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FBI Raids Home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan

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249 points jaboutboul | 9 comments | 13 Nov 24 21:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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nomilk ◴[14 Nov 24 00:00 UTC] No.42131622[source]▶
As a former user of in-trade and more recently of poly market, it is so annoying that there are laws against these sites. They serve an incredibly important function: letting people learn what’s happening in the world around us by observing a single number (e.g. % win probability).

I most receently used the site yesterday to see what the incumbent Australian government’s reelection chances are after they tabled ‘ID and age requirements to use social media’ laws, but polymarket didn’t seem to have Australian politics odds, so I was left using oddschecker, which is inferior due to the annoying way it displays odds and it not storing historical data.

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Terr_ ◴[14 Nov 24 00:14 UTC] No.42131721[source]▶
> letting people learn what's happening in the world around us

I think that phrasing is a bit too optimistic. Even in cases where the "prediction" cannot influence the outcome, the primary "learning about the world" involves the imputed opinions of bettors.

Betting at horse-races doesn't teach you nearly as much about horses as actually going to the stables. :P

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1. seizethecheese ◴[14 Nov 24 00:28 UTC] No.42131797[source]▶
These imputed opinions tend to do a better job than traditional news. On election night, polymarket was ahead of the news channels every step of the way.

Edit: to be clear, I’m referring to polymarket essentially “calling” each swing state well before the networks did. I’m not just referring to the overall outcome.

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2. galleywest200 ◴[14 Nov 24 00:52 UTC] No.42131956[source]▶
I am not sure what that has to do with calling elections. The Associated Press calls who wins, not some random person with $5 to throw away.
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3. jpadkins ◴[14 Nov 24 01:05 UTC] No.42132050[source]▶
The AP does not in fact call who wins. They publish their opinion, some people trust the AP to be accurate (or not!). The election is only "called" when all the states have certified their results and the US Congress has accepted those certifications. That happens early in the new year.
4. ◴[14 Nov 24 01:06 UTC] No.42132057[source]▶
5. fn-mote ◴[14 Nov 24 01:07 UTC] No.42132072[source]▶
Making these statements after the fact is tricky.

Very tricky.

I would be interested in a blog post explaining it.

The classical fallacy is attributing skill to someone who has successfully predicted 10 coin flips (or market trends) in a row, ignoring the fact that there were many other people making different predictions and there was always going to be one of them who was successful.

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6. seizethecheese ◴[14 Nov 24 01:41 UTC] No.42132280[source]▶
Of course this is true, and the observation is underpowered. However, on election night it wasn’t just about being right it was about digesting information in real time and promulgating information faster. For example, polymarket had trump at like 99% likelihood of winning when the networks were still playing “horse race”.
7. seizethecheese ◴[14 Nov 24 01:43 UTC] No.42132288[source]▶
Polymarket had each state at above 95% likelihood of trump well ahead of the networks suggesting he was winning each state. It’s not just calling winner, it’s ingesting information faster
8. hnburnsy ◴[14 Nov 24 06:15 UTC] No.42133556[source]▶
DDHQ was also significantly ahead of the large media, and seemed to be what lead some of the moves in the betting markets. Seems like anyone at DDHQ with the fore-knowledge of the race calling could have easily front ran the betting markets. Same with Nate Silver and his daily releases. In the back of my mind I also wonder about that last minute Iowa pollster who released an outlier poll.
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9. hnburnsy ◴[14 Nov 24 06:20 UTC] No.42133583[source]▶
Any the folks running the NY Times needle.