The betting market on war is “worse than insider trading,” one lawmaker said.
Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://truthout.org/articles/polymarket-takes-down-betting-on-nuclear-detonation-after-backlash/
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
For one, its not gambling if there is not an element of chance. Gambling is only the case where people dont know who will win the Super Bowl, or whether or not you will draw a blackjack at the casino, etc.
If people have direct control over the event being bet on, to the extent that it is not affected by any element of chance, then its not gambling. Its just people with control over a given situation rigging a game to take money from other people. If you went to the casino and the roulette dealer could bet on the game and control where the ball landed that wouldnt be gambling. Neither are prediction markets in most cases.
That doesnt even get into the issues with ethics and incentivizing people in control to do terrible things (or otherwise act amorally or irrationally) just to make money in the prediction market
Is this a problem of the game i.e. being able to bet on anything (someone’s decision) or problem of someone having insider knowledge/influence on decision and allowed to play? In your casino example it’s dealer who is banned, not the roulette itself.
For example insider trading is regulated, following Polymarket’s takedown logic we should ban all trading.
In other words, would this bet be a problem if decision makers were banned from betting or profiting on it?
lol, sure it is. stock market is the biggest casino around, and there are a dozen different ways to extract “liquidity”
just like the stock market, actually enforcing the rules takes a sbmhitload of overhead and with enough influence even those aspects of the casino (SEC/FINRA/Fed) got compromised or neutered in no time at all.