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?
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.