That same account[0] has also already lost at least 100k betting on similar middle eastern conflict markets. Not at all ruling out insider information, certainly looks suspicious, but it’s easy just to find one big win or winner.
Who thought this? Be careful with your wild use of we here. I'm not part of your we. Opening betting markets has only one ultimate ending where everything is done for the betting.
The traditional espoused financial market purpose of these prediction markets is based on the premise that actors on it will have inside information.
The point is for business with vested interests (and therefore often inside information) to use these markets to hedge for things that will materially affect their profitability.
For example, in this case, suppose you ran a company that was shipping goods through the Middle East, and a war would disrupt your business. You would then place bets on there being a war, so that if it does happen you will recover some of your losses. You might know inside information because your work in the region, but that is expected.
I think it's pretty obvious when betting on events that are inherently just decisions by one or a few people (e.g. when will Trump launch an attack on Iran, when will a company launch a new product, will some company acquire another one, etc.) that they will attract insider trading and corruption by their very nature - all that's necessary is to have information about the decision maker. This is fundamentally different than events that are subject to forces that no single individual controls - e.g. who will win an election, where will a crypto price be in a year, movie box office results, etc.
I think betting on "single decision maker" events is just a "sucker is born every minute"-type bet.
This is exactly what I wanted prediction markets for
Looks like “we” need to update our relationships with markets
Price discovery is a visualization of the collective conscious, and the evolution of markets gets closer and closer to direct exposure to an event. Share and derisk a transaction, cleanly, quickly
Reduce all frictions towards doing so
Frictions include finding the person making the transaction, negotiating with them, trusting them to perform, disputing resolution, insurance. These hamper anything from occurring, or occurring quickly, and the pricing is too variable. Prediction markets are an example of all of those frictions being reduced to almost non-existent. And dispute resolution will improve further and attract more liquidity.
Isn't exposing corruption a good thing? If betting markets are giving the masses access to knowledge about events that would normally be restricted from them, what is wrong with that? Information wants to be free. You can make use of metrics from betting markets without actively participating in them.
Anyone who's followed the news since the 2000s would have realized a strike on Iran would have happened around now.
Notice how the bettor hedged and bet on multiple days and hedged each of their bets with a "by" clause. This is a bog standard hedging strategy that anyone who's been to a racetrack would know.
On a separate note, gamified prediction markets should not exist - they create perverse incentives and are basically a gamification of futures contracts (which requires a degree of risk management and hedging experience the median individual simply lacks), but this specific example doesn't seem like insider trading, just a seasoned gambler who knows basic hedging strategy.
Maybe, but also the strike was super telegraphed. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when USA pulls its embassy staff from israel, britian pulls its embassy staff from iran and USA creates the biggest build up of military hardware in the region in 20 years, that shit is about to go down.
Especially when everyone notices the polymarket bets that win big but nobody notices the ones that fall on their face. There is huge survivorship bias in these sorts of analyses
When I worked the military (not the US), we'd get some briefs from time to time on risks like espionage. They'd present us with cases, and It always surprise me just how little money people are willing to risk their lives and careers for. You'd think people that are willing at worst to become traitors, but at best break confidentiality laws - and face years in prison - would do it only for life-changing money. Nope, not even close. People have gone to prison for a fraction of $500k.
If someone truly made this bet with inside information, they for sure broke laws. Not only did they do that, they could have jeopardized parts of the mission.
No doubt in my mind, part of OSINT gathering for most intel agencies is to monitor these betting markets.
I mean, one of the purported utilities of this sort of betting market is that they "make hidden information public", so they explicitly encourage "insider" trading. But I don't see how it's that useful to know (or "know" with a fair amount of uncertainty) of the attack only 71 minutes before the news break.
Has anyone analyzed the odds on particular days to see if there’s a chance that the timing was influenced by the amount to be made on the betting market and not the other way around?
These betting markets create a wild new perverse incentive to power. No need to get gifts from business interests. Just be in the room where it happens and extract piles of cash from betting markets.
