382
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
382 points (99.5% liked)
Technology
86512 readers
3290 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I hate how they're supporting the fiction that this isn't gambling by calling it a "prediction site". It's gambling, always has been.
This loophole (if we can even call it that because it‘s just stupid marketing) makes it even worse than regular gambling. It‘s unregulated and very easy to exploit even by other participants. Everything about this is illegal in pretty much any country no matter how you word it. It‘s actually insane how slow countries are to do something about those criminals.
This isn't much different than google calling installing software "side loading". All just lawyer speech to be able to bend and break the rules
JAILBREAKING SCUM
Literally just having access to your device you paid for....
Jaywalking scum!
Literally crossing the street as humans have done since the street was invented, ruined by cars taking over in the 1900s
I think the distinction is important. Gambling is random outcome. Prédiction means you could influence the outcome. Think of a terrorist betting on the timing of the next attack
Actually, yeah.
It's also gambling. But the potential for corruption is just on a whole other level; "gambling" is a euphemism for prediction markets.
I think it's silly you're getting downvoted over semantics; gambling has influenced outcomes, yes, technically, but it's generally a self-contained game.
So poker isn't gambling? Ok.
It is and it isn't. The hand you get dealt is random (assuming no funny business) but the people who do consistently well are playing their opponents more than their cards.
If you're influencing the outcome via some private mechanism that's a crime and is in fact illegal (a little thing known as insider trading or cheating depending on how you go about it). So per your definition either you can't influence the outcome in which case it's gambling, or you can in which case it's illegal and you're committing a crime.
All that said I think the definition of gambling being truly random isn't quite right. Gambling has always been about statistical outcomes because if it was truly random nobody would ever make any money off of it so nobody would waste their time. Remember the house always wins because they control the odds. These sites are just bookies in techbro clothing using marketing and legal loopholes to run illegal gambling sites.
Insider trading applies to securities. Polymarket bets are not securities.
Manipulation violates Polymarket's ToS, but that's not criminal.
Now, it might meet the legal criteria for fraud, depending on what one does. But that's a "maybe." I'd say that is far easier to get away with than insider trading. EDIT: Especially when hopping jurisdictions (which is not so easy with securities).
I mean, it is both?
By that logic, all gambling is just prediction
how did you come to this conclusion? betting on scenarios that are purely random are just gambling.
Scenarios in gambling are rarely "purely random". I.e. the likelyhood of winning in poker depends on what you already got dealt and what other cards got dealt and so on. What does "purely random" even mean? Like a lottery with equal chance of winning for all participants? Yea that's gambling but just one kind of gambling.
Most forms of casino gambling except card games are purely random: dice, roulette, slot machines. I agree with you that there being an element of skill or knowledge doesnt stop it being gambling however.
Only gambling on thermal noise is the real deal /½s
But that is what the whole discussion is about. Many scenarios aren't just gambling because they have a degree of predictability to it: poker, stock market, betting on the day when the US starts WW3.
Probably only quantum processes are truly random, but for this argument, processes are practically random if the governing variables are not human-knowable. A dice throw, roulette, lottery numbers drawn from a bowl. They are deep down deterministic, but not predictable to any degree.
It isn't gambling because the result is determined by the actions of its users. This is called spot-fixing.