Sure, but I meant it in the sense that someone needs to lose money or there's no point in smarter or more well-informed people playing. Their profits have to come from somewhere.

These could be (a) people who aren't as smart as they think they are (b) people who subsidize the market in order to get good predictions (c) people who are hedging (essentially, buying insurance). Perhaps other possibilities.

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chii 17 hours ago | parent [-]

> the sense that someone needs to lose money

yep, and that's fine because they did so voluntarily.

If there were no stakes on the line, the information in the odds will also not have any real meaning.

	▲	skybrian 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s good that it’s voluntary, but that’s not really what I’m getting at. People voluntarily spend money in Vegas and buy meme coins too. This doesn’t tell us all that much about whether a price signal is a valuable source of information. Often, people have varied interpretations of what a price movement means. The price doesn’t tell you how to interpret it. The obvious interpretation can be wrong.