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points by a13n 5 days ago | 0 comments

Personally I’m a fan of the non sports side of these apps, Polymarket in particular. They are putting a financial incentive behind accurately predicting the future, which makes these apps basically the most accurate predictor of the future. Available to anyone to view, for free.

It makes sense why they went towards sports gambling, because the market is so big.

[–] georgeecollins 5 days ago

I think this is kind of a naive take. There's a reason why you can't take a license insurance policy out on a stranger. Being able to bet that there will be a wild fire or if a plane will be late creates terrible incentives. It's also a new way to do insider trading.

Most uncertain things that people need to hedge (currency, commodity prices) already had a hedge.

In practical terms can someone really give me an example of how they benefited from knowing the future (materially, not emotionally) from a prediction they got from Kalshi? I am honestly curious.

[–] dozerly 5 days ago

It is a naive take, and the take that has been most propagandized by these companies.

[–] mahboi 5 days ago

The only one I can think of is, having a better idea of which way the presidential election goes might've been useful for some people, or some other large election. There's a lot of egg on the faces of all these mainstream media polls, which still continues to trigger some people.

[–] dozerly 5 days ago

So what happens when someone like musk spends a few hundred million to skew what the probability looks like? Suddenly people see that a politician has a 90% chance of winning, and they feel silly voting for the operation?

These are not polling places, they are places for capital to influence odds.

[–] mahboi 5 days ago

Eh, sounds like the excuse I kept hearing as to why Trump had favorable odds in the last election. Supposedly a foreigner trying to influence our elections, totally not the Democrats kinda not having a candidate. It would be a very expensive (on average) way to probably not make a difference. Cheaper to just buy up some media companies, which do the same thing, saying their preferred candidate is going to win.

Small elections are susceptible to corruption this way, though.

[–] AngryData 5 days ago

Why not both?

[–] dozerly 5 days ago

There’s been plenty of blatant voter interference, and billions spent influencing American voters, not really seeing where your point is based. More handles to steer democracy with money is not better, period.

[–] mahboi 5 days ago

My point was that it was helpful to get an honest prediction. But separately, no I don't think the presidential election can be gamed this way.

[–] buriram 5 days ago

Most uncertain things that people need to hedge (currency, commodity prices) already had a hedge.

That's way too narrow of the categories. Here are some more cases, and you tell me where can I hedge it? And don't tell me the answer is "go to Goldman Sachs and they create any kind of derivatives to hedge for you", that only works if you are a huge enterprise. I'm talking about SME, or even one person company with $1-5M ARR.

(By the way, I do trade on Polymarket / Kalshi, had a job interview with Kalshi many years ago but did not take their offer since I disagreed a lot with their product design. So all of this is my own opinion).

1. Suppose I run an ice cream shop in midtown Manhattan, and my foot traffic depends on how good the weather is. If it's sunny and dry, I expect a lot of traffic, vice versa, if it's thunderstorm, hurricane or snow, I would run the day without any revenue (and a lot of ice cream waste). What is the way for me to hedge weather risk that could seriously affect my business?

2. Suppose I'm a restaurant owner in Koreatown in LA, and during World Cup I run a restaurant expecting a lot of Korean coming to my area (and my restaurant). So I would ramp up my business, hiring a lot of staffs, sourcing a lot of ingredients from the vendors. Then the biggest risk (and anticipation) is that Korea would be knocked out very early, which unfortunately that precisely happened. So the foot traffic evaporated, and with that the revenue. How could I hedge that risk?

3. Suppose I'm a distributor / reseller who needs to import goods and products from other countries and resells it back to US for profit. Barring the import / export regulations, the biggest risk is tariffs: the orange man can (and did) impose 50% tariffs from China, and all the sudden I face a severe supply-demand imbalance with a lot of contract cancellation and such. How can I hedge such tariff risk from the orange man? (Obviously, the alternative is that I wish we could have elected a more competent leader, but at least 75 million American disagreed with me).

[–] boxed 5 days ago

> Most uncertain things that people need to hedge (currency, commodity prices) already had a hedge

What happens when the people with pitch forks come for your derivatives and call it gambling? They did during the 2008 financial crisis. It sounded pretty much exactly like your take here, one abstraction jump away.

Then after they've come for your derivatives, they come for your banks. Because what is a bank except skimming off the top of the company doing the real business?

Then they come for your company. Because what is a companies except skimming off the top of the workers doing the real business?

And then you're standing in that bread queue wondering how it happened, even if it was all 100% predictable.

[–] mrbombastic 4 days ago

ah yes the slippery slope that leads from banning prediction markets that didn't exist 10 years ago to banning erm, companies. definitely a guaranteed outcome you should make a bet.

[–] boxed 4 days ago

I'm just saying that arguing from intuitive understandings of economics by people who know absolutely nothing about economics is... well stupid.

