Gambling addicts will really gamble on anything, won’t they? It’s a bit strange to see degenerate gambling dressed up as “predictions”.

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ineedasername 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It’s not gambling, these are legitimate financial instruments designed to allow proper risk management through appropriately market-set pricing on the value of that risk mitigation, and it’s doing this in a way that democratizes risk management in a way previously inaccessible to the public.

j/k totally gambling

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

This looks less like gambling addiction and more like a scam executed for profit.

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SirFatty 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And who fueled the profits? Gamblers?

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

This instance is what you could call a scam, maybe even fraud. But in the absence of manipulation or insider knowledge predicting the weather is pretty close to gambling. As is "does bitcoin go up or down in the next five minutes" or "how many tweets will Elon Musk post in the next couple days" (all real bets on Polymarket)

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

Yes, gambling. That's literally what gambling is, a scam.

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qup 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Gambling takes many forms.

If you and I flip a coin for $100, there's no scam.

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mint5 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It’s a scam when the house takes $1 from that $100 each time. These unlicensed internet gambling halls most certainly take their cut, whatever that amount is.

	▲	scottyah 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's only a scam if they don't disclose that. If the house brought the two people together I'd say it's fair as services rendered. I don't get mad when a bar charges more than the base cost of the alcohol.
	▲	HDThoreaun an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Your definition of scam is terrible

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testing22321 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sooner or later someone will rig the coin

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chucksta 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Potential for fraudulent activity makes something a scam? That list is gonna be long

	▲	Tade0 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		"Gaming"[0] companies are audited for the expected value each coin toss/slot machine roll etc. has - typically it's a high and unusually precise percentage, like e.g. 95.1681%. The scam in is advertising, that emphasizes how much you can potentially win, even though obviously on average the house takes those few percent each time. [0] A term they like to use to describe themselves.

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hyperhello 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Or a spherical cow.

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close04 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A lot of gambling is a scam executed form profit. I call it a scam because it's not always fraudulent, it's persuasion and a dash of misleading info. Often one party unduly influences the outcome or has information that the other can't have. Whether it's corruption to predetermine the result of a match, or knowing that the star player will miss it, or a gambling machine that suggests a higher expected payout than the real one, or even a casino's rules that arbitrarily decide whether your win was legitimate or not, in practice the industry is more scam than legitimate business.

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

We rename everything to make it cooler to sell. Probably been a thing since the times of the sea people.

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saghm 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Even the term "sea people" sounds cooler than "those dudes who live over there by the water"

	▲	gizajob 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Preferable to “the beaker folk of the Bronze Age”

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

I'm a "holy crap how do they keep getting the weather so wrong" addict and it's as irrational as being a gambling addict in that weather forecasts have improved a lot. I've never been tempted to gamble until now, where I realize I can put my money where my (irrational) mouth is.

All that said, gambling addiction is like a disease, same as any other. Holding folks who have it in contempt is about the same as holding alcoholics in contempt. It ignores the fact that it's a real affliction and not a lifestyle choice. Polymarket is taking advantage of that affliction.

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cyclopeanutopia 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You seem to ignore the fact that most people know how bad alcohol, gambling, cigarettes and other addictive things are, yet they still choose them and then suffer consequences.

If you asked someone whether they wanted to get ass cancer and they told you: "yeah, yolo", wouldn't it be a contempt-worthy choice? It would.

	▲	troyvit an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Nah I just have compassion for people. For one thing, not everybody knows how bad those things are. If all you see is that "fun uncle" who's always drunk, you learn that drinking isn't so bad. Couple that with being bombarded by positive messages around drinking and the popular belief that anything in moderation is OK, and you end up doing them. The very act of doing them obscures the consequences you are suffering. That's chemical. The same thing happens with gambling, but it's a dopamine rush instead of an alcohol rush. I'm not saying people have no agency, I'm just saying there's a lot more going on than just agency.

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

How is it any different from the stock market?

(Whether you read this as a defense of polymarket or an indictment of shareholder capitalism might depend on your ideology)

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fleroviumna 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]