A $400,000 payout after Maduro’s capture is putting prediction markets in the spotlight
Excerpt:
Prediction markets let people wager on anything from a basketball game to the outcome of a presidential election — and recently, the downfall of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The latter is drawing renewed scrutiny into this murky world of speculative, 24/7 transactions. Last week, an anonymous trader pocketed more than $400,000 after betting that Maduro would soon be out of office.
The bulk of the trader’s bids on the platform Polymarket were made mere hours before President Donald Trump announced the surprise nighttime raid that led to Maduro’s capture, fueling online suspicions of potential insider trading because of the timing of the wagers and the trader’s narrow activity on the platform. Others argued that the risk of getting caught was too big, and that previous speculation about Maduro’s future could have led to such transactions.
Polymarket did not respond to requests for comment.
The commercial use of prediction markets has skyrocketed in recent years, opening the door for people to wage their money on the likelihood of a growing list of future events. But despite some eye-catching windfalls, traders still lose money everyday. And in terms of government oversight in the U.S., the trades are categorized differently than traditional forms of gambling — raising questions about transparency and risk.
How prediction markets work
The scope of topics involved in prediction markets can range immensely — from escalation in geopolitical conflicts, to pop culture moments and even the fate of conspiracy theories. Recently, there’s been a surge of wages on elections and sports games. But some users have also bet millions on things like a rumored — and ultimately unrealized — “secret finale” for the Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” whether the U.S. government will confirm the existence of extraterrestrial life and how much billionaire Elon Musk might post on social media this month.
In industry-speak, what someone buys or sells in a prediction market is called an “event contract.” They’re typically advertised as “yes” or “no” wagers. And the price of one fluctuates between $0 and $1, reflecting what traders are collectively willing to pay based on a 0% to 100% chance of whether they think an event will occur.
The more likely traders think an event will occur, the more expensive that contract will become. And as those odds change over time, users can cash out early to make incremental profits, or try to avoid higher losses on what they’ve already invested.
Proponents of prediction markets argue putting money on the line leads to better forecasts. Experts like Koleman Strumpf, an economics professor at Wake Forest University, think there’s value in monitoring these platforms for potential news — pointing to prediction markets’ past success with some election outcomes, including the 2024 presidential race.
Still, it’s never a “crystal ball,” he noted, and prediction markets can be wrong, too.
Who is behind all of the trading is also pretty murky. While the companies running the platforms collect personal information of their users in order to verify identities and payments, most people can trade under anonymous pseudonyms online — making it difficult for the public to know who is profiting off many event contracts. In theory, people investing their money may be closely following certain events, but others could just be randomly guessing.
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Orlando CBS station so be warned lots of mush, but it does bring up good point of how insiders could bet on future events that they have knowledge on. “Insiders” like politicians DC admin. or military personnel and since it is anonymous no one would know.
The Captor Who Fell Silent
How faith disarmed terror in a Hamas tunnel.
https://spectator.org/the-captor-who-fell-silent/
Excerpt:
Many news organizations carried the story of the release of Bar Kuperstein two years after he had been kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. Kuperstein was a young security guard at the Nova Festival, the music festival targeted by Hamas for its fat genocidal possibilities, with sides of rape, torture, and kidnapping. After taking some time to begin to reacclimate to freedom and family, Kuperstein began to share his and his family’s experiences.
Hamas’ strategy to destroy Israel has been based on the perceived weakness of the West for enduring the discomfort of war. As is well attested by their own words, they wish to win by grinding down the political support for the fight against them, both in Israel and in Israel’s supporters in the rest of the world. Protests from the West, and even better, from within Israel itself, are demoralizing to the fighting spirit. In particular, when despairing hostage families protest, demanding that their government capitulate to the demands of the hostage takers, this is prime click bait and especially demoralizing to their hated opponents.
Kuperstein explained to the press how Hamas tried to get his family to publicly denounce Israel’s fight to rescue the hostages and end the rule of the hostage-takers. They pushed the despair button — we have your beloved son, and no one can stop us from doing to him whatever we want if you don’t comply. Kuperstein said:
During the period I was held captive, one of the terrorists called my mother and told her she was not doing enough to free me and that if she wanted to see me again, she needed to go out, file complaints at The Hague, and really fight.
Kuperstein’s captor said to his mother that she had no choice, because her son was in their hands. Kuperstein continued: “She simply told him the following: ‘My son is not in your hands but always in the hands of the Creator — and you are too in the hands of the Creator.”
This was not the expected answer. In Kuperstein’s words: “There was a moment of silence because the terrorist did not know what to answer and then he replied, “All honor to you, madam.”
Kuperstein showed his interviewer the bracelet his mother had worn all the days of his captivity. On it were inscribed the words: “My son is always in the hands of the Creator.”
Kuperstein added: “Since then, we carry that motto with us all the time.”
What is most striking about this story is its redemptive core. Redemption is the great theme of the biblical tradition.