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Prediction market trader 'Magamyman' made $553,000 on death of Iran's supreme leader (www.npr.org)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
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An account trading under the username "Magamyman" made more than $553,000 placing bets on the prediction market Polymarket that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would be out of power just before an Israeli strike killed him on Saturday.

....Under U.S. commodity trading laws, making trades based on death and war are illegal, since those kinds of bets create a financial reward for violence, human suffering and geopolitical instability.

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[–] 47 points 5 months ago* (6 children)

How did the general public come to adopt the "prediction market" euphemism? It's crypto gambling, right? Everyone knows that's true, everyone understands that terminology. Aren't we doing the casino's work for them when we adopt their highfalutin' marketing-speak? Making crypto gambling sound like a game for rich, educated people, rather than a grubby online casino that caters to insider cheating and tax evasion?

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I think that's sort of the point?

    That by watching the money, you get the most current and accurate picture of the odds of something happening?

    It's almost irrelevant that there is insider trading. The more money involved, the more reflective of reality the odds are. Money's gonna money, legal or otherwise.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    The insiders make money because the "prediction market" odds don't reflect reality.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, the market predicts jack shit nothing until the insider trader enter it and the "market signal" due to the insider traders happen just before the actual events being "predicted" happen, making them a useless prediction unless you're algorithmically gambling on a related domain.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    That's incredibly shortsighted and just wrong.

    Are you saying Vegas odds do jack shit in predicting sports outcomes?

    Same exact thing. Just more naked to insider manupulation. Which is the point.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    I still think you're missing the point here.

    Yes, insiders swoop in especially when the odds are not "reflecting reality"..... because the profit motive is there. Which means that spikes in prediction markets are valuable information.

    I'm not looking at it as a participant, I'm looking at it as a source of information. Crooked money, straight money, when there is money to made someone with information and money is going to take advantage, tipping us off.

    It can be a degenerate cesspool of gambling and insider manipulation and also the bleeding edge of predictive technology..... no reason it can't be both.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

    Same thoughts! "Prediction market trading?!" Y'all are gambling!

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    It's remarkable to me how normalized gambling has become in the past decade. It used to be something for special occasions like vacations or church events (catholic lenten fish fries completely lost the plot and basically became carnivals where I grew up). Fantasy sports leagues had become a big thing before then, but in the past decade or so it's like the dam just completely collapsed and problem gambling has become normalized

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    From the article

    Most prediction markets, which have surged in popularity in recent months, are federally regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The agency views this new-fangled form of betting a "futures contract," not a type of gambling.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    The general public has no power here except at the local level, just like when LLM's decided they were just going to make taxpayers pay their electric bills. You'll see some states regulate prediction markets, but that's it. The Federal Government and the legislators there love being able to monetize their offices, so no change will come at the national level.

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