I thought the point of them is they are “truth machines” they give a financial incentive for the insider class to essentially share what they know.

The benefit to those outside the insider class are that we now have a better idea of the potential outcome.

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dvt 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is what their argument is, and personally I think it's a pretty good one. But the main issue is that retail is getting fleeced and lives are being destroyed by gambling, so non-professional investors should not be able to use it. Imo, the upside (some fisherman with insider knowledge betting on the Strait of Hormuz) doesn't outweight the downside (a large-scale societal gambling epidemic[1]).

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inside-out-outside-i...

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jamal-kumar 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think it's worth noting that my bank lets me ruin my own life too if I want with their own trading platform

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avaer 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What are they sharing that they know though? That someone's getting bombed in an hour? That the government is rampant with corruption?

The first seems arguably treasonous. And the latter seems directly supported and funded by these "prediction markets".

If the argument is that prediction markets are truth machines, their social function seems to be support crime on a massive scale and get away with it.

	▲	bostik 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, that's the entire point. If we take a completely utilitarian and amoral viewpoint, the insiders are selling their material, non-public information. The rest of the market participants are buying. From the latter's utilitarian perspective the former are providing a valuable service and getting paid for it. I'm pretty sure there was a legal term for such sales activity... The only people playing fair are those who don't know how to cheat well enough.

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low_tech_love 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

How can anyone differentiate an insider bet from a normal one enough to actually make use of it?