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0 pointscaeril1y ago0 comments

These markets are no more "gambling" than other markets are.

A traditional sportsbook maintains a house vig anywhere from 5 to 15%, which is, indeed, a pretty fast path to ruin. They typically don't allow you to exit your position once you're committed.

Polymarket's sports markets, in contrast, have comparable bid/ask spreads to financial markets (maybe slightly wider), and the market is liquid such that you can sell your contract to someone else whenever you want.

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troad1y ago

> These markets are no more "gambling" than other markets are.

Whoever said other markets aren't gambling?

> Polymarket's sports markets, in contrast, have comparable bid/ask spreads to financial markets (maybe slightly wider), and the market is liquid such that you can sell your contract to someone else whenever you want.

'Financial markets' is a slippery term - you could be using it to refer to traditional investing (holding a diversified share portfolio for years because you believe in the fundamentals of the companies in question), or you could be using it to refer to things like frenetic speculating in short-dated out-of-the-money 'binary option' contracts.

The former is not gambling (no 'rush', not generally addictive, very hard to go broke, mathematically sound), and the latter is absolutely 100% gambling (all rush, totally addictive, incredibly easy to lose your shirt, mathematically stupid). There have been many attempts at 'finance-washing' straight up gambling schemes in recent years, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see more crackdowns soon.

Pretending that betting on election results is some complex financial derivative that is totally magically immune to laws about gambling isn't going to fool any judge.