5 ms·

The gambling market is really bringing out the worst of us.

by markus_zhang 7mo ago

gcr 7mo ago
B-b-but futarchy and unbiased decisionmaking means well-calibrated markets could be a net good for society!! /hj
- fnands 7mo ago
  Ugh, the sophistry (or at least self-deceiving arguments) people throw around to defend these markets makes my stomach churn.
  - Terr_ 7mo ago
    "It is difficult to get a prediction-market person to understand something, when their stock-options and IPO depends upon them not understanding it." -- Cyborg Upton Sinclair
- markus_zhang 7mo ago
  I don't know, man, looks like we are now literally gambling on whether people die today or tomorrow. This is even worse than underground sports gambling.
- zbentley 7mo ago
  Yeah, that claim was always ludicrous to me too. Wisdom-of-crowds isn’t an unbiased decision making strategy, it’s quite biased. Crowd-wisdom works best as a limiter on the bias of other decision making strategies—this is why democracies use representatives rather than direct votes for most decisions. And polymarket isn’t even the wisdom of crowds lol. At its greatest possible adoption it’s still the wisdom of internet-connected (mostly) white men with time and money to spend on gambling.
  - sebzim4500 7mo ago
    If you believe Polymarket odds are wrong in a systematic way then you are free to make a lot of money out of it. Unlike the stock market, where "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent", any such irrationality will become irrelevant at settlement time.
    - gcr 7mo ago
      The argument isn’t about whether prediction markets can stay well-calibrated. The argument is that prediction markets incentivize insider trading and backroom power brokership. The “potential energy” behind surprise upsets is most profitably exploited when the outcome sharply differs from the public calibrated consensus, so these two incentives - calibration vs potential for exploitation - are in fundamental tension. I think this tension undermines the whole purpose of prediction markets IMO.
- indymike 7mo ago
  Reply of the year. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to laugh or cry.
- Hammershaft 7mo ago
  The question isn't whether futarchy isn't perfect, it's whether its better than our existing democracy.
  - gcr 7mo ago
    Well, we're discovering some really fascinating and pervasive failure cases of proto-futarchy. Please update your priors.
TimTheTinker 7mo ago
Anything that requires a ton of criminal law, regulation, and enforcement around it should have to meet some kind of standard of societal benefit. The entertainment value of betting does not meet that standard, in my opinion.
amarcheschi 7mo ago
Years ago I was friend with a guy who played tennis at international levels (say top 1000 players). He regularly received death treats on social networks from people Gambling on him to win/lose (and the opposite happened)
- astura 7mo ago
  Getting death threats from aggrieved gamblers, MLB players starting to fear for their safety https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2024/06/09/mlb-players-starting-to-fear-for-their-safety-from-gamblers/74028741007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nigh...
  - rkomorn 7mo ago
    Doesn't help when some MLB players also apparently participate in the gambling outcomes, too. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46906636/guardians-emmanuel-clase-luis-ortiz-indicted-pitch-rigging https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46906636/guardians-emman...
- markus_zhang 7mo ago
  This is insane. And I'm sure he doesn't want to hire bodyguards just for that. I hope he get over with it eventually.
- NickC25 7mo ago
  Still happens at all levels of professional sport. Even the top women get messages on their IG accounts all the time by degenerate gamblers pissed off after a loss.
postalrat 7mo ago
Replace gamblers with futures market and I agree.
- bagacrap 7mo ago
  Commodities futures markets have an actual purpose, which is to make business inputs (or outputs) more predictable. Like if I know I need ten tons of corn next year, it's safer to buy futures now than to wait and see how the price of corn fluctuates over that time, potentially sabotaging my business operation. (Of making corn chips.)
  - postalrat 7mo ago
    Similar business cases can be made for futures from polymarket. For example if I start a business in the USA I may want to hedge by buying some futures Jesus will not return before 2027.
- Terr_ 7mo ago
  Do we typically [0] have a problem with people sabotaging industries to manipulate the futures market? [0] Edit: Originally wrote "currently", but then I remembered the current White House, whose various crimes are being studiously ignored by the Republican congress.
cael450 7mo ago
I feel like America is re-learning why gambling was so widely outlawed. It just ruins everything it touches. At least casinos are mostly contained. I'm tired of seeing gambling ads on every sport and hearing the news talk about prediction markets. Not to mention, they all prey on people. When I was younger, I worked in a gas station, and people would come in regularly and drop everything they had on scratch-offs. And a lot of these people clearly did not have the money to spare. It's gross.
- civvv 7mo ago
  Online (foreign based, read: tax and regulation havens) gambling casinos are flooding the social media feeds of children with AI slop or memes that have their logo/branding slapped on it. They are posting thousands of videos per day, trying to get kids to gamble on their casinos. Who are behind? The owners of gaming communities/e-sport brands like FaZe Clan etc. Basically, if you were a large youtuber in the 2010's, the goto seems to be get in on some kind of online gambling site for kids.
- xXSLAYERXx 7mo ago
  The marketing is what bothers me the most. These books market very aggressively in app: Take Daves 5 leg parlay; Share your picks! 30% profit boost if you do a 4 leg parlay that'll never hit. Its constant engagement. Contrast this to a real bookie: Open app. Place bet. Meet once a week in parking lot. Small chatter. Pass envelope.
  - 1024core 7mo ago
    Reminds me of this wild story: https://www.si.com/betting/2023/09/15/fake-indian-cricket-league-daily-cover https://www.si.com/betting/2023/09/15/fake-indian-cricket-le... Basically, a fake "Cricket league" was setup up in rural India, complete with online streaming, play by play commentary, etc. just to fool gamblers in Russia. Worth the read.
    - xXSLAYERXx 7mo ago
      Great article, thanks for sharing. Reminds me of here in the states during early covid. Betting on darts in some Eastern European league knowing full well the fix could be in.
alpineman 7mo ago
Day trading too, and day trading led us down this path. Everyone is a gambler now. All morals are out the window. On a side note, I find it incredible crypto trading/day trading/meme stock trading etc is not recognised as a bigger societal problem. It is 100% gambling and has the same negative externalities associated with it. But none of the tools gambling companies need to abide by (blocklists, warnings, limits, etc) apply to trading.
- globular-toast 7mo ago
  It's true but it's just revealing what Wall Street et al have been up to for the past several decades. There's this perception that they're all doing Very Important Work(tm), when in fact they're just making up silly rules and playing games with each other, aka gambling.
  - bagacrap 7mo ago
    Wall Street is doing price discovery which benefits index investors. They're also lending (e.g. private credit) which benefits economic activity. Robin Hood options trading is just lighting money on fire under the guise of "investing", which insidiously somehow seems more responsible than gambling on roulette.
- KellyCriterion 7mo ago
  I do not know about daytrading, but trading in the long term works, if you have a (technical/IT) system. Regarding meme stocks: I do not see how this should work compared to the "real market", as on the real market you have clear signals when it is useful to enter a position (e.g. institutional attention), but on the meme "stock" market lacking those features it is much much harder to make any money - unfortunately, a lot of young people are trying their fortuna

