Iran correctly figured out that by threatening the OpenAI data center, where the Kushner family has shares, could move Trump to call off the infrastructure strikes. Or it played a role at least. Maybe the strike is postponed until after the OpenAI IPO.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_poker_terms#donkey
It incentives them to keep the info secret in order to profit or a wager on a related outcome. The insider info remains secret, all people know is some bloke stood up a new account and placed a big bet.
And for these short timespan bets, it seems utterly useless. If the wagers were only allowed on things two weeks out, and not allow bets on short term events then maybe it could show more info.
Of course there are lots of problems with this theory - in large markets a single trader has to make large bets to move the market, and with the current leadership the price moves large amounts unpredictably as well based on the latest statements.
But the mechanism itself makes sense.
It's unclear if that's a good thing. Of course some people know secret information before hand. Is disclosing that always good?
Claiming that price movement in a prediction market reveals some amount of truth implicitly assumes that:
- people bet on something they believe to be true, and not to sway other people’s opinions or simply to burn money,
- people bet on something they believe to be true because they have specific private information (e.g. I bet on the Red Sox not because I think they’re good but because I know things other don’t about their opponents, their physical conditions and so on).
- their belief is actually correct (eg if I’m in the CIA and I know that the Soviets are about to launch a nuclear missile I can bet on it… but I don’t know that an officer down the line will refuse to do that).
Even if this was true, there is an issue of timing and consequences. Example: imagine it’s 2011 and some CIA or DoD officer makes huge, sudden bets on the fact that Bin Laden will be caught. Some AQ people get wind of this and move Bin Laden somewhere else. Congrats, your price movement signaled non public information to the market!
Another issue is that these bets tend to rely on public sources, news reports and so on. A journalist in Israel was threatened to change his news reports so that certain people didn’t have to lose on a prediction market. This could become more and more common, and with the advent of AI generated pictures who are you going to believe? Are you losing money because you bet on the wrong outcome or simply because someone with enough resources ensured that your outcome was never going to be reported?
so from bin laden's perspective, this would've been a good outcome isnt it?
Can't say what a good outcome is without saying who.
What if enemies of the USA had corrupt generals who also make bets on anti-US actions to profit personally, and inadvertently reveal information to the CIA/NSA, who then prevent such anti-US actions? Would that not have been a good outcome as well?
Information is information - and one cannot say if it's good or not. However, i am a believer that more information generally do good than bad - assuming the consumer of said information is smart.
> Are you losing money because you bet on the wrong outcome ...
It doesnt matter, because you chose to bet. You do not need to bet in order to make use of the information being revealed by those who are betting.
It’s pretty clear Trump is a threat and everyone in his orbit needs to end up in prison.
Leaders? Are you awake at the wheel?
People using Polymarket are gambling on pretty random things and must understand the risk , whether it is on major geopolitical events or someone counting cars going through a junction these events can all be manipulated pretty easily.
People want to gamble on random things? Let them.
If anything is regulate the other side, people in government can’t use sites like polymarket because I don’t want them making stupid decisions so bets fall one side or another.
If a gov't official (including the president) is leaking classified information, there's already laws about that isnt there? (Whether it's effective is another question - i'm assuming it's currently effective).
Are you saying the "sector of betting on shit that can clearly be insider-traded" is illegal? Does that include like gold and S&P500?
The way I see it, prediction markets' main function is to connect gamblers with insiders posessing useful information. Are you concerned for the gamblers losing? But they were gonna lose anyway, one way or the other. Or are you concerned about the insiders winning? Sucks, but at least the public gets information by way of the prediction market being more accurate.
I’m concerned about people with addictions being exploited by greedy degenerates who don’t care about the negative externalities with which they’re burdening our society, yes.
The insiders might as well run a backroom prediction market and just manipulate the public market.
And even with bigger sums: you never know if it isn't just a variant of the shell game. There are no real signals.
They're not bets anymore. Now they're swaps.
This market will resolve to “Yes” if there is an official ceasefire agreement, defined as a publicly announced and mutually agreed halt in direct military engagement, between the United States and Iran by the listed date, 11:59 PM ET.
For the purposes of this market, an “official ceasefire agreement” requires clear public confirmation from both the United States government and the government of Iran that they have agreed to halt military hostilities against one another, or for an official ceasefire agreement to be otherwise confirmed to have been reached by an overwhelming consensus of media reporting.
If the agreement is officially reached before the resolution date, this market will resolve to “Yes,” regardless of whether the ceasefire officially takes effect after the resolution date.
Any form of informal understanding, backchannel communication, de-escalation without an announced agreement, or unilateral pause in hostilities will not be considered an official ceasefire. Humanitarian pauses, limited operational pauses, or temporary tactical stand-downs will not count toward the resolution of this market.