These markets claimed to be useful tools for discovering truth. I'm not sure what being able to maybe predict a military strike a bit earlier provides to society, but I do know that creating a system for near-unlimited wealth extraction for those with power is a very bad thing.
On the other hand, these are markets, right? Your ability to make profit is limited by the available liquidity. I wonder, if enough people get burned by insider trading, will liquidity dry up? At the same time, I suppose you don’t need that much volume to make a decent amount of money. And these platforms keep growing…
They don’t allow unlimited “extraction” of wealth. It is inherently limited by the need for people to take the other side of a trade.
Importantly, people who either thought they had better information (and were sadly wrong) or people who were simply gambling. It’s not like prediction markets are taking money from orphanages.
Just ban these services. There’s no legitimate purpose in betting on people being shot or blown up. And the only people who could win reliably, are the people doing the shooting.
It was pretty obvious it would happen this weekend, no corruption needed.
The Iran protests happened, Iran massacred a bunch of protesters, Trump said "Help is on the way". Then US aircraft carriers started moving towards the middle east. Trump started negotiating with Iran, making demands Iran would never agree to. Trump gave his usual ultimatums, aircraft carriers finally got into position, Iran still being belligerent, and nearing the end of Trump's ultimatum... Like, all the signs were there. There's a strange consistency to Trump's erratic behaviour...
Plans were changed last minute because an opportunity arose to take out Iran's leader. It was obvious something was going to happen, but not what or when. The American war fleet deploying would've served as an effective containment strategy if the US military would do another simple kidnapping like they did in Venezuela.
The large protests passed their peaks a while ago. The American military has been deploying to the area for a while. This attack could've happened any day in the past weeks, or it could've taken another couple of weeks of shit flinging, slow escalation, and meaningless threats from Iran's government.
But in this case I guess there wasn't enough pushback. And the thing that made it if not obvious certainly rather likely was the aircraft carrier movement which isn't exactly subtle, though very often just used for intimidation.
The thing which is at least a little surprising is the talk about aircraft carriers being very vulnerable to attack with drones / cheap missiles / etc. didn't materialize and if it were going to, Iran would be the one to realize it unless a full on world war were to erupt.
I mean Trump did say he was going to. It's not an outlandish bet.
Also this needs waaay more information before you can say if it is statistically significant. How much did they stand to lose? How many other people made similar bets? Etc.
docdeek|1 hour ago
https://x.com/pearsonm103/status/2028176543264969145
signorovitch|1 hour ago
[0] https://polymarket.com/@magamyman
dymk|1 hour ago
[deleted]
tim-tday|1 hour ago
dylan604|1 hour ago
cortesoft|43 minutes ago
The point is for business with vested interests (and therefore often inside information) to use these markets to hedge for things that will materially affect their profitability.
For example, in this case, suppose you ran a company that was shipping goods through the Middle East, and a war would disrupt your business. You would then place bets on there being a war, so that if it does happen you will recover some of your losses. You might know inside information because your work in the region, but that is expected.
markus_zhang|1 hour ago
bawolff|44 minutes ago
nkrisc|1 hour ago
hn_throwaway_99|1 hour ago
I think it's pretty obvious when betting on events that are inherently just decisions by one or a few people (e.g. when will Trump launch an attack on Iran, when will a company launch a new product, will some company acquire another one, etc.) that they will attract insider trading and corruption by their very nature - all that's necessary is to have information about the decision maker. This is fundamentally different than events that are subject to forces that no single individual controls - e.g. who will win an election, where will a crypto price be in a year, movie box office results, etc.
