My Instagram ads are just filled with Polymarket, Kalshi, brand name casinos... it's endless. It's all low level influencers talking about how much money they're making, how you can bet (and yes, it is betting) any time you have 30 seconds to spare, how easy it makes it all.
I feel like there's been a growing, dark underbelly of gambling addiction since it was legalized online. And it's going to be difficult to walk it back.
(the ones that truly blow my mind are the promo ads for people gambling on buying mystery collectible cards then virtually "ripping" the pack open. Grown adult men paying hundreds of dollars! Absolutely wild.)
Gambling and betting always seem target explotation of people who aren't well off already. Like lottery tickets I worry that Polymarket, Kalshi and the like are ways to further destroy the marginal in an apathetic if not malign political environment. It doesn't seem like anyone is doing anything about it.
I have a theory that the prevalence of gambling, trading, and investing is a natural response to wealth inequality and automation. Wealth has always correlated with risk (e.g. business ownership) but as the prospects for wealth diminish, the amount of risk people are willing (forced?) to take on grows.
An optimistic view could be that in a future where AI drives most of GDP and UBI covers basic needs, well-regulated betting marketplaces could provide an opportunity for people to get ahead (or at least do something) for example by developing algorithms and AIs that do rigorous backtesting and apply institutional-grade risk management strategies.
The pessimistic view is that these marketplaces are just another cause of wealth inequality, they will always extract more wealth than they generate, and there is no place for them in a balanced, healthy economy.
> I have a theory that the prevalence of gambling, trading, and investing is a natural response to wealth inequality and automation. Wealth has always correlated with risk (e.g. business ownership) but as the prospects for wealth diminish, the amount of risk people are willing (forced?) to take on grows.
There was a NY Times article a while back that talked about why Gen Z is so into gambling: they feel the system is so rigged against them that traditional strategies to get safety and security (e.g. get a good job, save, buy a house, etc.) don't work anymore. So they either give up (and focus on short-term consumption) or throw their money at long shots like gambling and crypto, hoping for a jackpot.
> The pessimistic view is that these marketplaces are just another cause of wealth inequality, they will always extract more wealth than they generate, and there is no place for them in a balanced, healthy economy.
That is the truth. They don't generate any wealth, they exist to take a cut on people transferring money unproductively.
No need to be abstract and theoretical about it; it's how the trickle down economy works.
Boomers and GenX are the ones foisting that reality on them; GenZ is pushing the buttons supply side is providing
Stop talking in vague abstractions. We know this is 100% top down driven self selected interpretations of historical documents by the elders in charge of political interpretations
A number of state governments are working hard to do something about it. The reason it seems like no action is being taken is that they've bribed the federal government to take their side.
I didn't say it to be rude to you, so I apologize if that's how I came off. I think a lot of these problems don't have real, practical technological or policy solutions. (those solutions could exist in principle, but they're never going to work.) I think all we can do is walk away from these platforms.
Oh wow so if I personally quit Instagram every user will stop receiving advertising for these wildly addictive and destructive services? If only I’d known!
I know several organizations who have surrendered all online presence to social media, primarily instagram. I cannot find their events anywhere else. My dream is to have a fake account that scrapes all accounts I care about and sends just the highlights to me. I am sure that Meta spends an inordinate amount of time preventing this
You must have clicked some at some point, all I get when I have ads on is outdoors gear because I've clicked a few of those ads in the past and my "suggestions" are related to that category.
> (the ones that truly blow my mind are the promo ads for people gambling on buying mystery collectible cards then virtually "ripping" the pack open. Grown adult men paying hundreds of dollars! Absolutely wild.)
Pack ripping was huge during COVID. It is always more economical in the long run to buy singles than to rip packs. Generally speaking, the primary purpose of mystery boxes is to dump slow-moving inventory.
> My Instagram ads are just filled with Polymarket, Kalshi, brand name casinos... it's endless.
At least you get actual ads, not a feed full of Twitter and 4chan screenshots overlaid with SKARS AI slop music and wrapped at the top and bottom by a casino ad.
you can work on your timeline and who you follow, maybe use a vpn, and make sure meta doesn't really know who you are. my timeline has none of that shit.
