Sure, but events where that kind of "skew" is effective are going to be quite rare. And even then, the incentive is just for everyone to try and "skew" the event as early as possible, where factors other than monetary cost or reward then become dominant. No different from what usually happens with no prediction market at all.

> It's enough that it can be used to shift public opinion in some way that's worth the cost to the manipulator.

This has been tried in the real world and is just not very effective. It's just too hard to move the price in ways that will shift public opinion when literally anyone else has a huge incentive to bet against you.