A broader peace deal, normalization agreement, or political framework will qualify only if it includes a publicly announced and mutually agreed halt in military engagement between the United States and Iran, effective on a specified date, or otherwise confirmed by an overwhelming consensus of credible reporting. Agreements that outline future negotiations or de-escalation measures without an explicit, dated commitment to stop fighting will not qualify.
This market’s resolution will be based on official statements from the United States government and the government of Iran. However, an overwhelming consensus of credible media reporting confirming that an official ceasefire agreement has been reached will suffice.
Still: does the combination of a deranged Truth Social posting, an obviously-pasted tweet from the Pakistani government, and a 10-point list of debatable provenance count as "clear public confirmation?"
I guess so, sort of, maybe? Fortunately I don't have a 7-figure wager at stake.
Oil futures are standardized into several standard types (9 I think, I might be off). You will hear terms like West Texas crude and Brent. This refers to two main factors: the relative mix between lighter and heavier hydrocarbons (called the API gravity) in the oil as well as the sulfur content.
One side benefit of all this is discovery. It's a way of measuring sentiment. So if future oil prices rise, it indicates market sentiment is negative about the war and they further disruption is expected. When it looks like hostilities may end, the price drops.
But there's a problem: nobody trusts the market anymore. It's being manipulated as insiders are clearly frontrunning news with massive bets, sometimes minutes before news gets released. This has been happening with other markets too, most notably SPY futures. Markets cease to function once manipulation becomes widespread.
The future price is also called the paper price and another signal that the paper price is meaningless is that the spot or physical price for oil has skyrocketed well beyond any oil prices you might see in the news. For example, a few weeks ago, physical Dubai oil was nearing $180 per barrel. West Texas crude had a future price of $110 yet the physical price was $140+.
An issue here is that the physical price isn't easily discoverable. It's hidden behind subscription services that cost thousands so you only hear about it when it's reported on. But this means talking heads are reporting on $110 oil when it's really $150.
We saw a similar mismatch with the silver market at the end of last year. That market too was clearly being manipulated but rather than insiders, many (including myself) suspect it was the refiners and others who had lost with silver's massive rally and were doing everything to pop the bubble, including changing the exchange's liquidity ratios to force sales.
In previous years, some or all of these people would get investigated and prosecuted by the SEC for insider trading. That agency has been defanged by putting a pro-deregulation loyalist in charge but the bigger problem is that some or all of these people will be buying pardons before the president leaves office. And the president can no longer be prosecuted thanks to the Supreme Court inventing presidential immunity.
One source of American power is the control over the global financial system. All of this insider trading risks dismantling that. It's not hard to find people who are sitting out because they simply don't trust anything anymore. If this spreads to financial institutions and institutional traders, that's going to be a big problem.
So-called "prediction markets" (and crypto) are even less regulated than that. Unless you have insider knowledge or you're betting on something that isn't prone to insider information (and I honestly don't know what that would be), I'd stay away.
And these prediction markets are small fry. SPY futures are a significantly larger market. So is oil and gas. And Treasuries is order of magnitudes bigger than either of those. Yet some of those markets can't be trusted and I suspect this is only going to get worse.
I don't have any hope that anyone will ever be prosecuted for any of this.
Why would a insider invest in legitimate, productive investment when they can make outsized gains in betting markets or corrupt futures markets?
And yes, long term this will massively taint the US financial power and make economies like the UK more appealing.
This is not a "bigger problem".
> the president can no longer be prosecuted thanks to the Supreme Court inventing presidential immunity
In 2015, there were a hundred things you could've inserted into "The US cannot ___" or "The POTUS cannot ___", that have happened since. Things "can't" until they can.
> I don't have any hope that anyone will ever be prosecuted for any of this.
Agreed, but this is _solely and entirely_ due to a lack of will to do so, not because of any laws.
Other than that, I think a lot of what you said was interesting.
This made me curious: who regulates sports betting? And the answer seems to be... nobody. Well, the states. I guess I should've known that because I know some states ban sports betting.
But that's interesting compared to prediction marekts. Since they're federally regulated, states don't have as much control. And I see that the current CFTC commissioner is suing states to block prediction markets. And prediction markets can and do allow sports betting.
Another "win" for dual sovereignty.
It is also interesting to think about the game theory on how you respond to markets during volatility. If you are a producer or have excessive storage capacity - when do you sell? From my armchair position, it seems like conditions are only going to get worse. Do you hold back some reserves, hoping to cash in on a higher pay day in the future? Then you have to wonder how many might be doing the same.