If I cared enough to go to those lengths I’d just stop using Instagram. I don’t really object to being shown these ads, it’s just wild to me how widespread this all is.
i scroll past ads quickly without reading them. but i would for sure object to being shown those ads. if i spotted something like polymarket i would do whatever i can to avoid it (block the account, tell the algo "no").
Lesser known is that Polymarket’s Twitter accounts themselves are actually rebranded personal accounts from (often cancelled) esports personalities. People who have given up their brand or their career sold their accounts to Polymarket, who rebranded them.
You can check by looking up tweets from their account IDs. I think it’s possible they may have even left up the old tweets if you scroll back far enough.
I have an old reddit account with a lot of karma. I once got an offer for it, I believe around $2,000. Maybe that offer was a scam, but people seem to be contacted to buy their accounts. Its incredible to me how much this is being done by deep pocketed marketers, and I imagine botnet operators working for heaven knows who. This something not talked about much but buying up and re-branding accounts with established viewership or high-karma happens a lot.
I have seen it politically and part of shady marking. I read the girlsgamer sub on reddit and I remember a big influx of "I'm a woman and I support (current game with sexist elements)." Back then you could see everyone's post and comment history. You could see these accounts went quiet a year or two or three ago and their history was very male coded, then came back on-line recently pushing culture-war narratives and describing themselves very differently than their original posts and comments.
I also saw the same thing with some suspicious right-wing posts on some political subs I'm on. Just an old account that had little to no political posting history suddenly coming alive and posting non-stop politics.
I find it interesting and suspicious reddit only started allowing hidden profiles after this and when people started pointing this out.
I think its safe to say all social media is badly compromised and gamed by monied interests.
> I feel fine participating because Polymarket has no house edge or VIG
> Prediction markets are PVP thats the way i look at it
This is true but people should at least be informed that the overwhelming majority of trading volume is HFT firms with faster access to data and the prediction markets than you. These firms pay the prediction markets for that access, and the losses that happen on prediction markets flow to these few large HFT shops.
As someone who makes their living doing PMs this is far from the reality. There's lots of markets that are beatable without a latency edge. Also anyone can apply to be co-located with their servers if you do KYC.
I think it 100% depends on what markets you’re looking at.
If you’re betting/trading on sports (80% prediction market activity by volume, you are 100% up against Susquehanna. Doubly so if you’re predicting combos because there is not nearly enough liquidity.
There are multiple parties involved when you place a trade on a prediction market and all of them get paid.
I’m not stating that there’s no market a relatively unsophisticated investor can take advantage of just pushing back on the idea that PMs are PvP
I mostly agree. Sports are mostly very well priced (live sports not so much). Many new markets that are just invented by polymarket/kalshi though SIG are basically on an even playing field with you in terms of coming up with a way to price it (and if it's a niche low liquidity market they probably don't pay much attention to it anyway so you can easily come in and price it with a large edge). Personally lots of my money is probably coming from SIG itself in fact given that I mostly take liquidity that are placed at poor prices where I've spent many weeks on trying to figure a more informed way to price it.
I'm just assuming here, but I'm sure they have cameras or some other type of data in the stadium, and vision models running on those to make instant trades when a home run has been hit, touchdown scores, etc. and have a huge edge on retail money.
At least on the two big sports gambling sites, they lock the app from making bets during these moments so you can't. I can verify this because I like to go to sports games and had that idea. "Oh I'm here live I wonder if this will work?" Doesn't work.
Can't speak to prediction markets, haven't touched 'em.
Yeah I have heard about gambling sites doing this, but for prediction markets I dont think they can do that. But also how can they lock it before a home run happens unless they're just locking it on every at-bat and rejecting/holding bets if a HR happens? These prediction markets have APIs and work the same way as the stock market, there are sellers and buyers in the market so messing with that process would be explicitly unfair and probably illegal.
Yes they lock it before the snap, or before the pitch is thrown. All I can figure is that they have someone at every game, or somehow have a "live-er" live feed than genpop.
While this is true, retail click traders are still not remotely on the same playing field in any regard as an electronic trading desk who takes the market seriously.
