yes, they allow you to pay people who have information about the future for that information, in a distributed manner. this is great if, like many people, you want information about the future.
The prediction market itself is a ouija board. You're given a number. You don't know who's moving the needle or why. You don't know what you're paying for. Maybe you're paying for information from people who are breaking someone's trust by giving it to you? Or maybe you're paying them to make it happen?
Although, sometimes a market provides incentive to publish information that's associated with the market being influenced. For example, someone can do an investigation, short the stock, then publish it.
but like, here in the real world, farmers use weather derivatives. so the technology works, has a use case, is proven.
if your point is that one should not treat the market's number as some oracular probability, then... of course i agree! there is no such thing. the market provides a signal, like any other.
you dont need to pay to access the odds - it's public info.
There are people who pay to make bets on it (if they think the odds are wrong). But you don't have to be a betting participant to access the betting odds. You simply use the betting odds as a prediction of a future outcome, and you take your action/planning accordingly.
Historical records, notably by Herodotus, confirm that the Persian Empire used gold to bribe Greek Oracles, turning "divine prophecy" into a psychological warfare tool.
This mirrors a core flaw in Polymarket: profit maximization is not truth-seeking. Just as Persian bribes manipulated ancient morale, modern "whales" can distort market odds to manufacture narratives or hedge external interests. In both cases, the prediction is a commodity sold to the highest bidder rather than an objective forecast of reality.
Information about the future without power to do anything about it (except bet on it), like is the case for most information and most people, is useless.
Because the people who are consistently right will consistently win money and will make bigger bets which move the price more, in the limit case making the price converge on the true probability of the outcome.
This is the theoretical underpinning of prediction markets.
Apart from minor effects, the price is the probability. If you 'know your shit', you have more confidence and thus bid up or down until there are no more counterparties willing to accept your price, and thus the price settles at approximately the expert/insider probability.
like any signal, you reflect on it, integrate it into your belief, think through the consequences, etc.
we all want mr. delphi to tell us exactly what will happen. but without such a friend, we reason under uncertainty. markets are one tool we've found to coordinate such signals.
would you ask the same of hiring a private investigator, or paying for the new york times? there is no authority with your interests but yourself; you must choose who to trust.
They also allow people to convince those who trust that prediction markets are accurate barometers of likeliness that certain events will be likely with a meager amount of money.
skybrian|9 days ago
Although, sometimes a market provides incentive to publish information that's associated with the market being influenced. For example, someone can do an investigation, short the stock, then publish it.
testaccount28|8 days ago
if your point is that one should not treat the market's number as some oracular probability, then... of course i agree! there is no such thing. the market provides a signal, like any other.
chii|9 days ago
There are people who pay to make bets on it (if they think the odds are wrong). But you don't have to be a betting participant to access the betting odds. You simply use the betting odds as a prediction of a future outcome, and you take your action/planning accordingly.
rfv6723|8 days ago
This mirrors a core flaw in Polymarket: profit maximization is not truth-seeking. Just as Persian bribes manipulated ancient morale, modern "whales" can distort market odds to manufacture narratives or hedge external interests. In both cases, the prediction is a commodity sold to the highest bidder rather than an objective forecast of reality.
testaccount28|8 days ago
coldtea|9 days ago
testaccount28|8 days ago
tester756|9 days ago
like if 50 ppl vote A, 45 people vote B and 1 person who actually knows their shit votes B?
How do you find it? By amount?
jstanley|9 days ago
This is the theoretical underpinning of prediction markets.
0x3f|9 days ago
testaccount28|8 days ago
like any signal, you reflect on it, integrate it into your belief, think through the consequences, etc.
we all want mr. delphi to tell us exactly what will happen. but without such a friend, we reason under uncertainty. markets are one tool we've found to coordinate such signals.
would you ask the same of hiring a private investigator, or paying for the new york times? there is no authority with your interests but yourself; you must choose who to trust.
FergusArgyll|8 days ago
gmd63|8 days ago
DennisP|8 days ago