[randyrand]

Using insider information is how you are supposed to win these. Otherwise it's just random gambling.

This is not the stock market. There are no public reporting rules for the weather, song lyrics, what Kim Kardashian eats tomorrow.

[kqr]

Well, better synthesis of public information is also a way to win. Some people think of that as more fair.

Another way to win is to use them for hedging exposure elsewhere. That also doesn't require inside information.

[bjackman]

Why should we want prediction markets to be fair? I want them to reveal facts about the world.

They only need to be fair inasmuch as it serves that goal. I don't think it wouldn serve that goal to forbid insider trading?

(Why do we forbid insider trading in the stock market? Not because it's unfair. Because it makes the market worse at doing what we want it to do, which is funding the most productive enterprises).

[randyrand]

We are all in the same world. Go find the information you need to make informed choices.

Betting on the weather? Go build weather stations. Betting on Kim Kardashian? Go interview her.

This "go find valuable information" approach is broadly applicable to making money.

[lxgr]

> Using insider information is how you are supposed to win these. Otherwise it's just random gambling.

Not nearly. If nothing else, there's still time arbitrage and at least some amount of information processing required.

Even efficient markets need somebody doing the leg work and making them so, especially when unsophisticated traders are participating too.

[_DeadFred_]

How have we regressed to the point of forgetting that you don't let athletes and referees gamble?

[numtel]

Getting close to Jim Bell's assassination politics

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32790951