Here's one way it matters though. Futures markets are typically in a state of backwardation or contango. Backwardation simply means the spot (or physical) price is higher than the paper or future price. Contango is the opposite. Whichever one it is, says something about the current market and the expectations for the future.
So the silver market was in backwardation where the paper price was $75+/oz but the physical price might've been $100+ but nobody was buying. People with silver delivery obligations were simply borrowing silver from those who had it rather than buying it on the spot market. There's a whole separate market for borrowing commodities and the premiums soared. But people who had shorted silver simply couldn't afford to buy on the spot market without going broke so they didn't. They kicked the can down the street, borrowed and then lobbied for the exchange to pop the bubble (which they did).
The best example of a contango market was in March-April 2020 with the oil market. This was the beginning of the pandemic and oil demand fell off a cliff. So people who already had oil couldn't move the oil they had and thus had no room to take delivery of oil they'd already bought (via futures). Producers only have so much storage room before they have to shut off production. Side note: Gulf producers have had to do this in the last month.
But the net effect was there was all this oil and nowhere for it to go so for a brief period the price went negative. That's right. Producers were paying you to take oil. That was an extreme contango market.
So in the last month I've heard data points like Dubai crude was $120-130 paper and $178 physical. That's a huge margin. I don't know what the normal range is really. In a healthy market you'd expect physical prices to be pretty near to short-term future prices.
In any bullish market, you'll get hoarders. There are limits to what you can store though and those are very real because if you shut off production, you might still be accuring a lot of costs and it can take days to restart production. As such I think you'll find producers generally just want to sell.
But a lot of hedging goes on too. This can make price spikes worse, actually. Now it's pretty common for US oil producers to not drill a well until they've already sold part or most of the oil it's expected to produce on the futures market, for risk purposes. But in times like now, nobody's going to drill a well to sell at a future price of $70 (which the 1 year price might still be) and because there's a lead time on oil production, this can create future shortages.
Surely if this were true, gas prices would have risen more than they did.
It's pretty normal that futures differ from spot prices.
>In previous years, some or all of these people would get investigated and prosecuted by the SEC for insider trading.
But are there proofs that there is insider trading on oil futures and we know CTFC isn't investigating it?
Probably not institutions, so it’s just retail gambling against insiders?
A2: I don’t know. It would be great if the Department of Justice or Treasury investigated the matter, since the SEC no longer has the capability. However, since the interim Attorney General is a simp who expresses his love for the president repeatedly, that’s unlikely.
A3: Polymarket could make an effort to prevent activity that undermines the integrity of their platform. All betting platforms work to detect the use of the platforms by people like Baseball players and their families. Most public employees names are public, so it should not be impossible to do the same.
The fact that obvious behavior like this happens reflects poorly on the platform. It’s pretty incredible that bettors are stupid enough to use a platform that actively undermines their wagers.
On A3, money laundering doesn't mean hiding financial activity from the court of public opinion, it means to take an illegal income and put it through processes that obfuscates its origin and makes it difficult for law enforcement to notice or investigate so it can be used in legal markets. "Gambling" doesn't just clean money. Polymarket is electronic and the source and destination of transactions could be subpoenaed. That misconception probably comes from physical casinos where a person would walk in with cash and walk out with a receipt for chips and claim gambling earnings. Doesn't work when you have a paper trail in and out.
It would be stupid to the point of ridiculous to try to launder money this way, even from Trump, lol. Especially on such visible trades! Much more likely it's just making money from insider bets, because that is seemingly not illegal for prediction markets. If you were going to try to use this thing to launder (which seems ridiculous in the first place but maybe it's possible) you would do it with much more mundane bets surely.
> The fact that obvious behavior like this happens reflects poorly on the platform. It’s pretty incredible that bettors are stupid enough to use a platform that actively undermines their wagers.
Gambling is or can be a terrible mental health problem. Stupidity - arguably yes, but also an addiction. Which makes profiting from it pretty awful too really. Although regulations have struggled with how to deal with it because internet and black market gambling is so lucrative and easy to set up too unfortunately.
I would assume that dirty money (from dirty wallets) is placed on the "losing side" of the bet. And clean accounts take the "winning side" of the bets.
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?
The federal government is fighting this attempts, backing the company’s assertion that a “prediction market” is not gambling, and the Feds have sole regulatory power. Coincidentally, Donald Trump, Jr is an investor in Polymarket and an advisor to Kalshi.
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.
The fact we’re talking about this is a testament to the low standard of integrity and and morality we carry as a whole.
If you are not an insider with special info and special access, no matter what you do in the market, you eventually lose to the insiders. So, if you blur the details a bit, you're just giving your money to these people.
The rational move would be to just not participate in a market where insider trading happens. I don't really understand why people aren't avoiding these markets like the plague.
2026, yeah baby!