" while I sit in my chair?
    - toss1 10mo ago
      It does in situations where the speech is itself an action. E.g., "I declare the meeting open", or "The race starts when I say 'Go'... Take your marks, Set, Go!", etc.
    - shimman 10mo ago
      Well the difference is you're a random commentator and the other is the sitting US President. One person's words matter more than the others, at least globally, I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure it out.

joezydeco 10mo ago

Excellent. I'll use that in my travel insurance claim because I've been stuck in the USVI all week and I'm confident my carrier will deny all claims because they will claim this is a declared/undeclared war, which is not covered. If this is a DEA extradition, I'm good.

angry_octet 10mo ago
One of the few valid uses for polymarket is hedging against events that are hard to insure for. E.g. it made sense to bet on a Trump win (at least early on when odds were good) if you would lose out from him winning.

mindcrash 10mo ago

Some Venezulean sources claim US troops on a helicopter initially tried to capture a beach to turn it into a beachhead and forward operating site but had to return to the battle group without successful deployment (or any deployment at all) after it came under Venezulean fire: https://xcancel.com/lolams768/status/2007845728333484207#m https://xcancel.com/lolams768/status/2007845728333484207#m With this in mind, the abduction of Maduro apparently was a desperate "Plan B", and it looks like everything the Trump admin is saying now is being pulled right out of thin air because this op clearly wasn't executed as planned at all. Make of that what you will.

afavour 10mo ago
I’m not wholly convinced, I think you’d have had US sources corroborating that by now.
notahacker 10mo ago
Seems unlikely the US had scores of boats lined up for a well-planned invasion which they chickened out of at the first sign of return fire and then "desperately" captured the enemy president some miles inland in a relatively bloodless operation instead. A small detachment of US troops didn't succeed in taking some sort of secondary objective like taking out a coastguard station or comms node, maybe.
- jandrese 10mo ago
  I agree that it stretches credulity but one scenario is that they were promised the Venezuelan military would stand down and let the US conduct its operation with minimal resistance. If that was not the case then the minimal troops for the beachhead may have decided that the token landing for PR purposes was not necessary and bugged out. One of the strangest things about the entire operation is how the US left absolutely nobody behind to administer the country. Not even a consultant. The Venezuelan VP is now in charge and the government is largely intact. It's hard to see how this affects any meaningful change in the country. I did find it amusing that the opposition leader released a statement with her lips firmly planted on Trumps ass and even talked about "sharing" the Nobel Peace Prize just to see if he's enough of an idiot that such obvious flattery would work.

QuesnayJr 10mo ago

I don't know how Polymarket works. Were people betting against Polymarket, or was Polymarket just making book and someone else is on the other side of the bets.

LeoPanthera 10mo ago
The latter. The other side now wins, in theory.
ChadNauseam 10mo ago
I think most questions on polymarket use order books now. But they used to use AMMs (where people bet against polymarket) and their FAQ says some questions still use them
- lxgr 10mo ago
  Were the liquidity pools backing the AMMs actually operated by Polymarket?
  - ChadNauseam 10mo ago
    At the beginning, yes. Or polymarket employees, anyway
lxgr 10mo ago
> Is Polymarket The House? > No, Polymarket is not the house. All trades happen peer-to-peer (p2p). (from https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/FAQ/is-polymarket-the-house https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/FAQ/is-polymark...)
- TZubiri 10mo ago
  > Is Polymarket The House? This term is a bit ambiguous, and there's some nuances that make it different from both sportsbooks and poker. They don't ever take a nominal cut, their revenue model is in holding USD deposits and making money of interest. > No, Polymarket is not the house. All trades happen peer-to-peer (p2p). The documentation is purposefully misleading, but it's true that unlike a sportsbook, they don't take the risk of bets. It's a classic case of a blockchain company exaggerating to what extent they are on the blockchain and to what extent they are centralized and just minimally wrapping the blockchain, like when NFTs were actually a URL to an image. Trades do NOT happen p2p, polymarket functions as an escrow, payments are sent to polymarket accounts and released by polymarket. Each prediction market does have their own contract, but Polymarket staff rules on each event through off-chain (although they are based on the wording used in the specific event). New events are solely released by polymarket staff (although users can 'suggest' markets).