That's obviously true, but at least retail are totally allowed to place maker orders and act as the 'sportsbook' themselves. Taker orders are usually (but far from always) -ev but again at least there's the option to be a maker. Many of the best opportunities is to take liquidty from HFT firms with poor prices as well (there's too many markets for them to price it all correctly and you have an advantage by being allowed infinite time to think about how to price a given market).
> use of the Polymarket site (the “Polymarket Site”) for trading activities, by persons or entities who are U.S. persons (“U.S. Persons”), as defined in the enclosed Appendix, is strictly prohibited, with no exceptions
Thanks, I misunderstood that and thought you meant colocating next to their server by figuring out where their infra is. Didn't know it's an official feature of theirs.
In the past 5 years I’ve been to Vegas & Atlantic City 7 times for conferences and music festivals. Never had any interest in gambling, except $20 in video blackjack on the most recent trip.
At the end of the summer I dipped my toe in Polymarket while watching the US Open (the only sporting event that interest me). In a week and I half I nearly lost 2 months salary. Found myself up at 3AM betting not just on tennis, but also on random sports that seemed like a “sure thing.” And not just on Polymarket, but Kalshi too.
The dark patterns involved in prediction markets are real and terrifying. Washed my hands of that, but woof.
It was interesting to me at my hotel for EDC -- many of the people were downright doomscrolling kalshi, polymarket like it was tiktok but would never go near the casino floor or touch a machine.
When I learned video blackjack is playing the odds in a way that tickled my brain I’ll admit I enjoyed it. I’m sure for some prediction markets do the same. If you can stay level headed there’s probably easy money to be made on prediction markets trading people’s momentum. Staying level headed isn’t easy.
Bummer that tables on the strip in Vegas have such high minimums. Couldn’t even get myself to play one hand on them (but losing $500 in a matter of minutes on Kalshi or Polymarket seemed like nothing)
> The 50 Cent Party, also known as the 50 Cent Army or wumao (/ˈwuːmaʊ/; from Chinese: 五毛; lit. 'five dimes'), are Chinese government employees posting online comments to divert public attention or promote positive sentiment.
> ...
> The name "50 Cent Party" is derived from claims that government hired commentators are reportedly paid RMB¥0.50 (5 jiao) for every post in order to shape public opinion in ways favorable towards Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policies.[1][5][6]
A study published in 2017 points out that almost everything known about the 50 Cent Party in the past had been wrong. Most combative posts and commentators attributed to the 50 Cent Party were instead linked to private nationalistic individuals.
I am into Counter Strike and I love watching the majors, but it seems like my entire feed is full of betting ads for Polymarket now. Before I had actual counter strike casinos but those are long gone in favor of these prediction markets.
They do this on Reddit as well. Some accounts post about news and events with an image attached, and just so happen to include a reference to Polymarket somewhere in the image every time, even when it makes no sense.
Whatever other analysis makes sense here, can you imagine a less satisfying job? I think cleaning up elephant dung would give me more career satisfaction than this.
This is definitely slimy, but it's pretty much bog-standard slimy marketing practice these days, no? Like these is framed as though it's a big expose, but isn't it common knowledge that tons of companies do this kind of thing?
My Instagram ads are just filled with Polymarket, Kalshi, brand name casinos... it's endless. It's all low level influencers talking about how much money they're making, how you can bet (and yes, it is betting) any time you have 30 seconds to spare, how easy it makes it all.
I feel like there's been a growing, dark underbelly of gambling addiction since it was legalized online. And it's going to be difficult to walk it back.
(the ones that truly blow my mind are the promo ads for people gambling on buying mystery collectible cards then virtually "ripping" the pack open. Grown adult men paying hundreds of dollars! Absolutely wild.)
Gambling and betting always seem target explotation of people who aren't well off already. Like lottery tickets I worry that Polymarket, Kalshi and the like are ways to further destroy the marginal in an apathetic if not malign political environment. It doesn't seem like anyone is doing anything about it.
I have a theory that the prevalence of gambling, trading, and investing is a natural response to wealth inequality and automation. Wealth has always correlated with risk (e.g. business ownership) but as the prospects for wealth diminish, the amount of risk people are willing (forced?) to take on grows.
