"It sucks that someone potentially tricked a temperature sensor with a hairdryer to scam actual gamblers out of potential winnings" really missed a chance to say it blows.
in fairness, hairdryers have to suck so they can blow
That’s rather dry humour for such a hairy situation
"actual gamblers"
Gambling addicts will really gamble on anything, won’t they? It’s a bit strange to see degenerate gambling dressed up as “predictions”.
This looks less like gambling addiction and more like a scam executed for profit.
And who fueled the profits? Gamblers?
This instance is what you could call a scam, maybe even fraud. But in the absence of manipulation or insider knowledge predicting the weather is pretty close to gambling. As is "does bitcoin go up or down in the next five minutes" or "how many tweets will Elon Musk post in the next couple days" (all real bets on Polymarket)
Yes, gambling. That's literally what gambling is, a scam.
A lot of gambling <i>is</i> a scam executed form profit. I call it a scam because it's not always fraudulent, it's persuasion and a dash of misleading info. Often one party unduly influences the outcome or has information that the other can't have. Whether it's corruption to predetermine the result of a match, or knowing that the star player will miss it, or a gambling machine that suggests a higher expected payout than the real one, or even a casino's rules that arbitrarily decide whether your win was legitimate or not, in practice the industry is more scam than legitimate business.
We rename everything to make it cooler to sell. Probably been a thing since the times of the sea people.
I'm a "holy crap how do they keep getting the weather so wrong" addict and it's as irrational as being a gambling addict in that weather forecasts have improved a lot. I've never been tempted to gamble until now, where I realize I can put my money where my (irrational) mouth is.<p>All that said, gambling addiction is like a disease, same as any other. Holding folks who have it in contempt is about the same as holding alcoholics in contempt. It ignores the fact that it's a real affliction and not a lifestyle choice. Polymarket is taking advantage of that affliction.
You seem to ignore the fact that most people know how bad alcohol, gambling, cigarettes and other addictive things are, yet they still choose them and then suffer consequences.<p>If you asked someone whether they wanted to get ass cancer and they told you: "yeah, yolo", wouldn't it be a contempt-worthy choice? It would.
I think what's also telling is Polymarket's non-reaction to this. If there are obvious concerns that the outcome was manipulated, I'd expect them to invalidate the bet - otherwise they're effectively incentivising manipulation.
If anything this was great free advertising for their platform
Polymarket is simply an exchange for these sorts of “contracts” and the results are verified by a separate entity (it’s a DAO, which of course can be manipulated, and was the subject of controversy due to some Venezuela invasion-related “market” resolutions)
No no no, the outcome revealed new information as the market intends! That info is that people had discounted the rare weather event “a 10% chance of localized hairdryers” on the day in question. The bettor predicted this better than everyone else, making their info public by placing a bet!!! /s
They said that Cobra would never acquire the pieces of the Weather Dominator. Now we’re doomed!
Already discussed: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47878208">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47878208</a>
It never occurred to me that Goodhart's law could be applied to betting, but here we are :)
Is there a bet available to determine if the weather forecasted was impacted by a hair dryer?
That's effectively what all the 99% or 1% prediction markets are: a bet that an asteroid will destroy the planet or that the Rapture will occur or that we'll all upload our consciousnesses into computronium or whatever is not actually a bet that those events will happen (and that the site and enough of the economy will survive to allow you to collect and spend your winnings), it's a bet that the market will resolve incorrectly.
That's not a bad idea. It actually sounds like it could be a very useful hedge/insurance play.
Finally some hacking news!
I can't believe there's no honor among the gamblers!
If that happened, has a crime been committed? I don't think so. Well, maybe tampering with the thermometer might be a crime, but, on the gambling angle, I would say it's not.
I imagine it'd be harder to find somebody using an infrared laser
Just to be clear, my understanding of news here is France is that there is an investigation for someone having possibly rigged the weather sensor but there was nothing release about how this could have been done.<p>The hair dryer thing is a joke, even if it is still a possibility, but just to say, it could be a cover, it could be a hot air gun, it could be a hack, it could be just luck, ...<p>Take care because there are ai generated videos of a guy with a hair dryer doing that, but these are fake!
Maybe it's bad to let people bet on anything, huh
Is that better or worse than invading Venezuela to rig a Polymarket bet ?
hilarious title, engadget is still quality after all these years
Dupe from a little bit ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47878208">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47878208</a>
2 weeks old news OP<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47869664">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47869664</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47878208">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47878208</a>
climate change via hair drier ;D
is this what the cryptobros are doing now?
A fool and his money etc etc.<p>You love to see it.
lulz futures paying off as usual