FergusArgyll 10mo ago

clickbait headline. Polymarket doesn't decide https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/markets/how-are-markets-resolved https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/markets/how-are...

giarc 10mo ago
Who are Uma token holders? I'm assuming some token people can buy? Could someone not corner that market, then make a ton of longshot bets, then dispute them all and win every case as majority Uma token holder? "After the debate period, Uma token holders vote (this process takes approximately 48 hours) and one of four outcomes happens:"
- Agreed3750 10mo ago
  That is true. UMA tokens are just a coin on the blockchain that can be bought. The resolution is put up for a vote. People can vote by staking their tokens and the losing side(s) lose their tokens. The winning side are rewarded the tokens of losing sides. In theory you can just buy out these votes with enough money/tokens
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Scea91 10mo ago
    UMA's security model assumes the cost to corrupt the oracle exceeds the profit from corruption. It is quite interesting because it doesn't consider the Polymarket side at all in the calculation. Doesn't this whole model break down when the Polymarket market far exceeds UMA's market cap?
    - forgotTheLast 10mo ago
      Wouldn't UMA tokens increase in value proportionally to Polymarket's market cap, considering they're basically a unit of control of that market cap?

terminalshort 10mo ago

Seems like a good call. This was a quick in and out raid, not an invasion. To be an invasion there needs to be a sustained on the ground presence of the invading force. If this is an invasion, then the Bin Laden raid was also an invasion of Pakistan.

ryandvm 10mo ago
[flagged]
- thechao 10mo ago
  That's just a rescue op, bro.
- terminalshort 10mo ago
  Correct. That would not be an invasion because it is pretty obvious that extraction raids are not invasions.
- SpicyLemonZest 10mo ago
  Open to running the experiment! Ultimately, "invasion" is one of those terms that gets used for rhetorical effect more than a concrete claim about the world. If you think the US "invaded" Venezuela, and I think it's better to say they "attacked" Venezuela and "kidnapped" the president, we're not normally going to get into an argument about it - we'll just each use the terms that make sense to us, since we clearly agree about the facts of the terrible thing that happened. But Polymarket has to force the dumb semantic argument because they have to resolve the prediction one way or another. (One of the reasons to be skeptical of prediction markets as applied to geopolitics.)
- dang 10mo ago
  "Don't be snarky." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- 10mo ago

LorenDB 10mo ago

Can we stop calling these platforms "prediction markets" and start calling them "gambling apps"?

CGMthrowaway 10mo ago
They are closer to binary options on things other than stocks
- ceejayoz 10mo ago
  That's gambling.
  - CGMthrowaway 10mo ago
    Depends
Dylan16807 10mo ago
It's useful to keep the word "prediction" in there, and "gambling" implies almost total randomness so I'd rather use a word like "betting". "Prediction betting" maybe? "News betting"?
- furyofantares 10mo ago
  Yeah, but then they (or at least Kalshi) advertise that you can get rich betting on tomorrow's weather. I love the idea of prediction markets, AND I personally enjoy gambling, but legalized gambling has been a disaster in the united states, and (some?) prediction markets are shamefully leaning into that side of it as hard as they can.

thinkingemote 10mo ago

In 1983 the US (actually) invaded Grenada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Grenada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Gren...

drnick1 10mo ago

Heads I win, tails you lose.

creatonez 10mo ago

Wait... didn't they advertise some utterly perfect blockchain oracle that could resolve disputes in the most objective way possible? Is Polymarket overriding that, or is that system what is inevitably failing (due to it being impossible to solve the oracle problem, despite blockchain advocates' claims to the contrary)?

