Discussion
Newly created Polymarket accounts win big on well-timed Iran ceasefire bets
MetaWhirledPeas: I wonder if this sort of corruption will become a new negotiation tactic. Give us what we want and we'll delay the announcement long enough for you to make preparations.I don't know how Polymarket works, so maybe you can enlighten me: can Polymarket be subpoenaed to provide the recipients of the payouts? Is there some insulation to keep them ignorant of their identity?
KumaBear: There is a reason they deal in crypto and are not headquartered in the US
KumaBear: Just imagine how bad insider trading is on other markets. Stricter laws and crack downs should be implemented globally.
vlovich123: Given the accused breaking of ceasefire shortly after agreement, not sure how this bet really gets paid out.
mandeepj: They aren't looking to prosecute many people https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-sec-says-it-file...
sethops1: Once upon a time, people went to jail for insider trading on the stock market. Like that was an actual thing that was enforced with rigor.
jagged-chisel: There were people who bet against… if there’s no one on the other side to take the opposite bet, you don’t have a bet. And you won’t get a payout.
xoxxala: There's a saying in poker that if you sit down at the table and can't immediately find the donkey(1), you are the donkey. At some point, anyone playing around in a prediction without insider info will be the donkey.1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_poker_terms#donkey
Frummy: It's not a super huge liquidity but it can certainly multiply someones salary who's a bureaucrat in the vicinity but not quite centre of the room
woah: Can someone articulate what the harm of this is?
BugsJustFindMe: Both https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading when people able to influence outcomes are able to bet on those outcomes.
ugh123: If an insider, say a member of the Department of Defense (or War, duh) bets a certain date: they could internally influence the decision to execute on that date rather than possibly a better (earlier?) date that could yield less damage or loss to either side.
jzl: Is there really that much liquidity in these bets? Polymarket is just a broker right? So people are putting up tens of millions cumulatively on the other side of these random bets?
SchemaLoad: The insiders are the ones writing the laws though.
CamperBob2: The only business at which Trump has ever really succeeded is money laundering. That might be a clue as to what is actually going on.
rapind: Insiders fleecing dumb people. Then dumb people get pissed their finances are destroyed and they'll never pay off their debt or support a family or attract a mate, and so they go down a rabbit hole of insanity and depression on social media, getting conned by influencers and AI slop and then vote for whatever the rage du jour some grifter politician is selling, or worse they shoot up a school...2026, yeah baby!
jinushaun: Ignoring the gamblers losing money because they lack insider information, the harm is that you changed the incentive for war. It is motivated by money for the gamblers, not military or political objectives. The difference between this and rigged sports gambling is that people die. They die on a whim and they die unnecessarily. I shouldn’t have to explain why people dying is bad.
cwnyth: It's a rigged game. If there's a bet that player X will foul player Y, without proper safeguards, player X can bet on himself and then intentionally player player Y. The actual harm is that by the rules of the betting, no one should know the outcome who could also bet on the game, so the losers are being robbed of their money.In this particular context, it's also possible that there are illicit transfers of money without being immediately noticeable. Bribery could happen at the highest levels with it being very difficult to trace and prosecute.
OutOfHere: It can be said that Trump's "tweets" on that day were strategically engineered to first bring this bet to near zero before ultimately bring it to a hundred. In this way, the maximum winnings could be made by someone with insider knowledge.
max-m: I think the question was: Who gets the payout? The bet is: There will be a ceasefire. There was a ceasefire, but it was allegedly broken almost immediately after. So does that count as ceasefire or not? There are arguments for both sides, so you could also say it's a tie and neither party gets the cut and the bets will be refunded.
recursivecaveat: Like any insider trading you are transferring money from the public to yourself. More interestingly for the prediction market angle: you are leaking secret information by doing that. If you make big trades in anticipation of specific events other market participants can see it. That could be extremely serious if say it endangers a military operation.
Esophagus4: I wonder the same thing: who is taking the other side of these bets?Probably not institutions, so it’s just retail gambling against insiders?
OutOfHere: If you have been under a rock for the last decade and a half, as it would appear you have, cryptocurrency already facilitates anonymous or near-anonymous transfer of money if executed correctly. It grants freedom in this way from oppressive people like you who seek to take it away.
OutOfHere: Or just don't gamble on a bet where insider swings can act against you. Simple.
green_wheel: I've tried to have sympathy for people who lose money gambling but I just can't. Maybe some argument can be made for the fool who loses money on something silly like a sports game, but people certainly not for people trying to make a buck off of death an destruction.
stinkbeetle: I guess it makes our betters like Peolosi look bad though.
faangguyindia: and there are always fool in market.
stinkbeetle: Is this really true? What is the evidence that Trump succeeded in money laundering, where is the dirty money coming from in these particular bets, and how do you propose the polymarket betting mechanism is able to clean the money?
as records show substantial bets
BugsJustFindMe: > as records show substantial betsThey're not bets anymore. Now they're swaps.
