As much as I am a fan of being able to see the current probability of a future event by checking prediction markets - the argument that there is a meaningful difference between predicting the outcome of a sports game and betting on the outcome of a sports game strains credulity.

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dozerly 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That’s not what prediction markets give you though. They give you capital-adjusted, human perception-based odds of future events. You aren’t “seeing the probably of future events”.

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jawiggins 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> An event predicted to happen p% of the time happens about p% of the time. Can’t beat that.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/10/pr...

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dozerly an hour ago | parent [-]

You can link me studies that are paid and bought for by these companies all day long. Find me one where the guy is not a consultant to the companies themselves.

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jawiggins an hour ago | parent [-]

Huh, I hadn't considered that. Have you seen research from other sources that demonstrate they are not accurate?

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dozerly an hour ago | parent [-]

This is the only one I’m personally aware of, keying off of a commonly known bias humans suffer from: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.12878

Obviously not compelling on its own though.

	▲	jawiggins 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> longshots lose 6.3 cents per dollar when each contract is weighted equally but gain 4.1 cents when related contracts are first grouped by parent event; the two-sided pattern is robust in Crypto and Politics but surprisingly absent in Sports. This seems like a relatively small inefficiency in the markets, no? If the margin of error notable in a prediction markets is <10 cents per dollar, that implies that they are pricing events pretty accurately. Especially post publication of this paper, when sophisticated traders could trade away this inefficiency.

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

The whole “we provide the most accurate way to predict the future” upside-as-a-counterweight-to-the-downside-of-gambling has always seemed like a hollow benefit to me. I mean, like, okay, let’s say they actually do provide that. Who’s to say that’s a beneficial result? Are we really better off having more accurate forecasting of election results? Or does that just improve boogeyman MBA-types’ abilities to affect election results?

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jeltz 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Especially since what Kalshi is doing has existed for 25 years in Europe (we call it betting exchange) and been licenced as sports betting. It is nothing new other than them doing it without licence and that they are more generous in accepting weird market types.