> I'm trying to understand what the criticism is here

> If I knew someone wanted me dead, of course I would want a prediction market on it, and if the odds suddenly shifted dramatically in favor of my death

No, you definitely would not want that. You don't want to live in the world like this. That's the point.

It's fucking horrible and dystopian, people betting on extra-legal invasions of countries, murders, things that could hurt or harm people where they have incentives to do something else that you've just distorted.

Gambling has been illegal, immoral, and proscribed by religions for literally thousands of years, in all sorts of different forms and iterations, for a reason. Because it's incredibly toxic to society.

You can make some arguments that pure games of chance, like casino games, and even maybe sports betting (since sports is a spectacle) aren't that bad. Based on what we've seen recently, I tend to disagree, but at least it's an argument.

But now we're talking about betting on all sorts of political issues, things that are illegal, things where people are acting in an official capacity and shouldn't be given incentives to subvert that. And all these other examples are just bad. There's not really any upside to this at all. It's just bad for society and it shouldn't happen. It's horrible.

If you feel like you're missing a big piece of the puzzle you should take a couple of steps back and think about the consequences of a world where this is common.