this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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A Boring Dystopia

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Prediction market trader 'Magamyman' made $553,000 on death of Iran's supreme leader (www.npr.org)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
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An account trading under the username "Magamyman" made more than $553,000 placing bets on the prediction market Polymarket that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would be out of power just before an Israeli strike killed him on Saturday.

....Under U.S. commodity trading laws, making trades based on death and war are illegal, since those kinds of bets create a financial reward for violence, human suffering and geopolitical instability.

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[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 58 points 2 days ago (2 children)

What's crazy is people bet on it without insider info, knowing that people with it can.

Some comedian made a joke about it because he read off a bunch of random words that had bets on if they were said. They all paid out because he said them

The point is for any given bet a bunch of people can either make it happen or know the result before the market adjusts to the public knowing.

It's like how early scam emails used bad grammer so only dumb people responded, if you bet on poly market, you're already a lick.

Ironically enough this is also how our entire economy is run, just not as obviously...

[–] justsomeguy@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago

Gambling ads go brrrrrr.

A good third of the population simply don't have the cognitive capabilities to understand these things and if they're not protected by regulation they'll always fall for some form of scam.

[–] suddenlyme@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How do they know ahead they were going to get him?

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

For this stuff?

It's almost certainly someone from the trump admin.

They placed two bets for 200k each right before it happened, the second time on a very short deadline.

It's not just that someone is making money off of it, it's that this is the new "guy outside a pizza shop".

Foreign intelligence agents are already 100% watching for these large bets, and whoever is running the site has a shit ton of info and almost certainly has been hacked by at least one government to find out who's who so accounts can be monitored.

Like, you think gambling addicts over on /wallstreetbets haven't figured this out yet?

Our shit is sloppy as fuck, and we just painted a giant target on our foreheads for pretty much every major terrorist cell.

[–] WesternInfidels@feddit.online 31 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

How did the general public come to adopt the "prediction market" euphemism? It's crypto gambling, right? Everyone knows that's true, everyone understands that terminology. Aren't we doing the casino's work for them when we adopt their highfalutin' marketing-speak? Making crypto gambling sound like a game for rich, educated people, rather than a grubby online casino that caters to insider cheating and tax evasion?

[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is it crypto gambling? I thought it was just regular gambling.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Yeah. From crypto gambling I would expect provably fair odds and definitive outcomes.

[–] HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think that's sort of the point?

That by watching the money, you get the most current and accurate picture of the odds of something happening?

It's almost irrelevant that there is insider trading. The more money involved, the more reflective of reality the odds are. Money's gonna money, legal or otherwise.

[–] WesternInfidels@feddit.online 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The insiders make money because the "prediction market" odds don't reflect reality.

[–] HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

I still think you're missing the point here.

Yes, insiders swoop in especially when the odds are not "reflecting reality"..... because the profit motive is there. Which means that spikes in prediction markets are valuable information.

I'm not looking at it as a participant, I'm looking at it as a source of information. Crooked money, straight money, when there is money to made someone with information and money is going to take advantage, tipping us off.

It can be a degenerate cesspool of gambling and insider manipulation and also the bleeding edge of predictive technology..... no reason it can't be both.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, the market predicts jack shit nothing until the insider trader enter it and the "market signal" due to the insider traders happen just before the actual events being "predicted" happen, making them a useless prediction unless you're algorithmically gambling on a related domain.

[–] HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

That's incredibly shortsighted and just wrong.

Are you saying Vegas odds do jack shit in predicting sports outcomes?

Same exact thing. Just more naked to insider manupulation. Which is the point.

[–] gumdrop@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Same thoughts! "Prediction market trading?!" Y'all are gambling!

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

It's remarkable to me how normalized gambling has become in the past decade. It used to be something for special occasions like vacations or church events (catholic lenten fish fries completely lost the plot and basically became carnivals where I grew up). Fantasy sports leagues had become a big thing before then, but in the past decade or so it's like the dam just completely collapsed and problem gambling has become normalized

[–] CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

From the article

Most prediction markets, which have surged in popularity in recent months, are federally regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The agency views this new-fangled form of betting a "futures contract," not a type of gambling.

[–] WesternInfidels@feddit.online 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Vegas gambling is regulated by the state, but it's still gambling.

[–] CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago

For sure. I'm with you. It's clearly gambling regardless of the ridiculous loop hole they've decided to put it through.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Did they? Does the average person even know about this? It's obviously gambling, I just can't afford to outbid Larry Ellison for any media to decide how they frame things.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

The general public has no power here except at the local level, just like when LLM's decided they were just going to make taxpayers pay their electric bills. You'll see some states regulate prediction markets, but that's it. The Federal Government and the legislators there love being able to monetize their offices, so no change will come at the national level.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

The future fucking sucks. Literally everything is gambling now, and the people with inside information are gambling the most.

...and you know what, yes, Valve deserves some of the blame for creating lootboxes and enabling the lootbox gambling scene via their hands-off "we can't control what other people do" approach.

[–] LincolnsDogFido@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Blaming Valve for prediction markets is certainly a stretch....

[–] daisykutter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Blaming a single person or entity is not accurate, but if I have to pinpoint someone I usually choose this fella:

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 hours ago

Yanis Varoufuckass

[–] CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 days ago

I completely agree. I fucking hate gambling and I fucking hate how much Steam ignores all the damage they're doing by chasing the easy money.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago

Those that are running the world have decided that they want us to die with nothing, and the new objective is to strip every penny from every citizen. So they saddle middle class workers with a lifetime of college loan debt, and they continue it with overwhelming advertising convincing everyone that they have to own whatever new consumer crap that is being pumped out by China.

And now they've added gambling to our lives, featuring ads showing young men having a great time winning, Winning, WINNING! They never show ads of some guy who is about to explain to his wife that he just gambled away their rent money.

They want your money, ALL of it, and gambling is just the stupidest way to lose it. You might as well just hand it to them willingly.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago

Regulate? It's already banned for months in my country I think.

[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Who are the current high odds chances for being the host of Running Man 2026 ?

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Stories like this are why they will never be federally regulated.

A few states will step in though.

[–] suddenlyme@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

If there's at least 2 outomes people should be able to have a punt. I don't know what the rest of you are going to do in the apocalypse if you can't bet on anything/ everything. Also I'm confused why you think we need an app or a big corporation. You basically just need another person.

[–] CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

There's a big gap between having a punt on two-up and incentivising blokes to throw their life savings away on whether 100 kids will be vaporised in class tomorrow.

[–] fizzle@quokk.au 5 points 2 days ago

Sure so a corporation shouldn't be able to offer punting then.