Polymarket, rife with inside knowledge

[+ glutes]

Fellow Community members, I would stay away from Polymarket.

This article is 3 months old, and it is still Germain.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/02/19/prediction-markets-are-rife-with-insider-betting

[marylander1940]

3 minutes ago, glutes said:

Fellow Community members, I would stay away from Polymarket.

This article is 3 months old, and it is still Germain.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/02/19/prediction-markets-are-rife-with-insider-betting

I'm sure some foreign secrete services are watching this "bets" and who posts them. 

[+ purplekow]

John Oliver on Last Week Tonight has an episode involving the kinds of sites and it just so happens that I just finished watching the episode.  There are clips of the CEOs of these companies being asked hard questions about them and their answers are smug and self serving.  When asked about Don Trump Junior's role as a consultant other than his connection to the White House, the two major site CEO's offered no credible answer to his role and why he was getting paid.  

It is interesting to note that the winner of Survivor 50, before the first episode was televised, had 80& of the bets on her winning.  This when there were 24 contestants to start and without insider information, her odds should have been about 4%.     The John Oliver report mentioned that Polymarket allowed people to wager as to whether a dildo would be thrown on the court of a WNBA game on a particular day, and as it turns out, multiple dildos were indeed thrown out of the court.  A case where people made a bet and then insured that they would win the bet by doing the act.

The report also pointed out that 80% of the winnings went to 780 accounts out of the millions of accounts and that 66% of people lose money.  I did not read the article mentioned above, but I expect that there is even more disturbing information in it.  

[+ PhileasFogg]

47 minutes ago, purplekow said:

The John Oliver report mentioned that Polymarket allowed people to wager as to whether a dildo would be thrown on the court of a WNBA game on a particular day, and as it turns out,

Only a fool would bet against an act that is easily self fulfilling, but PT Barnum said it well…

[+ purplekow]

1 hour ago, PhileasFogg said:

Only a fool would bet against an act that is easily self fulfilling, but PT Barnum said it well…

By the way, the CEO s of those companies are very firm in the opinion that they are not betting sites.  They are proposition exchange sites, sort of a dating service for gamblers.  This way they do not have to follow the guidelines for gambling site such as local restrictiions and age restriction and they do not have to pay the taxes that gambling sites do.  No one seems to be doing anything aubstantial about the regulations which are in place, and as a result they have exploded under the deregulated attitude of the current administration.  Now that this cat is out of the bag, the chances of getting it back in will be remote.  

[+ glutes]

DOJ charges Google staffer over Polymarket trades netting $1.2 million

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/27/nx-s1-5836659/google-polymarket-insider-trading-doj-charges

[+ sniper]

I am of the opinion it should not be allowed to exist because of perverse incentives. It just seems like a money-laundering/self-dealing marketplace.

[wsc]

6 hours ago, PhileasFogg said:

Only a fool would bet against an act that is easily self fulfilling, but PT Barnum said it well…

And Gordon Gekko said, A fool and his money are lucky to have gotten together in the first place.

[+ PhileasFogg]

5 hours ago, purplekow said:

By the way, the CEO s of those companies are very firm in the opinion that they are not betting sites.  They are proposition exchange sites, sort of a dating service for gamblers.  This way they do not have to follow the guidelines for gambling site such as local restrictiions and age restriction and they do not have to pay the taxes that gambling sites do.  No one seems to be doing anything aubstantial about the regulations which are in place, and as a result they have exploded under the deregulated attitude of the current administration.  Now that this cat is out of the bag, the chances of getting it back in will be remote.  

That’s good insight.  Frankly, I don’t care if they exist or don’t exist or if they’re regulated or not.  Everyone has freedom to do and say stupid things and I don’t personally feel a responsibility in restricting them from going so 😉

[+ glutes]

Prediction markets becoming an addition:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ar-AA24g5qY

 

[+ purplekow]

4 hours ago, PhileasFogg said:

That’s good insight.  Frankly, I don’t care if they exist or don’t exist or if they’re regulated or not.  Everyone has freedom to do and say stupid things and I don’t personally feel a responsibility in restricting them from going so 😉

So you condone insider trading and taking advantage of the lack of sophistication of youth, uneducated and desperate and politicians and their cronies expanding their already substantial advantages?   It isn't already enough that members of congress go in as mostly white collar earners and that they leave congress as multimillionaires.  Or that recently a high ranking member of the military made almost half a million dollars betting on if and when the US would attack Iran, making the bet just hours before the attack, of which he had prior knowledge took place?  Well, at least he wasn't on the phone with a member of the press while the plan for the operation was laid out in detail.  

[+ PhileasFogg]

23 minutes ago, purplekow said:

So you condone insider trading and taking advantage of the lack of sophistication of youth, uneducated and desperate and politicians and their cronies expanding their already substantial advantages?   It isn't already enough that members of congress go in as mostly white collar earners and that they leave congress as multimillionaires.  Or that recently a high ranking member of the military made almost half a million dollars betting on if and when the US would attack Iran, making the bet just hours before the attack, of which he had prior knowledge took place?  Well, at least he wasn't on the phone with a member of the press while the plan for the operation was laid out in detail.  

Where did you get that from what I said?

