Isnt this silly when you can calculate the chance of war in Iran by oil futures instead. Prediction markets are just explicit markers of information that is already being traded on in 100 different ways.

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jimkleiber 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah but less direct incentive than "If my friends (and I) bet money on X, and I do X, they (and I) make money."

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metalcrow 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Not by much, plus the volume is much lower on prediction markets, so people with large pockets who happen to be in power and are capable of doing big moves like this would make more money on the oil futures.

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pinkmuffinere 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I wonder if there's profit to be made by looking at the futures markets, figuring out the implied probability distribution of different events, and then buying prediction markets when there's a mis-match? There sure are many inexperienced players entering predictions markets, just waiting to be fleeced...

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metalcrow 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That's one of the intended uses of prediction markets! Although much like cryptocurrency arbitrage i assume the margins are small and will quickly be eaten by bigger fish.

	▲	pinkmuffinere 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Huh interesting. I suppose markets with low volume would tend to be the most profitable opportunities in that case? But then maybe they’re low volume because it’s hard to say what will happen…

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thinking_cactus 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree in some ways.

Like, I think in a way it's just not viable to patch every little loophole a corrupt or morally bankrupt administration could exploit and all damage it could cause, and probably not without making the administration itself useless. It's a still a good idea to patch as much as feasible, in part to if slightly discourage the worse from seeking power in the first place. But in a way, it's garbage in, garbage out. Laws will never be able to magically turn corrupt and misguided decisions into ever good ones. The robust solution is promoting wisdom, ethics, civility and education, so people make good democratic choices for themselves and others.

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geysersam 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a big difference. There's vastly less chance someone manages to expose state secrets through their bets on oil futures. The volume is higher, and the prediction is less specific.

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breppp 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The idea is not economic hedging but gambling and corruption

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nazcan 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, but they are saying that if you allow economic hedging, you are also allowing gambling - just a bit more indirectly.

	▲	breppp 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		maybe, but that is a by product of a real function (hedging). The reason prediction markets deal with news is so they can attract gamblers. Also compare marketing efforts of prediction markets and SEC control of real markets

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tlb 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Oil prices are affected by many other things too. It's valuable to isolate individual factors.

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4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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amelius 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah we should ban derivatives too.

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Zigurd 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I hope everyone reading this realizes that commodity futures are useful and easily distinguished from prediction markets, which are a ruse to get around restrictions on gambling.

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amelius 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The world did fine before derivatives. In fact some might say it did even better. And gambling only makes the wealth gap worse. And there is a ton of nasty incentives linked to it.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 35 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> world did fine before derivatives The Hittites and Bronze-Age Egyptians had forward-deliverable contracts that, if you squint, they would trade amongst each other. The idea of being able to assign a contract to a third party to which you're a beneficiary is about as old as civilisation. In part because it's obvious. In part because it's impossible to police. But mostly because it's useful. (I'm ignoring insurance and reinsurance, both of which are derivatives and rely heavily upon them.)
	▲	nradov 31 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Nonsense. Derivatives have been actively traded in the USA at least since 1848 (and even earlier in other countries). Nothing was better about the world in 1847.

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anshabs 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Incase you missed this in the Epstein files:

> This is the way the jew make money.. and made a fortune the past ten years, selling short the shipping futures, let the goyim deal in the real world.

One instance obviously, but not often do you hear them say the quiet part out loud. Most of the times it’s just firms profiting off hardship and/or prior knowledge, which is easy to hide.

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gos9 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Who’s “we”?

You or I certainly don’t have a say in this

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gruez 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

/s?

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JumpCrisscross 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Don’t think so. A lot of peoples’ first reaction to something they don’t understand is to try and make it go away.

