153
Polymarket paid influencers to fake winning bets, built dummy websites to pull it off
(www.techspot.com)
Everything is market manipulation, it is insanity.
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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Technology
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That's capitalism. The greatest irony is that free market has been associated with capitalism. I'm personally not a huge free market fan anyways, as I think it carries it's own problems, but I find it funny that libs and cons think of free market as a capitalist society.
We have had 500 years of capitalism now and despite every single "please bro, just one more free market expefiment bro, it'll work this time", it always consolidates, cheats, corrupts and blackmails. Capitalism innately favors monopolies and manipulation over honest competition and equal ground for ideas.
In my, admittedly imperfect, view I feel like if some society really wanted an actual free market it would a socialist one. Where everyone is actually on equal footing, people have their basic needs met so they aren't focused on surviving, and people aren't born with more than others. From there, ideas and items could actually compete. If this hypothetical society kept money and markets, as described so far, and people's needs were met, then luxuries and unnecessary but enjoyable products could be sold in this situation.
The current system is kind of just the default system that nobody really planned out or thought about carefully. Unemployment, suffering, homelessness, inequality, billionaires, etc, are all baked into how it works. But it kind of mostly sorta works good enough that nobody is motivated enough to do anything about it, plus it directly benefits anyone who could do anything about it.
It's rapidly reaching it's limit, though, especially with A.I. and most people's jobs being bullshit. I'm curious what the replacement will be, and I'm hoping the transition isn't too... painful.
Except it's not, it's intentionally maintained around a set of rules. Those rules resulted in it growing into this shape
It's all a scam? :O
Yet another reason that these platforms are just a circlejerk of insider trading that no rational actor should take part in.
Sounds like fraud to me. Good thing the US doesn't have laws anymore.
There are definitely laws. They just don't apply to rich people
Wow yeah that actually sounds quite illegal
studies showing that most bettors lose money.
How do "most betters lose money"? The way I understand it there's a winner for every loser, no?
Bets aren't 1-1.
You can have one person with insider information win a seemingly impossible bet against 1000 people taking the other side.
The person who wins takes in a ton of money, and Polymarket takes a cut.
Each of those 1000 people all thought they had an easy win, but the only people winning these bets are people who either are the people making the decisions, or who are in the room with the people making those decisions.
That means the wins are concentrated to a few while the losses are spread out
No, take a lottery for instance: many people play, almost no one wins. You can bet on "anything" on Polymarket, like when or where an event is going to take place, so most of the time you're betting against the market. There's probably plenty of bets where no one wins at all. Everyone betting could spontaneously agree that Punxsutawney Phil is going to see his shadow (unlikely I know, but if only 5 people are betting, it's not that crazy), if he doesn't, no one wins. Except the site.
Its not a lottery though...
When you're betting on random bullshit and it's possible for no one to win, the difference between that and a lottery is negligible.
Anyone who believes it's not gambling.... I have a bridge to sell you.
No one said it's not gambling, I said it's not a lottery.
He never said it was in the first place
Who never said what?
That winner is the house. Most players lose.
This is just a classic move for gambling platforms.