There have already been examples of people manipulating scientific readings to make a quick buck on a prediction market bet

https://www.npr.org/2026/04/23/nx-s1-5797876/polymarket-pari...

There are examples of people manipulating precipitation monitors to get crop insurance payouts: https://www.agweb.com/news/business/rain-robbers-how-four-fa...

The incentive was already there without prediction markets, just like the incentive to screw with drug trials has been around as long as biotech companies that are publicly traded have been making drugs. Wherever there is a measurement tied to a monetary payout, unscrupulous people will try to manipulate it.

This doesn’t change anything since the incentive already existed before prediction markets, people are getting unreasonably emotional about prediction markets due to headline overload.

Creating a new incentive where one does not exist can create moral hazards, an easy example is introducing wildfire prediction markets.