Polymarkets is a stupid concept.   If someone wants to play there, I don’t give a darn   It doesn’t take a 120 IQ to see its craziness  

I don’t like lotteries or casinos either…they prey on and exploit people’s dreams.   There’s very little difference between them and polymarkets. The odds always favor the house and the program puts the little guy on the short end

But we can’t legislate away stupidity - especially when the political elite themselves are stupid and can’t write laws with clear intent

Edited 17 hours ago by PhileasFogg

[+ sniper]

1 hour ago, PhileasFogg said:

Where did you get that from what I said?

Polymarkets is a stupid concept.   If someone wants to play there, I don’t give a darn   It doesn’t take a 120 IQ to see its craziness  

I don’t like lotteries or casinos either…they prey on and exploit people’s dreams.   There’s very little difference between them and polymarkets. The odds always favor the house and the program puts the little guy on the short end

But we can’t legislate away stupidity - especially when the political elite themselves are stupid and can’t write laws with clear intent

Polulymarket as it currently exists is less fair than a lottery or casino. It's as if the casino chose which cards you get.

[+ purplekow]

9 hours ago, PhileasFogg said:

Where did you get that from what I said?

Polymarkets is a stupid concept.   If someone wants to play there, I don’t give a darn   It doesn’t take a 120 IQ to see its craziness  

I don’t like lotteries or casinos either…they prey on and exploit people’s dreams.   There’s very little difference between them and polymarkets. The odds always favor the house and the program puts the little guy on the short end

But we can’t legislate away stupidity - especially when the political elite themselves are stupid and can’t write laws with clear intent

As currently constructed, there are no age restrictions on those who use these sites.  They skirt established guidelines and they avoid taxation by misrepresenting what they are doing.  Efventual laws will catch up with them but by that time, the people who run these sites will be long gone and most of their ill gotten gain will have gone to off shore accounts.  

Most of these sites basically condone insider trading if only tacitly.  

[+ PhileasFogg]

We agree it’s a bad place

But please don’t keep translating “I don’t think everything should be prohibited” into “I condone everything.”

I don’t.

Fraud is fraud. Insider trading is insider trading. Theft is theft. If someone is using nonpublic information to profit, prosecute them. We already have laws for that.

What I resist is the modern impulse to see a flawed activity and immediately conclude that an entirely new layer of regulation must be built around it. That instinct has become almost reflexive and proven vastly ineffective  

Prediction markets are not unique in attracting bad actors. So do stocks. So do real estate deals. So do government contracts. So do political campaigns. The existence of abuse does not automatically mean the activity itself should be outlawed or regulated into oblivion.

You seem to assume that if government does not intervene, exploitation wins by default. I’m more skeptical. Government is often captured by the same political, financial, and institutional interests it claims to regulate.  The irony is that many of the people demanding new rules are simultaneously furious that political insiders already enrich themselves under the existing ones.

If Polymarket is a foolish place to put your money, people should avoid it. If crimes occur, prosecute the criminals. But I am unconvinced that every bad decision, every risky wager, and every unequal outcome requires Congress to ride in on a white horse and save the public from itself.

We cannot create a society where personal judgment is replaced by regulatory supervision. That experiment has been tried repeatedly, and it never seems to reduce either stupidity or corruption it just pushes it somewhere else.

Again - PT Barnum is a prophet on fools and their money 

[Nue2thegame]

4 hours ago, PhileasFogg said:

We agree it’s a bad place

But please don’t keep translating “I don’t think everything should be prohibited” into “I condone everything.”

I don’t.

Fraud is fraud. Insider trading is insider trading. Theft is theft. If someone is using nonpublic information to profit, prosecute them. We already have laws for that.

What I resist is the modern impulse to see a flawed activity and immediately conclude that an entirely new layer of regulation must be built around it. That instinct has become almost reflexive and proven vastly ineffective  

Prediction markets are not unique in attracting bad actors. So do stocks. So do real estate deals. So do government contracts. So do political campaigns. The existence of abuse does not automatically mean the activity itself should be outlawed or regulated into oblivion.

You seem to assume that if government does not intervene, exploitation wins by default. I’m more skeptical. Government is often captured by the same political, financial, and institutional interests it claims to regulate.  The irony is that many of the people demanding new rules are simultaneously furious that political insiders already enrich themselves under the existing ones.

If Polymarket is a foolish place to put your money, people should avoid it. If crimes occur, prosecute the criminals. But I am unconvinced that every bad decision, every risky wager, and every unequal outcome requires Congress to ride in on a white horse and save the public from itself.

We cannot create a society where personal judgment is replaced by regulatory supervision. That experiment has been tried repeatedly, and it never seems to reduce either stupidity or corruption it just pushes it somewhere else.

Again - PT Barnum is a prophet on fools and their money 

Your point is well taken. There has always been an attempt at a dynamic balance between the two. Sometimes we have overregulation, sometimes profiteering and it varies with time and locale. Your perspective depends on which angle you’re viewing the elephant. Each situation needs to be assessed independently and reflexively opting for either an interventional or a laissez faire approach has its drawbacks. I’m less troubled by the Polymarket paradigm which intrinsically lends itself to manipulation than a legitimate financial institution where one expects a level playing field.