The gambling market is really bringing out the worst of us.

gcr 7mo ago

B-b-but futarchy and unbiased decisionmaking means well-calibrated markets could be a net good for society!! /hj

fnands 7mo ago
Ugh, the sophistry (or at least self-deceiving arguments) people throw around to defend these markets makes my stomach churn.
- Terr_ 7mo ago
  "It is difficult to get a prediction-market person to understand something, when their stock-options and IPO depends upon them not understanding it." -- Cyborg Upton Sinclair
markus_zhang 7mo ago
I don't know, man, looks like we are now literally gambling on whether people die today or tomorrow. This is even worse than underground sports gambling.
zbentley 7mo ago
Yeah, that claim was always ludicrous to me too. Wisdom-of-crowds isn’t an unbiased decision making strategy, it’s quite biased. Crowd-wisdom works best as a limiter on the bias of other decision making strategies—this is why democracies use representatives rather than direct votes for most decisions. And polymarket isn’t even the wisdom of crowds lol. At its greatest possible adoption it’s still the wisdom of internet-connected (mostly) white men with time and money to spend on gambling.
- sebzim4500 7mo ago
  If you believe Polymarket odds are wrong in a systematic way then you are free to make a lot of money out of it. Unlike the stock market, where "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent", any such irrationality will become irrelevant at settlement time.
  - gcr 7mo ago
    The argument isn’t about whether prediction markets can stay well-calibrated. The argument is that prediction markets incentivize insider trading and backroom power brokership. The “potential energy” behind surprise upsets is most profitably exploited when the outcome sharply differs from the public calibrated consensus, so these two incentives - calibration vs potential for exploitation - are in fundamental tension. I think this tension undermines the whole purpose of prediction markets IMO.
indymike 7mo ago
Reply of the year. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to laugh or cry.
Hammershaft 7mo ago
The question isn't whether futarchy isn't perfect, it's whether its better than our existing democracy.
- gcr 7mo ago
  Well, we're discovering some really fascinating and pervasive failure cases of proto-futarchy. Please update your priors.