An optimistic view could be that in a future where AI drives most of GDP and UBI covers basic needs, well-regulated betting marketplaces could provide an opportunity for people to get ahead (or at least do something) for example by developing algorithms and AIs that do rigorous backtesting and apply institutional-grade risk management strategies.
The pessimistic view is that these marketplaces are just another cause of wealth inequality, they will always extract more wealth than they generate, and there is no place for them in a balanced, healthy economy.
> I have a theory that the prevalence of gambling, trading, and investing is a natural response to wealth inequality and automation. Wealth has always correlated with risk (e.g. business ownership) but as the prospects for wealth diminish, the amount of risk people are willing (forced?) to take on grows.
There was a NY Times article a while back that talked about why Gen Z is so into gambling: they feel the system is so rigged against them that traditional strategies to get safety and security (e.g. get a good job, save, buy a house, etc.) don't work anymore. So they either give up (and focus on short-term consumption) or throw their money at long shots like gambling and crypto, hoping for a jackpot.
> The pessimistic view is that these marketplaces are just another cause of wealth inequality, they will always extract more wealth than they generate, and there is no place for them in a balanced, healthy economy.
That is the truth. They don't generate any wealth, they exist to take a cut on people transferring money unproductively.
This article seems relevant:
Economic Nihilism in Card Games https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/articles/economic-nihilism-...
The optimistic view where everyone is poor, on UBI, and forced to gamble as an opportunity to get ahead since they can't get jobs anymore.
> I have a theory
No, you don’t. You have a hypothesis.
And since it’s based in social psychology, it’s empirically unfalsifiable, so it can honestly never be a theory at all.
Good day.
> I have a theory
No need to be abstract and theoretical about it; it's how the trickle down economy works.
Boomers and GenX are the ones foisting that reality on them; GenZ is pushing the buttons supply side is providing
Stop talking in vague abstractions. We know this is 100% top down driven self selected interpretations of historical documents by the elders in charge of political interpretations
A number of state governments are working hard to do something about it. The reason it seems like no action is being taken is that they've bribed the federal government to take their side.
>My Instagram ads
That's your one-two punch right there. On Instagram, and viewing ads. Best thing to do is avoid both.
I knew someone was going to post this. Thank you for the startling and brand new to me revelation that both Instagram and advertising are Not Good.
I didn't say it to be rude to you, so I apologize if that's how I came off. I think a lot of these problems don't have real, practical technological or policy solutions. (those solutions could exist in principle, but they're never going to work.) I think all we can do is walk away from these platforms.
Now you know that you were the problem all along!
Oh wow so if I personally quit Instagram every user will stop receiving advertising for these wildly addictive and destructive services? If only I’d known!
As Captain Planet said, the power is yours!
I know several organizations who have surrendered all online presence to social media, primarily instagram. I cannot find their events anywhere else. My dream is to have a fake account that scrapes all accounts I care about and sends just the highlights to me. I am sure that Meta spends an inordinate amount of time preventing this
You must have clicked some at some point, all I get when I have ads on is outdoors gear because I've clicked a few of those ads in the past and my "suggestions" are related to that category.
yea all i see when im there is sweaters and sneakers
> (the ones that truly blow my mind are the promo ads for people gambling on buying mystery collectible cards then virtually "ripping" the pack open. Grown adult men paying hundreds of dollars! Absolutely wild.)
Sounds just like a lot of NFTs.
Pack ripping was huge during COVID. It is always more economical in the long run to buy singles than to rip packs. Generally speaking, the primary purpose of mystery boxes is to dump slow-moving inventory.
Especially difficult to walkback since bribes are basically legal now because once an industry establishes itself it starts buying off politicians.
> My Instagram ads are just filled with Polymarket, Kalshi, brand name casinos... it's endless.
At least you get actual ads, not a feed full of Twitter and 4chan screenshots overlaid with SKARS AI slop music and wrapped at the top and bottom by a casino ad.
Gacha games being normalized didn't help this at all either. SMH at all my younger friends that got pulled into this trap.
you can work on your timeline and who you follow, maybe use a vpn, and make sure meta doesn't really know who you are. my timeline has none of that shit.
