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.<p>Most uncertain things that people need to hedge (currency, commodity prices) already had a hedge.<p>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.
It is a naive take, and the take that has been most propagandized by these companies.
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, and it still continues to trigger some people.
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?<p>These are not polling places, they are places for capital to influence odds.
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.<p>Small elections are susceptible to corruption this way, though.
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.
Why not both?
> They are putting a financial incentive behind accurately predicting the future,<p>Unfortunately they also place a <i>larger</i> 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.
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.<p>It would be interesting to see how frequently Polymarket predictions bet against the most common prediction and by what margins.
The range of activities in which this effect can be harnessed for societal good is extremely narrow, but I think it's there.<p>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.
> They are putting a financial incentive behind accurately predicting the future, which makes these apps basically the most accurate predictor of the future.<p>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).<p>For events where you can't have full picture insider knowledge like elections, prediction markets are pretty awful at accurate predictions.
Or they're creating a financial incentive for insider trading and manipulating certain events.<p>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.<p>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.<p>We should call this what this is: gambling.
> They are putting a financial incentive behind accurately predicting the future, which makes these apps basically the most accurate predictor of the future.<p>This is so fallacious. Putting money behind something doesn't make a prediction of a non-knowable more accurate.<p>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!!
> 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.<p>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<p>^It's a bit extreme and exaggerated, but it's like that on purpose to make a point.