TimTheTinker 7mo ago

Anything that requires a ton of criminal law, regulation, and enforcement around it should have to meet some kind of standard of societal benefit. The entertainment value of betting does not meet that standard, in my opinion.

amarcheschi 7mo ago

Years ago I was friend with a guy who played tennis at international levels (say top 1000 players). He regularly received death treats on social networks from people Gambling on him to win/lose (and the opposite happened)

astura 7mo ago
Getting death threats from aggrieved gamblers, MLB players starting to fear for their safety https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2024/06/09/mlb-players-starting-to-fear-for-their-safety-from-gamblers/74028741007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nigh...
- rkomorn 7mo ago
  Doesn't help when some MLB players also apparently participate in the gambling outcomes, too. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46906636/guardians-emmanuel-clase-luis-ortiz-indicted-pitch-rigging https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46906636/guardians-emman...
markus_zhang 7mo ago
This is insane. And I'm sure he doesn't want to hire bodyguards just for that. I hope he get over with it eventually.
NickC25 7mo ago
Still happens at all levels of professional sport. Even the top women get messages on their IG accounts all the time by degenerate gamblers pissed off after a loss.

postalrat 7mo ago

Replace gamblers with futures market and I agree.

bagacrap 7mo ago
Commodities futures markets have an actual purpose, which is to make business inputs (or outputs) more predictable. Like if I know I need ten tons of corn next year, it's safer to buy futures now than to wait and see how the price of corn fluctuates over that time, potentially sabotaging my business operation. (Of making corn chips.)
- postalrat 7mo ago
  Similar business cases can be made for futures from polymarket. For example if I start a business in the USA I may want to hedge by buying some futures Jesus will not return before 2027.
Terr_ 7mo ago
Do we typically [0] have a problem with people sabotaging industries to manipulate the futures market? [0] Edit: Originally wrote "currently", but then I remembered the current White House, whose various crimes are being studiously ignored by the Republican congress.

cael450 7mo ago

I feel like America is re-learning why gambling was so widely outlawed. It just ruins everything it touches. At least casinos are mostly contained. I'm tired of seeing gambling ads on every sport and hearing the news talk about prediction markets. Not to mention, they all prey on people. When I was younger, I worked in a gas station, and people would come in regularly and drop everything they had on scratch-offs. And a lot of these people clearly did not have the money to spare. It's gross.

civvv 7mo ago
Online (foreign based, read: tax and regulation havens) gambling casinos are flooding the social media feeds of children with AI slop or memes that have their logo/branding slapped on it. They are posting thousands of videos per day, trying to get kids to gamble on their casinos. Who are behind? The owners of gaming communities/e-sport brands like FaZe Clan etc. Basically, if you were a large youtuber in the 2010's, the goto seems to be get in on some kind of online gambling site for kids.
xXSLAYERXx 7mo ago
The marketing is what bothers me the most. These books market very aggressively in app: Take Daves 5 leg parlay; Share your picks! 30% profit boost if you do a 4 leg parlay that'll never hit. Its constant engagement. Contrast this to a real bookie: Open app. Place bet. Meet once a week in parking lot. Small chatter. Pass envelope.
- 1024core 7mo ago
  Reminds me of this wild story: https://www.si.com/betting/2023/09/15/fake-indian-cricket-league-daily-cover https://www.si.com/betting/2023/09/15/fake-indian-cricket-le... Basically, a fake "Cricket league" was setup up in rural India, complete with online streaming, play by play commentary, etc. just to fool gamblers in Russia. Worth the read.
  - xXSLAYERXx 7mo ago
    Great article, thanks for sharing. Reminds me of here in the states during early covid. Betting on darts in some Eastern European league knowing full well the fix could be in.

alpineman 7mo ago

Day trading too, and day trading led us down this path. Everyone is a gambler now. All morals are out the window. On a side note, I find it incredible crypto trading/day trading/meme stock trading etc is not recognised as a bigger societal problem. It is 100% gambling and has the same negative externalities associated with it. But none of the tools gambling companies need to abide by (blocklists, warnings, limits, etc) apply to trading.

globular-toast 7mo ago
It's true but it's just revealing what Wall Street et al have been up to for the past several decades. There's this perception that they're all doing Very Important Work(tm), when in fact they're just making up silly rules and playing games with each other, aka gambling.
- bagacrap 7mo ago
  Wall Street is doing price discovery which benefits index investors. They're also lending (e.g. private credit) which benefits economic activity. Robin Hood options trading is just lighting money on fire under the guise of "investing", which insidiously somehow seems more responsible than gambling on roulette.
KellyCriterion 7mo ago
I do not know about daytrading, but trading in the long term works, if you have a (technical/IT) system. Regarding meme stocks: I do not see how this should work compared to the "real market", as on the real market you have clear signals when it is useful to enter a position (e.g. institutional attention), but on the meme "stock" market lacking those features it is much much harder to make any money - unfortunately, a lot of young people are trying their fortuna