lxgr 10mo ago
That's a good point. I think the assertion that Polymarket is actively doing (or not doing) anything here is at least incomplete. As far as I know, resolutions are still via UMA, which is (at least formally) an independent entity. No idea how big overlaps in personnel and control are in reality.

inetknght 10mo ago

Good. Shame on anyone who makes bets on human lives.

guessmyname 10mo ago
I give permission to anyone to make bets on my human life, I don’t mind at all :-)
- arbitrary_name 10mo ago
  Then I don't think you've thought your position through very well.
- nimih 10mo ago
  FWIW, this is usually called buying either "life insurance" or a "life annuity," depending on whether you want to take a short or long position. The underwriters of such bets tend to be reticent about offering them to 3rd parties, though, for what are probably obvious reasons.
  - lxgr 10mo ago
    I don’t think it’s even legal in at least the US, also for obvious reasons.
    - llm_nerd 10mo ago
      Not really a counterpoint, but interestingly there used to be a fairly widespread practice of corporations buying life insurance for low level employees. It was often called "Dead Peasant Insurance", and when the employee died the corporation benefited. It never made an iota of economic sense -- if insurance underwriters are on the wrong end of that deal, they aren't doing their jobs very well -- but a number of large corporations would do it, and gleefully pocket the payouts when rank and file employees died.
- lxgr 10mo ago
  Are you sure you’d like random people putting a price on your head? A sufficiently liquid prediction market on a human life is indistinguishable from a bounty. That’s exactly why you can only take out life insurance if you have some reasonable financial stake in somebody staying alive and not the opposite.

ilaksh 10mo ago

It's yet to be proven that the oil situation there is really going to change. It could turn out to be a classic "Mission Accomplished" where X weeks or months down the line we see an actual invasion.

nabla9 10mo ago

US did not invade Venezuela by the definition of the bet. >This market will resolve to "Yes" if the United States commences a military offensive intended to establish control over any portion of Venezuela between November 3, 2025, and January 31, 2026, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No". >For the purposes of this market, land de facto controlled by Venezuela or the United States as of September 6, 2025, 12:00 PM ET, will be considered the sovereign territory of that country. >The resolution source for this market will be a consensus of credible sources.

ajross 10mo ago
POTUS literally, literally announced that the US had control over all (!) of Venezuela. Now, sure, that's kind of a lie. But (ahem) By The Definition of The Bet, actual control is not required. Only a military offensive intended to establish control. What purer definition of intent can you have than the decisionmaker's literal statement? QED. No, this is cheating. Now, sure, the bets placed seemed very likely to be fraudulent. Which is cheating too. But there's not "technically" here. Polymarket is playing games with its bets. And that's fraud, even if it's got company.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- lxgr 10mo ago
  Polymarket is not a broker, counterparty, or even resolver, so the only thing they can arguably be criticized for is hosting a market without a sufficiently clear definition of "invasion".
  - ajross 10mo ago
    How can they not be a "broker" when they handled the transaction?! How can they not be a "resolver" when they're the ones refusing to pay based on their own determination? Also, what definition of "invasion" are you thinking of (please cite) which does not apply here? With all respect, that's 100% bonkers.

oceanplexian 10mo ago

Anyone who's done sports betting would already know this wouldn't pay out. I ended up losing a $500 bet in Las Vegas on a Soccer game because the game went into extra time. Even though the team I bet on won, the fine print didn't cover it and they took all my money. The betting companies are ruthless and will screw you in every way possible.