I think betting on "single decision maker" events is just a "sucker is born every minute"-type bet.
softwaredoug|1 hour ago
Some insider selling changes the prediction downwards
The WANT the information
ekjhgkejhgk|1 hour ago
seydor|1 hour ago
yieldcrv|1 hour ago
Looks like “we” need to update our relationships with markets
Price discovery is a visualization of the collective conscious, and the evolution of markets gets closer and closer to direct exposure to an event. Share and derisk a transaction, cleanly, quickly
Reduce all frictions towards doing so
Frictions include finding the person making the transaction, negotiating with them, trusting them to perform, disputing resolution, insurance. These hamper anything from occurring, or occurring quickly, and the pricing is too variable. Prediction markets are an example of all of those frictions being reduced to almost non-existent. And dispute resolution will improve further and attract more liquidity.
watwut|58 minutes ago
I dont think I was special or unusual.
bdangubic|42 minutes ago
deadbabe|1 hour ago
alephnerd|1 hour ago
Notice how the bettor hedged and bet on multiple days and hedged each of their bets with a "by" clause. This is a bog standard hedging strategy that anyone who's been to a racetrack would know.
On a separate note, gamified prediction markets should not exist - they create perverse incentives and are basically a gamification of futures contracts (which requires a degree of risk management and hedging experience the median individual simply lacks), but this specific example doesn't seem like insider trading, just a seasoned gambler who knows basic hedging strategy.
powerpcmac|1 hour ago
"harmless betting" for thee
bawolff|48 minutes ago
Especially when everyone notices the polymarket bets that win big but nobody notices the ones that fall on their face. There is huge survivorship bias in these sorts of analyses
squibonpig|1 hour ago
lokimedes|1 hour ago
avaer|1 hour ago
TrackerFF|1 hour ago
If someone truly made this bet with inside information, they for sure broke laws. Not only did they do that, they could have jeopardized parts of the mission.
No doubt in my mind, part of OSINT gathering for most intel agencies is to monitor these betting markets.
streetfighter64|44 minutes ago
evan_|48 minutes ago
Arcuru|35 minutes ago
UncleMeat|1 hour ago
These markets claimed to be useful tools for discovering truth. I'm not sure what being able to maybe predict a military strike a bit earlier provides to society, but I do know that creating a system for near-unlimited wealth extraction for those with power is a very bad thing.
iron_albatross|1 hour ago
jatari|51 minutes ago
hsuduebc2|1 hour ago
emtel|1 hour ago
Importantly, people who either thought they had better information (and were sadly wrong) or people who were simply gambling. It’s not like prediction markets are taking money from orphanages.
amelius|1 hour ago
ceejayoz|1 hour ago
> "we design the rules to prevent people from profiting from death"
Read the fine print!
yieldcrv|1 hour ago
unknown|1 hour ago
[deleted]
MagicMoonlight|1 hour ago
dylan604|1 hour ago
parineum|32 minutes ago
dismalaf|1 hour ago
The Iran protests happened, Iran massacred a bunch of protesters, Trump said "Help is on the way". Then US aircraft carriers started moving towards the middle east. Trump started negotiating with Iran, making demands Iran would never agree to. Trump gave his usual ultimatums, aircraft carriers finally got into position, Iran still being belligerent, and nearing the end of Trump's ultimatum... Like, all the signs were there. There's a strange consistency to Trump's erratic behaviour...
jeroenhd|48 minutes ago
The large protests passed their peaks a while ago. The American military has been deploying to the area for a while. This attack could've happened any day in the past weeks, or it could've taken another couple of weeks of shit flinging, slow escalation, and meaningless threats from Iran's government.
knallfrosch|1 hour ago
rrr_oh_man|1 hour ago
colechristensen|1 hour ago
But in this case I guess there wasn't enough pushback. And the thing that made it if not obvious certainly rather likely was the aircraft carrier movement which isn't exactly subtle, though very often just used for intimidation.
The thing which is at least a little surprising is the talk about aircraft carriers being very vulnerable to attack with drones / cheap missiles / etc. didn't materialize and if it were going to, Iran would be the one to realize it unless a full on world war were to erupt.
IshKebab|1 hour ago
Also this needs waaay more information before you can say if it is statistically significant. How much did they stand to lose? How many other people made similar bets? Etc.
As it stands this is not a story.