Fun fact: you CAN win money because they operate in a legal gray area calling themselves “prediction markets”.
Basically you buy percentage shares in an outcome and if that outcome happens all of those that bought the shares get a payout. At least that’s my understanding of it.
Do I do it? Fuck no.
Do I know more than a few people that do? Literally more than half of my coworkers do and a few people in my friend group do.
Bonus “fun” fact: they’re not limited to just gambling. If you managed to miss it, not too long ago people were gambling on events in the Iran War.
If it wasn’t obvious I’m very much against this practice. Shit’s fucked.
Prediction markets is a fancy term for gambling and they exist because that type of gambling was legalized.
They want to deny it is gambling to avoid laws that directly reference gambling by name just like ‘ride sharing’ is taxis but doesn’t want to follow laws that use the word ‘taxi’ in the text. Oh, and to trick gambling addicts into gambling.
The last time I looked, there were also legal casinos using a similarly transparent schtick.
What they do is that you don’t directly win money from gambling. Everything is presented as if it’s related to a sweepstakes, because sweepstakes are a legal version of gambling.
It works something like, you can pay to get entries in a sweepstakes, and I think you can even gamble with your sweepstakes entries to try to get more entries. Then because you entered the sweepstakes, you automatically win, and the sweepstakes pays out in fake money like gems. Then you can also gamble with the fake money. Finally, the casinos will buy the fake money from you using real money.
I may not have gotten this explanation exactly right, but it’s in the ballpark.
![All Hail Gamblor [PizzaCake]](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/2d9c12ff-0566-41ef-84b1-bd75003eb91a.webp){kind=link}
Fun fact: you CAN win money because they operate in a legal gray area calling themselves “prediction markets”.
Basically you buy percentage shares in an outcome and if that outcome happens all of those that bought the shares get a payout. At least that’s my understanding of it.
Do I do it? Fuck no.
Do I know more than a few people that do? Literally more than half of my coworkers do and a few people in my friend group do.
Bonus “fun” fact: they’re not limited to just gambling. If you managed to miss it, not too long ago people were gambling on events in the Iran War.
If it wasn’t obvious I’m very much against this practice. Shit’s fucked.
Prediction markets is a fancy term for gambling and they exist because that type of gambling was legalized.
They want to deny it is gambling to avoid laws that directly reference gambling by name just like ‘ride sharing’ is taxis but doesn’t want to follow laws that use the word ‘taxi’ in the text. Oh, and to trick gambling addicts into gambling.
The last time I looked, there were also legal casinos using a similarly transparent schtick.
What they do is that you don’t directly win money from gambling. Everything is presented as if it’s related to a sweepstakes, because sweepstakes are a legal version of gambling.
It works something like, you can pay to get entries in a sweepstakes, and I think you can even gamble with your sweepstakes entries to try to get more entries. Then because you entered the sweepstakes, you automatically win, and the sweepstakes pays out in fake money like gems. Then you can also gamble with the fake money. Finally, the casinos will buy the fake money from you using real money.
I may not have gotten this explanation exactly right, but it’s in the ballpark.