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Nobel Peace Prize 2025: María Corina Machado

(www.nobelprize.org)
522 points pykello | 6 comments | 10 Oct 25 09:03 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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haunter ◴[10 Oct 25 09:10 UTC] No.45536742[source]▶
~10 hours or so before the announcement bets on her skyrocketed on Polymarket

https://x.com/polymarket/status/1976434242386317640

Someone without any history whatsoever put 70k on her 5 hours before the announcement

https://x.com/polywhalewatch/status/1976499384373121488

Trump was never above 5-10% and out of nowhere she was the winner (see the 1 day market view) https://polymarket.com/event/nobel-peace-prize-winner-2025?t...

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jychang ◴[10 Oct 25 09:20 UTC] No.45536815[source]▶
This isn't illegal but feels like it should be illegal. You don't see corporate officers trade their stocks right before a big announcement, because there are laws on it.

Other than the fact that polymarket is legally not a stock market, what really is the difference between insider trading on a stock market vs insider trading on polymarket? Does anyone have a good argument for why one should be illegal while the other is legal?

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mnx ◴[10 Oct 25 09:31 UTC] No.45536888[source]▶
The argument goes, the purpose of prediction markets is not to be fair, it's to provide information. Allowing insider trading benefits that purpose. And I think that's fair - this is not a place to invest your retirement savings, it's essentially gambling.
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1. CaptainOfCoit ◴[10 Oct 25 11:29 UTC] No.45537655[source]▶
I kind of feel like abusing the information asymmetry when doing insider trading in a betting market should be illegal regardless if the purpose is to provide information or not, or if it's considered gambling or not. Just like doing so with stocks is illegal today.
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2. johnthewise ◴[10 Oct 25 13:00 UTC] No.45538504[source]▶
why? The purpose of the prediction market is not to be fair to market participants, it's to aggregate information regarding an event. There is a public benefit to allowing participants to bet on insider information. It could be even argued there is nothing unfair about it if everyone is free to do it/can anticipate others might have insider info. If we actually limited the market to participants who have insider information(not feasible because we can't verify), that'd be a great public utility. this is the next best thing for all those who don't participate in it. These are specialized markets and we shouldn't rush to 'protect' people who bet on very technical events happening.
3. edanm ◴[10 Oct 25 14:27 UTC] No.45539491[source]▶
Why? This net saves people money, because it makes markets reflect reality faster.

Other than a vague sense of "fairness", can you articulate why insider trading should be illegal?

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4. modeless ◴[10 Oct 25 14:41 UTC] No.45539634[source]▶
The purpose of banning insider trading in markets is not "fairness". The purpose is to encourage participation. We want to promote investment in the stock market by the general public who don't have insider information, because that stimulates the economy by providing capital for productive businesses.

Prediction markets don't provide capital for productive businesses. The only purpose of a prediction market is to get accurate predictions. Insider information makes the predictions more accurate. Unlike the stock market, we don't need to encourage public participation in prediction markets. In fact we might want to discourage it because it's essentially gambling. Therefore, we should definitely not outlaw insider trading in prediction markets.

5. Fraterkes ◴[10 Oct 25 15:01 UTC] No.45539856[source]▶
It being unfair might dissuade people from using it, that would kinda compromise the goal of helping markets reflect reality
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6. edanm ◴[10 Oct 25 17:14 UTC] No.45541312{3}[source]▶
But no one is actually hurt by it.

(I'm not saying you're wrong, btw. People aren't always rational.)