Polymarket is effectively an assassination auction list, you just need to find out which low likelihood resolutions can be swayed by someone's death. But you would need to have money to start which is something aspiring assassins aren't likely to have. And you would also need the skills to launder cryptocurrencies effectively.
This is also true with traditional stock markets, except that laundering real money is much harder to do alone. In the real world an assassin can't really involve more people as those people would realize they are loose ends since they have a get-out-of-jail card in turning on you.
The markets could get ahead of this by stipulating that a resolution via murder will always lead to resolution at prices at a time prior to the death. This would technically incentivize a potential assassin to commit a deniable murder, but if they succeed it won't be the market's [PR] problem.
I agree; exact day was predictable enough for people to place confident-enough bets on. Notices to evacuate non-essential personnel from US military bases, embassies, & consulates in the region also went out 1-2 days prior to Israel's strikes on Iran on June 13, 2025.
My social circle had largely expected that Iran was getting bombed on Saturday or Sunday once the evacuation notices went out Friday, and this intuition was merely from laymen who follow the news. I don't doubt that insider trading was involved as it's the norm with this Admin, but I also don't doubt that many savvy people could've legally placed successful bets.
There's no such thing as "insider trading" on prediction markets. Are you telling me people with secret knowledge profited by making correct predictions? That's the whole point of prediction markets! Provide accurate information = get paid. It doesn't matter where the information came from, as long as it's correct.
If they provided the information, "Hey I am bob in the pentagon and we are doing war soon", it wouldnt be insider trading.
But all they are doing is updating a financial instrument that suggests an increased likelihood, and getting massive bank for not providing the information that would make everyone else bet the same way.
>But all they are doing is updating a financial instrument that suggests an increased likelihood, and getting massive bank for not providing the information that would make everyone else bet the same way.
That's the incorrect way of thinking about this. If a hedge fund has reason to believe oil prices will spike due to some secret info (eg. they paid some intern to camp out at US airbases and spot outgoing flights), and then they made massive bank on that trade, that's not insider trading. It's not a crime to trade on non public information. Now, if they paid off some guy inside the base, that might be breaking a bunch of laws around national security, but still not insider trading.
If you hold confidential information, using it to bet on prediction markets could arguably violate secrecy rules since the market effectively receives the information. If you are not bound by confidentiality, participating should be fine.
Note that this isn't about making the market "fair" for other participants but about ensuring confidential information remains confidential (especially relevant in the context of national defense).
Who took the other side of that bet? I sure didn't. Participants in a market should be well aware that other participants can alter the outcome and bet accordingly.
What you're describing is know as an "assassination market". To my knowledge it's considered mostly a non-issue (It's talked about in good detail here https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/prediction-market-faq?open=...), because you could do a lot of the same stuff with the normal stock market. If you have advance knowledge that Iran is gonna be attacked, it's just as easy to trade on that info there via oil or similar, with the added downside that now no one else gains extra info about if Iran will be attacked or not, and anything more hyper-specific would just be illegal to bet on for normal law reasons.
For example, In my comment replace “I” with “Trump” and replace punch with “started another war”
We can go on and on (I can give you 7 million other examples too, this is easy one), the entire prediction market is meant for idiots to give their money to non-idiots that are rigging the whole thing (without any regulation).
That's roughly correct though? Like the alleged point is exactly that - provide an incentive to establish true information earlier than otherwise. If you view prediction markets like that it's only weird to see people taking the other side with no information (I was going to say "like bar bets" but that's the same kind of thing! Don't bet on things you know nothing about if you hate losing money!)
Congrats! You provided correct information!
That is apparently more valuable than anything according to a lot of deranged data nerds nowadays, so enacting violence to get to that outcome is perfectly fine! Good job!
“all fees would be refunded to users who participated in these markets, and that positions from before his death would be cashed out at the last-traded price.”
For a good while there, the headlines went from “oniony” to “sim-city news headline flavor text” to “I can’t believe I share a finite existence with the people being discussed”
I’m seriously contemplating blocking the news completely. It’s not like me being informed has any influence anyway, now that belief can be manufactured to such an extent. Might as well lower my blood pressure.
Skip the technical blocking step and internalize the fact that it is pretty much all irrelevant to your (average person’s) day to day life. Ideally, then even knowing it won’t affect your blood pressure. And the fact is, do you even have reason to believe the claims are true?
I am commenting in this thread to pass time, but I assume there is a such a high chance the linked article is not true, or at least has a hidden agenda, such that it should be ignored or treated as entertainment. Could be product placement, could be completely manufactured rage-bait, who knows, and more importantly, I have no reason to care.
Same. I also wonder why would anyone take the other side on stuff like this, this is clearly to incite insider traders, so either there's a lot of stupid people out there willing to part with their money or this is a very efficient money laundering scheme.
This is also true with traditional stock markets, except that laundering real money is much harder to do alone. In the real world an assassin can't really involve more people as those people would realize they are loose ends since they have a get-out-of-jail card in turning on you.
The markets could get ahead of this by stipulating that a resolution via murder will always lead to resolution at prices at a time prior to the death. This would technically incentivize a potential assassin to commit a deniable murder, but if they succeed it won't be the market's [PR] problem.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/27/middleeast/us-embassy-israel-...
Friday ^^
My social circle had largely expected that Iran was getting bombed on Saturday or Sunday once the evacuation notices went out Friday, and this intuition was merely from laymen who follow the news. I don't doubt that insider trading was involved as it's the norm with this Admin, but I also don't doubt that many savvy people could've legally placed successful bets.
More generally, if it was so obvious how come the odds were so long?
If it were so obvious that winning required no insider knowledge the odds should be better.
But all they are doing is updating a financial instrument that suggests an increased likelihood, and getting massive bank for not providing the information that would make everyone else bet the same way.
That's the incorrect way of thinking about this. If a hedge fund has reason to believe oil prices will spike due to some secret info (eg. they paid some intern to camp out at US airbases and spot outgoing flights), and then they made massive bank on that trade, that's not insider trading. It's not a crime to trade on non public information. Now, if they paid off some guy inside the base, that might be breaking a bunch of laws around national security, but still not insider trading.
Note that this isn't about making the market "fair" for other participants but about ensuring confidential information remains confidential (especially relevant in the context of national defense).
Do you think it is acceptable that someone may have altered their behavior due to the outcome of a bet on attacking Iran?
We can go on and on (I can give you 7 million other examples too, this is easy one), the entire prediction market is meant for idiots to give their money to non-idiots that are rigging the whole thing (without any regulation).
Do you want to bet what I'll eat for dinner next?
For a good while there, the headlines went from “oniony” to “sim-city news headline flavor text” to “I can’t believe I share a finite existence with the people being discussed”
I am commenting in this thread to pass time, but I assume there is a such a high chance the linked article is not true, or at least has a hidden agenda, such that it should be ignored or treated as entertainment. Could be product placement, could be completely manufactured rage-bait, who knows, and more importantly, I have no reason to care.
Or both.