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fragmede 4 hours ago | parent [-]

A lot of people reaction to understanding what derivatives are are also to try and make them go away. Thinking derivatives are legalized gambling, and being against gambling entirely, doesn't require a lack of understanding of derivatives to be against them.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> thinking derivatives are legalized gambling, and being against gambling entirely, doesn't require a lack of understanding of derivatives to be against them No, but anyone who has an introductory knowledge of derivatives and their history will know of the Onion Futures Act, which banned "the trading of futures contracts on onions" to predictable (albeit long term) effects. Broadly speaking, the less someone knows about derivatives and the further their work is from the production of any good (versus services), the more likely they are to get upset about it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act#cite_note-fo...

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alephnerd 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Isnt this silly when you can calculate the chance of war in Iran by oil futures instead

This is why I'm opposed to prediction markets - they're gamified futures contracts (unsurprising given the founders at Kalshi are ex-Citadel and why Intercontinental Exchange executed growth equity rounds with Polymarket). A lot of degenerate gamblers are basically being taken to the cleaners as they lack the experience to actually mitigate risk or understand how to strucure futures contracts.

And an actual insider has much easier and much more legally defensible alternatives to conduct insider trading than using a platform that has KYC requirements.

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pstuart 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Except this wasn't driven by Oil. It was driven by Israel.

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thephyber 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The White House has admitted that Israel had actionable intelligence that several of the Iranian political leadership were having a physical meeting together and they decided to attack to decapitate the government. The US decided to attack Iranian capabilities preemptively to reduce the inevitable response to US military, embassies, and allies in the region.

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voganmother42 18 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Striking schools and killing school children has not reduced the inevitable response.

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_menelaus 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

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DANmode 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You think that type of network stays within one administration?

Political sex blackmail has been a problem.

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pstuart 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Absolutely, but the current administration is a whole new level of WTF. I've followed US politics for half a century and this feels like through the looking glass stuff.

	▲	DANmode 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Something’s definitely fucked.

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mullingitover 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s bad enough the politicians lied when they campaigned on no more wars in the Middle East, they don’t need to insult our intelligence with these moronic cover stories.

If they didn’t want Israel dragging the US into wars they could’ve just placed a call to Iran to warn them.

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pstuart 3 hours ago | parent [-]

We live in a post truth age, unfortunately. Many citizens are happy to only hew to the truth that they want, versus the "real" truth. (note the quotes -- truth is tricky).

There's a bitter irony in this issue -- toppling the regime in Iran would be a wonderful thing, but doing so via bombs is not the way. We have Afghanistan and Iraq as very dear lessons in how not to do it.

	▲	2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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Dig1t 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No idea why you're being downvoted, there is a mountain of evidence that this is the case. We are doing this because of Israel.

Marco Rubio said outright we went in because of Israel. Just watch Trump's speeches, he literally talks about the power of the Israel lobby and hopes he is doing a good job for them. Netanyahu has visited Trump 7 times in the last year, each visit has been leading up to this move. Trump's biggest mega donors are Israeli dual citizens with strong ties to their home country. Miriam Adelson, Sheldon Adelson, Larry Elison (who has conveniently taken control of the TikTok algorithm and banned the phrase "#freepalestine" through his connection with Trump) have donated hundreds of millions for this exact outcome. These donors have direct ties to the Israeli government.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/13/who-is-miriam-adel...

There is very little evidence that the strikes are being driven by oil, in fact oil is the perfect excuse to use as cover. It was the exact same thing with the Iraq war. Iraq and Iran were the two largest threats to Israel, we went into Iraq to regime change them and now we are finishing the job with Iran. Now there are no threats to Israel's expansion to the rest of the middle east. The ruling party (Likud) supports the Greater Israel project, which aims to expand Israel's borders to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Israel

	▲	pstuart 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm assuming that it's assumed that I'm slagging on Israel for some irrational hate -- I'm not. I'm commenting based upon reports that I've seen (effectively what you're referred to), not on ideology or feellings. Thanks for having my back! I think of HN as a community of intelligent people and it's always disappointing to be reminded that that alone is no guarantee of healthy discourse.