If the bet is successful, Polymarket pays out — just like how more conventional betting works

In terms of who determines which way a bet goes, it seems like this is also Polymarket, and that they rely on journalistic coverage and official announcements.

This journalist reported that one of the missiles landed and exploded, and it appears that this was used to deny paying out to the people who places at bet that no missiles would land that day. The gamblers tried to coerce the journalist to change their report to say that all of the missiles were intercepted, and that the thing that actually landed and exploded was just a missile fragment from the intercepted missile. I have no idea whether this would've actually changed the outcome of the bet from Polymarket's perspective, but the gamblers certainly seemed to think so.

It highlights the absurdity of betting on events like this

Someone has to take the other side of the bet.

Everything is a yes or no question. You can buy a yes or no option for anywhere between 1 cent and 99 cents. When an outcome is finalized, the side that had the correct prediction has their option goto $1.00

So as an outcome becomes more likely, its price moves towards $1.

So when you buy a contact for less than 50 cents you are buying the underdog, when it’s over 50 cents you are backing the favorite.

Let’s say that the contact is if you will eat a sandwich today. I’m guessing most people will think you will eat a sandwich so the “yes” contract will probably cost 99 cents or so.

If someone pays 99 cents for that option and you do eat a sandwich they get back $1 total, or 1 cent profit.

Well what if I’m your doctor and you come in to me with food poisoning. Now I have inside information and I can buy an option that you will not eat a sandwich today for 1 cent and if you don’t eat a sandwich I’ll get back $1 for every penny I put towards the “no” outcome.

So the big issue is people having inside information and using these prediction markets to illegally make money and it’s really hard to track.

In the article, it appears that only 1 missile landed and that the only source for it was this author’s article. So the people that bet on the “no” outcome are trying to get him to change his article so the outcome is contested and they can maybe win their bet. They are using the position that what landed was a piece of a missile that was intercepted.

There is now a huge financial motivation to report news that isn’t factual.

If betting on Polymarket, you would actually have to stump up that money first, and the other person would have to do the same with whatever bid they wanted to use. Then, in order to get any kind of reasonable payback, you would need thousands of other people to make a bet for or against, using their own money.

The payout isn’t on someone making a bet on themselves, no-one else would bet for or against that as the stakes are so small. The payout is on large-scale events that are - ostensibly - out of the control of the bettor or bettee.

Polymarket is no different than betting on the outcomes of horse races or sports games, it just opens up the thing being betted on to anything and everything. People will still bet. The key is how “un-rigged” it appears to be.

The platform puts up the bets, and you can "buy" a share in the "future prediction"

Basically you put in a sum on one option, buying a % of the winnings if that option is the one that the platform decides won.

Well gee, that doesn't sound like a nightmare of a Ponzi scheme at all