But we're in an era of less and less responsible government oversight, so the whole thing naturally gets ruined if there's no guardrails to prevent peoeple without souls or the accompanying morals from participating in ugly, greedy ways.
Though I'm also likely to adopt the idea that the absenece of competent government is an effect, not a cause, of some societies having had to mortgage their souls.
Edit: I mean, yeah, if you're stuck being fixated on pessimism and greed, of course there's a lot of ways this can be exploited. I just think that in its more pure, good faith form, the idea of letting the market tell you odds of things happening is pretty fascinating. I'm sure there's a whole body of economics on this idea, that it might be a better predictor of events than other models. I had fun betting $5 here and there on video game announcements/awards. (though for me betting is a game, not a financial strategy)
Like, you pay him a little (<= $20 ?) and he'll announce your game of NBA-2K26 on twitch. He does have a good radio voice. A good way to make a little in the off hours.
So, he got a gig to announce the opening of loot boxes at some show. I think it was Fortnite loot boxes. I guess it gives you the total value of the loot box spree you opened. So, 2 people buy a bunch of loot boxes, then open them up, then whoever has the higher value wins and takes both of the people's total haul.
Sounds like a strange thing to have to announce, but sure the guy says you pay and I'll say.
No, it was gambling for the watchers on polymarket [0]. People were betting on who would have the higher value. 'Like a lot of people' he said.
That's High Card. "A lot of" people were betting on games of High Card, essentially.
You know, shuffle a deck, draw 2 cards, whoever has the higher value one wins. Repeat.
It is the most Degenerate form of gambling out there. There is no skill, no human factor, no nothing. Just pure random numbers.
My lord, what a plague we have unleashed. We'll be dealing with this for decades.
[0] no idea if polymarket and the like do things this quickly, but he said they were gambling somehow with another site off of Twitch and then waved his phone, implying you can access it that easily.
Never go to Nevada.
I don't think so. At least you have a 50% chance of winning. Unlike say a lottery or a slot machine.
For sporting events, for example, the alternative to prediction markets 5-10 years ago was to use a website where you bet against the house directly, and they'd usually take around a 15-20% spread, and they'd ban you and keep your account funds if they decided you're winning too much. Now you can bet on the same events on prediction market sites, with around a 1-5% spread, and the house doesn't care how much you win (so there's actually an argument that you're playing a game of skill, compared to the old format where you definitely weren't, since you'd be banned for being too skilled).
While I wouldn't use the word "degenerate", in terms of gambling, this isn't anywhere close to as bad as it gets.
At least this form is (psuedo)random, and the odds are statistically fair and published (by law).
Contrast to slot machines, which are not random, but are in fact preprogrammed to provide payouts in ways which maximize the earnings for the house and the addictive value for the player.
The house always wins, but there is no form of gambling where that is more guaranteed and manipulated than slot machine games (which includes the video arcade-style slot games).
How is this any more degenerate than slot machines? At least it is truly random, rather than rigged.
The more anonymous the winner is relative to the action taken, the more that bad behavior is incentivized. Back when this was dreamed up, the idea was crypto. But now we have prediction markets that encourage insiders to bet. And an administration that chooses to not prosecute corruption: https://www.wsgr.com/print/v2/content/49042620/Executive-Ord...
The result is a market that incentivizes manipulating wars for private gambling profit. With no need for anonymity, because the investigators have been fired. :-(
And in the US prediction markets are regulated like commodities which have much more lax insider rules, because again, insider trading is the point.
I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn if you believe that when you bet on the stock market or on the sports market for each and every particular bet involving millions of people the maximum profit is not reaped by a half a dozen of insiders who trade on inside informations and their only problem is not being too obvious about it.
Also even if they get caught the millions of people wagering are still getting fucked because there is not a redo or making people whole when the insider traders get caught (which is a tiny percentage of the time)
You went from a situation where the intent was for coaches to develop young men, teach them about hard work, overcoming obstacles, getting an education and become a part of an alumni base for the rest of your life.
And now it's leaving at the slightest difficulty, constant money dangling to encourage transfers because even if the guy doesn't play for you at least he's not playing for your opponent, followed by a million voices online just telling kids to follow the money. There's no telling how much gambling is playing a part.
It's taken one of the best institutions in our country for developing youth and corrupted it while people go out of their way to not report on the stories of people being hurt by the process.
we would actually have had to have been delivering on the whole "..develop young men, teach them about hard work, overcoming obstacles, getting an education and become a part of an alumni base for the rest of your life.." story.
Unfortunately, for the vast majority of student athletes in money sports, we never really delivered on all of those promises in the past.
These younger generations (GenZ) of student athletes are just wayyy smarter than the older generations of student athletes. Consequently, we can't take advantage the way we did in the past. Even women's volleyball and basketball athletes are choosing to take their money up front, and then transfer because they're pretty sure they won't need the "value" of the "alumni base".
https://clemsontigers.com/pj-what-is-paw-journey
He's obviously not the only coach who wants to carry his program that way, just the most high profile to recently do it while competing at the highest level.
Another notable legend was John Wooden from UCLA who famously won 10 championships while teaching his players his Pyramid of Success that's been written about in books and even hung on Ted Lasso's office wall in the TV show.
We hear about the negative examples. What you're not hearing about as much today is the number of players entering the transfer portal seeking better deals who don't get one and end up as college dropouts. It's a huge percentage.
I am curious - how do you even begin to police such a thing like polymarket? Wouldn't it take enormous resources to do it? Is it even worth it at that scale? They let you bet on anything and everything, right?
I had fun betting $5 here and there
Maybe this is the solution - don't let people bet more than $5. That is small enough for everyone to have some fun and not worth it for insider trading, threatening journalists etc?
I cannot fathom what could be fun about that.