If I cared enough to go to those lengths I’d just stop using Instagram. I don’t really object to being shown these ads, it’s just wild to me how widespread this all is.
i scroll past ads quickly without reading them. but i would for sure object to being shown those ads. if i spotted something like polymarket i would do whatever i can to avoid it (block the account, tell the algo "no").
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Lesser known is that Polymarket’s Twitter accounts themselves are actually rebranded personal accounts from (often cancelled) esports personalities. People who have given up their brand or their career sold their accounts to Polymarket, who rebranded them.
You can check by looking up tweets from their account IDs. I think it’s possible they may have even left up the old tweets if you scroll back far enough.
I have an old reddit account with a lot of karma. I once got an offer for it, I believe around $2,000. Maybe that offer was a scam, but people seem to be contacted to buy their accounts. Its incredible to me how much this is being done by deep pocketed marketers, and I imagine botnet operators working for heaven knows who. This something not talked about much but buying up and re-branding accounts with established viewership or high-karma happens a lot.
I have seen it politically and part of shady marking. I read the girlsgamer sub on reddit and I remember a big influx of "I'm a woman and I support (current game with sexist elements)." Back then you could see everyone's post and comment history. You could see these accounts went quiet a year or two or three ago and their history was very male coded, then came back on-line recently pushing culture-war narratives and describing themselves very differently than their original posts and comments.
I also saw the same thing with some suspicious right-wing posts on some political subs I'm on. Just an old account that had little to no political posting history suddenly coming alive and posting non-stop politics.
I find it interesting and suspicious reddit only started allowing hidden profiles after this and when people started pointing this out.
I think its safe to say all social media is badly compromised and gamed by monied interests.
> I feel fine participating because Polymarket has no house edge or VIG
> Prediction markets are PVP thats the way i look at it
This is true but people should at least be informed that the overwhelming majority of trading volume is HFT firms with faster access to data and the prediction markets than you. These firms pay the prediction markets for that access, and the losses that happen on prediction markets flow to these few large HFT shops.
As someone who makes their living doing PMs this is far from the reality. There's lots of markets that are beatable without a latency edge. Also anyone can apply to be co-located with their servers if you do KYC.
I think it 100% depends on what markets you’re looking at.
If you’re betting/trading on sports (80% prediction market activity by volume, you are 100% up against Susquehanna. Doubly so if you’re predicting combos because there is not nearly enough liquidity.
There are multiple parties involved when you place a trade on a prediction market and all of them get paid.
I’m not stating that there’s no market a relatively unsophisticated investor can take advantage of just pushing back on the idea that PMs are PvP
I mostly agree. Sports are mostly very well priced (live sports not so much). Many new markets that are just invented by polymarket/kalshi though SIG are basically on an even playing field with you in terms of coming up with a way to price it (and if it's a niche low liquidity market they probably don't pay much attention to it anyway so you can easily come in and price it with a large edge). Personally lots of my money is probably coming from SIG itself in fact given that I mostly take liquidity that are placed at poor prices where I've spent many weeks on trying to figure a more informed way to price it.
I'm just assuming here, but I'm sure they have cameras or some other type of data in the stadium, and vision models running on those to make instant trades when a home run has been hit, touchdown scores, etc. and have a huge edge on retail money.
At least on the two big sports gambling sites, they lock the app from making bets during these moments so you can't. I can verify this because I like to go to sports games and had that idea. "Oh I'm here live I wonder if this will work?" Doesn't work.
Can't speak to prediction markets, haven't touched 'em.
Yeah I have heard about gambling sites doing this, but for prediction markets I dont think they can do that. But also how can they lock it before a home run happens unless they're just locking it on every at-bat and rejecting/holding bets if a HR happens? These prediction markets have APIs and work the same way as the stock market, there are sellers and buyers in the market so messing with that process would be explicitly unfair and probably illegal.
Yes they lock it before the snap, or before the pitch is thrown. All I can figure is that they have someone at every game, or somehow have a "live-er" live feed than genpop.
While this is true, retail click traders are still not remotely on the same playing field in any regard as an electronic trading desk who takes the market seriously.
