> will always lead to resolution at prices at a time prior to the death

But there might be an incentive to freeze the price? I think polymarkets should be banned.

If they provided the information, "Hey I am bob in the pentagon and we are doing war soon", it wouldnt be insider trading.

But all they are doing is updating a financial instrument that suggests an increased likelihood, and getting massive bank for not providing the information that would make everyone else bet the same way.

Of course insider trading is a US federal crime in prediction marketplaces.

If you hold confidential information, using it to bet on prediction markets could arguably violate secrecy rules since the market effectively receives the information. If you are not bound by confidentiality, participating should be fine.

Note that this isn't about making the market "fair" for other participants but about ensuring confidential information remains confidential (especially relevant in the context of national defense).

There’s two different things to argue here.

First, yes, you’re right.

Second, they raised a shit ton of money under the bull case of mass consumer adoption, which is going to be impossible if that said consumer feels it is rigged.

Let’s all be real here; for 95% of their use cases both now and in the future, they’re a sportsbook. Which is fine! But they’re not going to get to anywhere near returning a multiple on their manic valuation until they act like one. And the first thing to do is to stop with all of the pseudo-academic bullshit about what a prediction market is. And the second is for them to hire someone, anyone, who knows even the first thing about sports because everyone even tangentially connected to this market knows that before six months ago, Tarek and Shayne couldn’t differentiate between a football and a buttplug.

Yeah well you outlined perfectly well why they should be banned from the known universe

I bet I’ll punch you in a mouth and then I punch you in a mouth and collect a billion dollars

You could argue that certain prediction markets are better than the alternative. Maybe not for this, but take sports betting.

People taking sides against each other means the losers and winners are individuals.

Meanwhile sports betting is growing but the winners are “the house”, the companies.

The signs it was possibly soon were pretty strong it's the exact day that wasn't really known.

I agree; exact day was predictable enough for people to place confident-enough bets on. Notices to evacuate non-essential personnel from US military bases, embassies, & consulates in the region also went out 1-2 days prior to Israel's strikes on Iran on June 13, 2025.

My social circle had largely expected that Iran was getting bombed on Saturday or Sunday once the evacuation notices went out Friday, and this intuition was merely from laymen who follow the news. I don't doubt that insider trading was involved as it's the norm with this Admin, but I also don't doubt that many savvy people could've legally placed successful bets.

If it was so obvious, how come you didn’t make a half milion dollars?

More generally, if it was so obvious how come the odds were so long?

If it were so obvious that winning required no insider knowledge the odds should be better.

I know it’s cliche, but I hate this timeline.

For a good while there, the headlines went from “oniony” to “sim-city news headline flavor text” to “I can’t believe I share a finite existence with the people being discussed”