giancarlostoro 10mo ago
Did they even have "extra time" as an option? This feels like a scam if every bet "lost" their money.
- dudefeliciano 10mo ago
  If the teams go over time it’s a tie by (regular) game end
  - giancarlostoro 10mo ago
    Ah makes sense.
dash2 10mo ago
Polymarket isn't on the other side of those bets though. It's a two-sided market. I don't think Polymarket even sets the terms of the bets, or adjudicates them?
TZubiri 10mo ago
You know there's crazy conspiracies and there's sensible conspiracies. That casinos are out to fuck you is a sensible conspiracy that no one doubts, so I will look like a naïve idiot when claiming that the casino/sportsbook isn't actually out to get you in this case. What you ran into is a fairly standard term, and you were equally likely to be benefitted by it. If you would have bet that the team tied, and the match went to extra time before deciding on a victor, you would have gotten an unexpected payout. There's other ways they fuck you over, this just isn't one of them.

rmah 10mo ago

Many people seem to be assuming some sort of bias on Polymarket's part. Without evidence, these seems unlikely as whichever side of the bet wins, Polymarket makes the same amount of $. That is, they have no stake in the outcome. The only time you can blame them is if they pay out to neither side and pocket all funds at stake. Which, as far as I can tell, no one is accusing them of.

lxgr 10mo ago
> pay out to neither side and pocket all funds at stake That's also not possible, as far as I understand. If the smart contracts are worth their salt, the only possible outcomes per binary option is to pay out in full to either "yes" or to "no" holders, not to any other unrelated party, including Polymarket. The real risk is somebody subverting a sufficiently large proportion of (anonymous, stake-based) arbiters on UMA, which is the on-chain entity that actually arbitrates outcomes and as such releases funds to one side or the other. Then, somebody could buy the "wrong" outcome tokens for cheap and flip the payout their way. No idea how feasible that is and which game-theoretic protections UMA/Polymarket have against that possibility, but I don't think we've seen a smoking gun for that yet.
- morshu9001 10mo ago
  Maybe I don't understand it enough, but I don't see how it's hard at all to manipulate this with a lot of money. Buy a lot of the wrong resolution, and all the other individuals will be too afraid to buy the right one.
- quamserena 10mo ago
  This has happened multiple times [0]. You shouldn't put your money into Polymarket [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1jki1lj/polymarket_voters_just_verifiably_got_scammed/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1jki1lj/pol...
xorcist 10mo ago
> whichever side of the bet wins, Polymarket makes the same amount How would we know if Polymarket was an active participant in these bets?

charlieyu1 10mo ago

Not so great to bet on 97% chance Jesus not returning before 2027 now

mellosouls 10mo ago

This may be a bit misleading. Polymarket settles bets via a blockchain-based voting mechanism which, in theory, reduces to a simple YES/NO decision based on two inputs: the contract wording and whether the specified conditions were met by the relevant date. While that sounds neutral in principle, in practice it’s vulnerable to interpretation of ambiguous wording and to classic vote-weight effects, where financially motivated participants can tilt outcomes away from the most reasonable reading in order to profit. It’s actually a genuinely interesting system and an unresolved design problem - one that Polymarket doesn’t yet seem to have fully solved.

max_ 10mo ago

Look up "The Oracle Problem"

fenlaw 10mo ago

I wonder how much “insider trading” is going on within Polymarket. I wouldn’t be surprised if major policy decisions have already been influenced in some way by it.

advisedwang 10mo ago
At least $400,000 worth: https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/maduro-polymarket-bet-a2e5d100 https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/maduro-polymarket-bet-a2e...

kwar13 10mo ago

Polymarket uses UMA as the resolution mechanism. It's not quite Polymarket, but UMA. See Zelenskyy's suit last year.

00N8 10mo ago

There was a similar situation last summer over a prediction market on whether Iran's Fordow nuclear facility would be destroyed by a certain date. That one was resolved as "yes it got destroyed" after the air strike on the facility. A lot of people on the other side of that bet were complaining because it seemed like an arbitrary guess: All we can really tell from publicly available info is that it was hit. The actual effect may have been anywhere from superficial light damage to comprehensive destruction, with no way to be sure without access to the underground facility. I didn't bet on that one, but I'd seen something about it on Twitter & gotten curious how they could come to a firm conclusion one way or the other. AFAICT the market didn't have a solid way to be sure & were just taking a White House press briefing that said it was probably destroyed at face value.

