- Since time immemorial, humankind has been fundamentally imbued with inclinations to bet, gamble, venture out, and indulge in predictions of various hues, placing anything and everything as bait, including humans. History is replete with innumerable instances where humankind has indulged in placing bets right from land, ornaments, animals, currency, and humans as well. Of course, there are always winners and losers in any sports/games, and betting is no exception to this rule. Things have changed dramatically over the millennia, and the modern-day technology-driven world has evolved unimaginably in the form of trading markets, offering the adventurous an avenue to explore aspects of making money by placing bets. And insider trading, too.
PC: Securities.io
- Interestingly, the new age demands newer measures to indulge in humankind’s most insidious but unavoidable urgings to participate in betting based on trading markets’ undercurrents. The moot point to ponder over here is whether prediction markets are any better at guessing the future than experts. Can they be manipulated? What will be, will be, but people want to see tomorrow, today. Our curiosity birthed oracles, astrologers, crystal gazers, and their analogues. When superstitionbecame unfashionable, experts took over. And they could be spectacularly inaccurate, too: days before the 1929 Wall Street crash, celebrated economist Irving Fisher predicted this: stocks will be at a permanently high plateau. Can prediction markets do better?
PC: CryptoRank
- If we haven’t followed their rise, these markets are a new kind of aggregator. Only, instead of connecting riders with drivers, they aggregate answers to questions. Any kind of question, even when will Khamenei die? Indeed, that question was asked, and somebody made half a million dollars by getting the answer right in a prediction market. On Kalshi, the largest US prediction market, questions about the likely timing of the US-Iran nuclear deal, the opening of the Hormuz Strait, and the US tariff on China by July 1 were trending recently. Understandably, since tariffs and energy affect economies and people’s lives. But what if someone with inside knowledge – exact dates and rates – places a bet, and walks away with the payout?
PC: NBC News
- The winning bet about Khamenei’s death isn’t the only ground for this fear. Some bettors got the timing of Trump’s Venezuela op right. Most recently, traders bet $500mn on the price of crude, 15 minutes before Trump announced he was delaying attacks on Iran’s energy infra by five days. That happened in the commodities market, but the point is inside knowledge. It’s a big concern, but not the biggest. Profiting from classified information is certainly unethical, in fact criminal, but when these markets are billed as modern oracles, the bigger fear is deliberate distortion. So, why have prediction markets at all, when they are wrong so often? Millions of people researching and processing information, and together arriving at one prediction, has oracular potential. We know the answer to that once the prediction market matures. Human ingenuity in betting continues.
