I'm sorry, but all this handwringing just smacks of moral Puritanism. If you want to do it, do it. If you don't, then don't.

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angiolillo 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> If you want to do it, do it. If you don't, then don't.

Three of the "four ways to lose" described in the article are significant harms inflicted on parties besides the bettors themselves. One cannot avoid these harms by not directly gambling.

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

The issue is the combined risk of insider trading coupled with the bias of disaster-centric betting, or at least event-centric betting. This means if you have the means to create an “out of the ordinary” event you have a strong incentive to make it happen and to bet on it. These must be controllable events, so not natural or complex systems. On the gentler side it would be sports fixing, which has always existed. On the worse side it would be causing war, making economic decisions that will impact many, betting on people death and so on. These kind of things are seemingly already happening to a certain degree.

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sghiassy 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s the insider betting that’s the problem. Not the intrinsic nature of gambling

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GenerWork 5 hours ago | parent [-]

You're always going to have some sort of insider leaks, and quite frankly I don't care if they make money off of it in a betting app. This isn't like the stock market which is a vehicle for wealth for hundreds of millions. Gambling/prediction markets are 100% optional to participate in and you should go in with the expectation that you're going to lose.

	▲	dylan604 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't use these platforms so I don't know how the bets are structured. If someone comes along and places a bet that looks very much like insider knowledge, can you only bet against or can you place bets with them like following the shooter in craps? Betting against something that looks like an insider making the bet really is something willingly done. It's just a dumb bet.
	▲	unethical_ban 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		You're waving away the dangers of government officials having a financial incentive to take actions based not on societal well-being or integrity.
	▲	tech_ken 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> You're always going to have some sort of insider leaks, and quite frankly I don't care if they make money off of it in a betting app Absolutely garbage take, to be quite honest with you. War profiteering is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable, and the last thing we need in this world is more opportunities for it. Regardless of whether the punters getting screwed consented to gambling or not, the problem is the perverse incentives it creates at the highest echelons of power. Abusing access to military intel for profit is foul behavior that will only degrade the quality of our governance and foreign policy, not to mention the literal lives that will be lost as a result.
	▲	jacobgkau 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Gambling/prediction markets are 100% optional to participate in and you should go in with the expectation that you're going to lose. The stock market is 100% optional to participate in, and every broker tells you (is legally required to tell you, in fact) that you should go in with the expectation that you're going to lose money. That didn't stop whatever forces have made them essentially required to plan for the normal life stage of retirement these days.