Says who?
Though I think where things start to get a bit more insidious is when the "insiders" have access not merely to inside information, but the ability to change the outcome. That type of insider trading should be banned IMO because it works against the purpose of prediction markets as a tool. (Though the extent to which banning that is possible is debatable.)
For that very reason, insider knowledge, and especially the ability to influence future outcomes, become the subject of heavy regulation. And, the lack of such regulation for congressional members is also why their net worth tends to skyrocket once entering office.
> “The point of these markets is to get information, so the only reason you should ever be trading on them is if you think you have some information,” said Hanson, a professor of economics at George Mason University whose academic work inspired the founders of prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi. “People with more information should trade more and get more money because that's how they get paid for the information they contribute.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciapark/2026/01/09/why-predi...
Seems like you should read more about these markets.
Simultaneously: Insiders have power to coerce an outcome, the market creates a corrupt payoff for them to abuse that power.
If I work at the company and count the inputs and outputs, and trade on it, I am a morally bankrupt scumbag and I have hurt society and all of the traders in the market.
Hmmmmmmm
If you hold a position of fiduciary responsibility within the company (or gain information from someone who does) that's a different matter. But the analogy there would be hacking into the company to read internal records, not just looking over a fence. in both cases, it's a crime.
The reason insider trading is illegal is because it undermines confidence in the markets by establishing a pattern by which insiders with privileged, secret information leverage it to profit off people who cannot access this information.
It also incentivizes insiders to leverage their position within a company to manipulate the business in order to profit. This also undermines integrity of markets.
Your second example, setting aside all your troll bait inflammatory verbiage about moral bankruptcy, is an illustration of this risk. I don't care if it rises to the level of moral bankruptcy, it is harmful to a capitalist society in a serious way.
Your first example is a depiction of someone leveraging information that anyone can gather. It does not undermine the integrity of markets because it is just an investor acting on publicly-accessible information.