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- Hacker News
- The alternative would be to ask both sides of the bets to record a video, and tell them to only post winning bids, but to pay out to both sides. Is that really better? Classic tactic by the bet picking gambler gurus and is impossible to confirm.
I guess Polymarket too will learn to be more subtle now.
- the fact that apps like Polymarket seem to be legal is absolutely crazy to me.by mastermage
- This is a well-trodden path.
A few years ago crypto gambling really took off. The big fish here is Stake. Back when Twitch still allowed slots, there was a flood of slots streamers. Ultimately this led to Twitch banning gambling. This was such an issue that Stake created their own live streaming platform (ie Kick). That should tell you how lucrative it was.
But what came out was that there was different contracts the streamers had. Some were paid a hefty fee and they got to keep any winnings. Why anyone would choose this is beyond me because over time your expected return is negative. The other option was that you could "gamble" with fake money. None of it was real. And none of it was disclosed.
I never understood why people would atch someone play slots all day but some people did. I think psychologically it's a bit like mukbang where people live vicariously through someone else's gluttony. With gambling, the psychological hook is so strong that it can be triggered by watching someone else gamble. But that's just a guess. Luckily, I've never been bitten by the gambling bug. It's one of the worst addictions.
I think fake gambling in particular should be illegal or, in the very least, disclosed publicly.
by jmyeet - Also, kids get scammed daily on YouTube on Pokemon card pulls with "loaded" packs and otherwise fake pulls for views.by tty456
- by impish9208
- So too has nearly everyone else who is peddling someone's interests. Social media currently exists to bend you to someone else's will. This was always true in some sense: newspapers, television, radio, etc, but I'd point out a few things:
- This is precisely what made television such a bad experience. You could really feel the hand reaching through the screen to shake you. Demanding that you feel one way or another. Particularly with commercials, but of course with everything else as well.
- The mediums of television and radio were heavily gate-kept (even with the advent of cable) compared to the internet and social media. You didn't have the insanity of Twitter accounts from east Asia spamming BBC (not the news channel) propaganda, or Russia, Iran, and others attempting to inflame racial hatred, etc.
It's not a wholly brand new thing, but the reach, scale, and variety are so much greater that it might as well be brand new.
by everdrive - The WSJ ran an earlier article stating that unless you have access to a lot of data, computing power, and statisticians, you're going to lose on those bets.by WalterBright
- I finally gave in to my curiosity and downloaded Kalshi last week to place a few bets on the World Cup.
I was blown away how easy it was. I placed a bet with real money within 5 minutes of downloading the app.
They allow instant deposits with credit card, and ID verification was real time.
I can’t imagine that the extreme accessibility and the typical dark patterns deployed by every popular app won’t eventually end badly.
(I was also shocked that when looking at my credit card bill online, next to the Kalshi deposit line item it showed a promo “would you like to split this payment over 12 month?” and seemingly was only available for that one transaction. So I could have deposited $1000 via CC into Kalshi and paid it back $83/mo over 12 months.)
This industry is wild.
by cj