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Comment by tasuki | Hacker News Reader

I wanted to reply, but I think I just don't understand your comment at all.

Are you saying the "sector of betting on shit that can clearly be insider-traded" is illegal? Does that include like gold and S&P500?

The way I see it, prediction markets' main function is to connect gamblers with insiders posessing useful information. Are you concerned for the gamblers losing? But they were gonna lose anyway, one way or the other. Or are you concerned about the insiders winning? Sucks, but at least the public gets information by way of the prediction market being more accurate.

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> Are you concerned for the gamblers losing?

I’m concerned about people with addictions being exploited by greedy degenerates who don’t care about the negative externalities with which they’re burdening our society, yes.

Do you propose to make all addictive endeavours illegal? Ban porn? It might actually be a good idea in theory, but I doubt it'd work in practice, who knows.

Sports gambling was illegal in most states just a few years ago. Prediction markets also didn't exist. We have ample evidence to show us that it did work fine to ban these things. We aren't talking about some hypothetical world. We are talking about a world that existed just ten years ago.

This isn't a "who knows" situation.

I'm not doing whataboutisms today, sorry.

Gambling is particular, specific burden and crime against society that's been recognized as such for thousands of years.

The recent experiments with legalizing it on an industrial scale are simply experiments with legalizing crime. We don't have to touch the stove but I guess simply being told about what happens isn't enough for us.

Please Explain how a last minute insider info bet helps the public in any way or fashion aside from fleecing fools of their money?

Nobody is forcing anybody to place the bets, but if you see credible money flows into eg. Middle East cease fire bets, you can decide to fill up your tank today, or not. We can’t think for you here, if you don’t see anything useful in the price then it’s time to educate yourself until you do. You should consider these bets more trustworthy than any news you read in mainstream media. There might even be a way to fund journalism here, though ethics are quite muddy indeed.

And what makes you believe that those (basically) peanuts that get bet are the real indicators?

The insiders might as well run a backroom prediction market and just manipulate the public market.

And even with bigger sums: you never know if it isn't just a variant of the shell game. There are no real signals.

It's a fallacy to think all insiders are big players. Small fish want a piece, too, and are not constrained in the same ways the big ones are.

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