this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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Like I kept seeing bets raising on when will USA strike Iran and till 2 days before the strike most of the money was betting on 15 March for the first strike.

When the whole thing failed I was confused about the reason no one reported on this.

A lot of people lost money on this.

But more importantly, this counter the message that is currently being broadcasted everywhere and reported on by several news outlets, which is prediction markets are accurate for predicting events.

I think if there was more reports about prediction markets fails even news organisations themselves will be cautious and will not use the unreliable prediction markets data.

So, why is no one reporting on that?

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[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago

Probably for the same reason they don't report on every person who lost all their money at a casino.

It's not news when a system works as intended.

[–] sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 day ago

Ordinary Things on YouTube kind of raised a better point in a video deep dive about it.

The issue isn't that people are losing money, it's that the economy is at a point where gambling has returned as a full on epidemic. And that doesn't get reported on because we no longer live in a world where the news is going to be permitted to endanger the economy.

It's gambling, this is how they're supposed to work, why would they report on that.

I haven't seen anyone reasonably say they should be perfect, they just can sometimes be a better indicator than the other options we have available and can create a situation that makes it slightly more difficult for bias to come into play.

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

It's not that they report when someone "wins"

They report on huge bets made last minute on longshot odds.

If someone dropped 500k on war and lost, that would be newsworthy.

You seem to be operating under the assumption those are "smart bets" and not someone who knows the answer making easy money off of you and others who really are just guessing.

[–] remon@ani.social 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Do they report about it when they are right? Neither seems particular newsworthy or interesting. People have always been betting on shit, who cares?

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

I mean, prediction markets are supposed to be accurate under certain conditions, which I believe they are not able to operate under right now due to gambling laws.

The idea is that on average prediction markets will be better than experts over the long term. But this assumes that who participates and how much money they can bet are unlimited.

People losing money on prediction markets isn't really a flaw - its a feature. If someone shows up with oodles of money and no expertise, and then blows all their money on bad bets - good. Their money then goes to the people who were correct, and the people who are better at prediction over time will accumulate more money to make more predictions. The dumb money whales, otoh, will either go broke or get tired of losing money, and will exit the market.

I think the reason no one is reporting on prediction market failures is because no one is really reporting on prediction markets - any news I've heard of them come from niche communities which acknowledge their limitations, or else mainstream media which mention them in passing as a novelty.

[–] zxqwas@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago
  1. Not sure why it would be newsworthy. It's unreliable data but it's still data. What data should they use instead?

  2. As soon as the prediction market is accurate at predicting war you get an advantage for attacking when the prediction market says you're not (because your enemy will be looking too. )

[–] Vanth@reddthat.com 2 points 1 day ago

reported on by several news outlets, which is prediction markets are accurate for predicting events.

Is this a function of your algorithm and mine? I'm skeptical and all my news sources align with that, I get little if any content pushing for polymarket et al in a positive manner.