That's obviously true, but at least retail are totally allowed to place maker orders and act as the 'sportsbook' themselves. Taker orders are usually (but far from always) -ev but again at least there's the option to be a maker. Many of the best opportunities is to take liquidty from HFT firms with poor prices as well (there's too many markets for them to price it all correctly and you have an advantage by being allowed infinite time to think about how to price a given market).
Do you know what KYC stands for?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfY-3Dl3yxq8HKFjFad...
> anyone
> use of the Polymarket site (the “Polymarket Site”) for trading activities, by persons or entities who are U.S. persons (“U.S. Persons”), as defined in the enclosed Appendix, is strictly prohibited, with no exceptions
Because Polymarket US is a separate, regulated entity.
Thanks, I misunderstood that and thought you meant colocating next to their server by figuring out where their infra is. Didn't know it's an official feature of theirs.
PMs?
In the past 5 years I’ve been to Vegas & Atlantic City 7 times for conferences and music festivals. Never had any interest in gambling, except $20 in video blackjack on the most recent trip.
At the end of the summer I dipped my toe in Polymarket while watching the US Open (the only sporting event that interest me). In a week and I half I nearly lost 2 months salary. Found myself up at 3AM betting not just on tennis, but also on random sports that seemed like a “sure thing.” And not just on Polymarket, but Kalshi too.
The dark patterns involved in prediction markets are real and terrifying. Washed my hands of that, but woof.
It was interesting to me at my hotel for EDC -- many of the people were downright doomscrolling kalshi, polymarket like it was tiktok but would never go near the casino floor or touch a machine.
When I learned video blackjack is playing the odds in a way that tickled my brain I’ll admit I enjoyed it. I’m sure for some prediction markets do the same. If you can stay level headed there’s probably easy money to be made on prediction markets trading people’s momentum. Staying level headed isn’t easy.
Bummer that tables on the strip in Vegas have such high minimums. Couldn’t even get myself to play one hand on them (but losing $500 in a matter of minutes on Kalshi or Polymarket seemed like nothing)
I will still contend putting gambling apps in people's pockets is one of the obviously dumb ideas our society has let happen.
For anyone wondering what "wumao" is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party:
> The 50 Cent Party, also known as the 50 Cent Army or wumao (/ˈwuːmaʊ/; from Chinese: 五毛; lit. 'five dimes'), are Chinese government employees posting online comments to divert public attention or promote positive sentiment.
> ...
> The name "50 Cent Party" is derived from claims that government hired commentators are reportedly paid RMB¥0.50 (5 jiao) for every post in order to shape public opinion in ways favorable towards Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policies.[1][5][6]
So basically paid shills.
Your didn't finish the explainer:
So the term became a misnomer.> Your [sic] didn't finish the explainer:
What do you mean? I posted the minimum amount to explain an unfamiliar term. I wasn't going to quote the whole article.
> So the term became a misnomer.
What's your point? Shilling doesn't have to be combative.
How do we know this was not 4d chess? /s !/s
I am into Counter Strike and I love watching the majors, but it seems like my entire feed is full of betting ads for Polymarket now. Before I had actual counter strike casinos but those are long gone in favor of these prediction markets.
It’s fun to think of showing this title to somebody in the year 2000 and telling them that it’s actually completely intelligible
Doc K just did a piece on the psychological tricks of gambling that destroys men’s lives:
https://youtu.be/aVDsRkwiUUQ?is=5vPSAQmOXYG30-sk
They do this on Reddit as well. Some accounts post about news and events with an image attached, and just so happen to include a reference to Polymarket somewhere in the image every time, even when it makes no sense.
Whatever other analysis makes sense here, can you imagine a less satisfying job? I think cleaning up elephant dung would give me more career satisfaction than this.
I'd hope so. Cleaning up elephant dung is doing something of actual value, unlike this.
Totally not gambling though
This is definitely slimy, but it's pretty much bog-standard slimy marketing practice these days, no? Like these is framed as though it's a big expose, but isn't it common knowledge that tons of companies do this kind of thing?
this is the kind of thing we need to make illegal
is there a justification for it not being illegal?
Well well well