DannyBee 10mo ago

Lawyer here - i'm sure the TOS says they can do what they want, and most of the fight will be over the validity of that TOS/etc. Ignoring that for a second, most of these comments miss the point - they are arguing over control of oil fields, etc. The resolution terms are clear: >This market will resolve to "Yes" if the United States commences a military offensive intended to establish control over any portion of Venezuela between November 3, 2025, and January 31, 2026, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No". They commenced a military operation. It was (apparently) a helicopter evac. I guarantee you 100% at some point they intended to, and did control, the roof of a building or an area of land in order to perform the helicopter evac. I bet they even said so, over the radio. I bet if it's not classified (unclear), you could get the operators to testify to this. Even if it had been a boat evac they would do the same for the boat landing/evac area. There is a 0% chance the planned military operation did not involve deliberately controlling some area, for some length of time, for exfil. The terms do not require they establish permanent control, or control for any significant length of time.

chaostheory 10mo ago

If this ends up with a lawsuit, maybe we can figure out who, in the WH or associated with the WH, is gambling on Polymarket.

perryizgr8 10mo ago

In any bet you need a judge who decides which way the conditions of the bet resolved. The judge is someone trusted by both parties to be impartial and fair. If a lot of people stop trusting polymarket to act fairly and impartially, that will simply mean fewer people participating in the bets.

throwaway2037 10mo ago

Some related background: Credit Default Swaps (CDS) are a way to buy and sell "credit event" insurance (bankruptcy, late payments, etc.). In practice, the insurance pricing part doesn't work very well, but it provides a good, if small, marketplace for speculators on both sides to bet on the likelihood of (1) credit events and (2) recovery (what % of debt can be salvaged after a credit event). Interestingly, this near real-time information has a bi-directional feedback loop versus the equity price (if listed). Last I knew, all of these contracts are OTC (over the counter) but follow an industry standard template called an ISDA agreement. (These are actively used in the largest securities markets in the world: North America, Europe, and Japan.) On the surface, it sounds pretty simple -- as an institutional investor, you can buy and sell insurance for credit events on corporations and nations. In practice, there are simple credit events, and there are complex credit events (example: how are minority vs majority state owned enterprises handled during credit events... complex!) About the second type: There has been near continuous lawsuits and arguments over the last 20 years about what exactly is covered by the standard ISDA agreement. How recovery is determined (how the CDS settles is actually separate from the actual recovery because the actual one can take years) has also been the subject of heavy debate. Also, there have been less-than-ethical market participants who have tried to manipulate various events to trigger or delay them... or affect recovery rates. All of these have been subject to lawsuits and/or regulator investigations. I'm not an expert in this product, but the results of all of this legal activity has served to further clarify what exactly is covered by these ISDA agreements. (I think there have been minor adjustments to them over the years.) Mind you: These arguments are happening between highly sophisticated parties and governed by excellent legal systems and well-respected regulators (US/EU/JP). For this case of Polymarket's behaviour, I'm not surprised that this "bet" ran into trouble. After all, if your entity is governed by the laws of Panama, well then, all bets are off. I have nothing against Panama, but there is probably a good reason that large numbers of offshore commercial contracts are not subject to Panamanian law (like they are for New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, etc.) -- trust is low and their contract law and accompanying legal system probably pales into comparison to the world's best. The solution seems to be for a competitor to emerge that willingly submits to a serious regulator and legal jurisdiction. Personally, I don't see this happening any time soon. Just like crypto exchanges before, I wondered why the world's largest investment banks did not start one of their own. In hindsight, the answer is obvious: Legal and reputational risk, not limited to AML/KYC. I am wondering the same right now about "predictions markets". Hot take: Can we stop using this slimy term "predictions markets" and just call it "gambling for geopolitical events"? That feels more honest to me.