most people should be looking at prediction markets for news, not betting on them

I read somewhere that Brian Armstrong said prediction markets benefit from insiders betting. If he did, I think he is right.

• prediction markets aren’t securities; they’re event contracts where payouts depend on outcomes, not managerial effort
• insiders betting on prediction markets exposes truth faster to the world than waiting on traditional announcements
• information has a price, prediction markets allow insiders to monetize their information (whether you like it or not)

unless you have insider information to know the outcome of the market, betting on prediction markets is the same as gambling. there's nothing wrong with it but it's good to be honest about it, you have no added edge. However, as truth seeking machines, it's great to observe them and know the future. They are essentially, and obviously, time machines.

it's funny in the sense that if someone had decided to build a time machine 20 years ago, they would not have predicted (lol) gambling as a tradeoff on the other end.

one can argue "they normalize gambling" etc. however I don't think there's any reason to blame prediction markets solely for it. they are just the type of new market that went mainstream recently. humans have consistently increased the number of markets they have access to and have gambled on them.

Imagine not having equity or commodity markets. Someone in the 1500s would have resisted against them for the same reasons. Kids born today will not find prediction markets any weirder than we find equity markets.

We still have to teach kids about the risk of gambling ofc. It's possible to gamble on equities and it's possible to gamble on predictions. The options available have increased but the fundamentals are the same.

Time machines are cool. Just focus on the fundamentals, be picky about which markets you bet on.