Also notice that all those things I gave as examples actually happened. Multiple times.

[–] kube-system 5 days ago

> They are putting a financial incentive behind accurately predicting the future,

Unfortunately they also place a larger financial inventive on influencing the outcome of future events. Or incentivizing corruption within the inner circles of these events. Because the larger financial upside in these transactions is to bet against what the market thinks, and influence the outcome.

[–] austin-cheney 5 days ago

I don't think that is logically correct. Commonly perceived probability has been proven frequently wrong whether naturally or due to manipulation. The reasoning here is not exactly the same, but closely aligns to bandwagon fallacy.

It would be interesting to see how frequently Polymarket predictions bet against the most common prediction and by what margins.

[–] mahboi 5 days ago

It's the least inaccurate way. There's money to be made if you're sure you have a better way. The real problem is we're already seeing these markets influence the outcome.

[–] austin-cheney 5 days ago

You make two valid points, but they still do not qualify the validity of these markets as accurate predictors. There is a difference when people, like Berkshire Hathaway really dig into the financials and management of a company to predict its future versus somebody like me who just money on a stock. In one case an investor seeks to make money and actively influence an outcome, but in my case I am just dropping money and hoping it out paces the rise of inflation because banks are no longer reliable stores of financial security.

Polymarket projections do not provide investigative insight, as in the Berkshire Hathaway example. It's just gambling. Any influence drawn from these predictions is incidental and reactive, as opposed to active market forces like buying/selling.

[–] mahboi 5 days ago

Nobody is saying it's better than stock market predictions of assets and company financials. Though there are some asset price predictions on there that exactly match the traditional markets, so it's no worse.

[–] bayarearefugee 5 days ago

> They are putting a financial incentive behind accurately predicting the future, which makes these apps basically the most accurate predictor of the future.

There is plenty of data that shows they actually don't work very well outside of surfacing insider knowledge (which the commercial prediction markets superficially pretend to be against).

For events where you can't have full picture insider knowledge like elections, prediction markets are pretty awful at accurate predictions.

[–] testaccount28 4 days ago

do you know of a better source of predictions, and if so, why are you not using that knowledge to make a killing on the prediction markets?

[–] __MatrixMan__ 5 days ago

The range of activities in which this effect can be harnessed for societal good is extremely narrow, but I think it's there.

I'd be in favor of a prediction market for which which asteroids are likely to collide with something, and when. Though we'll have to shut it down once it becomes feasible that somebody might go up and nudge one.

[–] bagacrap 5 days ago

Do we need an accurate prediction of the vocabulary used by a podcaster on his next episode?

Do we want an accurate public prediction of events with national security implications?

Most of the things we actually need to predict (winner of the Superbowl not among them) already have large and liquid financial markets behind them.

[–] jmyeet 5 days ago

Or they're creating a financial incentive for insider trading and manipulating certain events.

I mean look at all the oil market manipulation in the Iran war. The pattern was repeated so many times: short oil, announce a ceasefire deal with imminent on Sunday before the markets open, cash out on Monday, rinse and repeat.

The argument is that we get transparency on what's likely to happen. I don't think there's any evidence of this. I've seen any number of very poor predictions coming from Kalshi and Polymarket. I have also seen some clear manipulation.

We should call this what this is: gambling.

[–] miltonlost 5 days ago

> They are putting a financial incentive behind accurately predicting the future, which makes these apps basically the most accurate predictor of the future.

This is so fallacious. Putting money behind something doesn't make a prediction of a non-knowable more accurate.

Tarot card readings by a psychic must be more accurate predictor than a tarot card reading by an amateur because professional tarot card readers have a financial incentive to be right, so people continue coming back to them for advice. Getting a tarot card reading therefore makes this basically most accurate predictor!!

[–] parthdesai 5 days ago

> They are putting a financial incentive behind accurately predicting the future, which makes these apps basically the most accurate predictor of the future. Available to anyone to view, for free.

Here, let me predict a future where someone will die. On the other side, let me pay for a hit on the same person. /s

^It's a bit extreme and exaggerated, but it's like that on purpose to make a point.

[–] a13n 5 days ago

markets on people dying are not allowed for this exact reason

[–] mrbombastic 4 days ago

are hackers really this bad at thinking of edge cases and unintended outcomes, I thought that was like half our job. markets on dying are just the most obvious one. how about how many wildfires there will be this year? https://krcrtv.com/news/local/gallagher-joins-bipartisan-bil... Or the results of clinical trials? https://www.npr.org/2026/08/07/nx-s1-5922530/patients-bettin... Or when we will invade a country? https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-soldier-charged-using-clas...

[–] parthdesai 5 days ago

Google is your friend lol - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/18/polymarket-gam...

[–] freejazz 4 days ago

Yeah, crazy how there was no financial incentive behind accurately predicting the future before Polymarket /s