this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
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Not The Onion

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[–] thenextguy@lemmy.world 96 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I hate this instance of the multiverse.

[–] mEEGal@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Just hop on another and block the old one

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Can you lend me the multiverse jumper? I can't get mine to work at all

[–] T156@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

That's the trouble, you see, most people have moved onto multiverse cardigans now.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 56 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Which cyberpunk novel is this one pulling from? Yakuza hunting down a reporter over gambling losses isn’t one I remember.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner gets close. It introduced the idea of gambling on world events back in the 70's under the name Delphi Pool. Great little read, too.

Coincidentally, we're steadily on our way to living in the kind of future he predicted in his other book, The Sheep Look Up.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 43 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

This is some Black Mirror shit.

[–] FatVegan@leminal.space 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Black mirror is just how the world sees america.

[–] architect@thelemmy.club 5 points 2 weeks ago

You guys really haven’t figured out it’s the rich vs poor yet?

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 4 points 2 weeks ago

I highly recommend watching South Park S27E5 titled Conflict of Interest

Aired September 24, 2025 , it explains how poly market works, specifically in the context of Israel's genocide and how it relates (and doesn't relate) to US Jews.

[–] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 41 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Isn't polymarket partially run by the Trump family

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 46 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/26/polymarket-secures-investment-from-trump-jr-backed-1789-capital.html

Yes, this is a way to do insider trading at scale with crypto markets to get money from idiots who are still clinging to NFTs and make the money disappear

This started here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWVKiBsdvRA

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago

“I make my living on the evening news,
Just gimme gimme something,
Something I can use.
People love it when you lose,
They love dirty laundry.”

[–] jaemo@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

I want to make this perfectly clear. "You wanna make a bet?" died in fucking elementary school for me. Like it should for every mature, sane human. Gambling is for, and done by, the most immature, underdeveloped losers in our society. I've never once met someone who went to a casino and told me about that I didn't instantly lose a measureable amount of respect for. I would have absolutely no qualms about levelling every casino on the planet and forcing the property owners to donate the land to public park space.

You are not "winners with no winnings". You are losers.

The fact that it is growing in popularity and we now have douche canoes on polymarket every second commercial just tells me we're devolving.

[–] Senal@programming.dev 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Basically all of modern society functions off of the back of an elaborate , rigged gambling system.

That's what the stock market is, in a very real way.

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[–] Godric@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

I don't care for organized gambling either, but this is so over the top hahahahaha

God forbid a couple buddies see who's buying a drink or two over game of chess or pool

[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I dunno, I have a lot of respect for people who gamble in casinos and get kicked out for winning too much against the house because they've mastered card counting and pattern recognition.

I also don't see a big problem with people occasionally hitting up a casino for some fun once in a while - it's no different than hitting up an arcade really.

My problem is the industry preying on people who don't know when to stop and get suckered in by the advertisements. That and people like this toddler in the article that likes to make bets but can't stand when they lose.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 6 points 2 weeks ago

Exactly. If I go to a casino, it's with a set budget of what I can lose and I walk out if I hit it. It's just my entertainment budget for the day.

I don't go expecting to win big, and will usually bounce if I end up with a net gain of around $30-50.

But I've only been 3x in the 15 years since I turned 21, and one of those was for a Smash Mouth show (it was a really fun show).

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[–] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago

Scummy black market-ish betting on bad things results in attracting bad people, shocking.

[–] couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zip 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Interesting thing though. How is Polymarket going to arbitrate such things?

There's going to be discussions that are never going to be truly resolved as opposed to, for example, sports betting, so how does this turn out?

I guess they got a smart ToS but they're incorporated in the US so I guess they'll be tested in court sooner rather than later

[–] ivanvector@piefed.ca 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Why not set up a Polymarket bet for how Polymarket is going to handle this? Or whether they face any kind of legal repercussions at all.

[–] NoForwadSlashS@piefed.social 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No joke, this is actually very much how it works. For disputes they use UMA tokens, which allows whales to just buy the vote. Although "being too expensive to corrupt" is the point, there's a bunch of recent news about votes for $50 million markets bought with $7 million worth of coins (which are reusable, once you own them, you can vote on every dispute with the same tokens and voting power).

[–] ivanvector@piefed.ca 6 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

Well gee, that doesn't sound like a nightmare of a Ponzi scheme at all

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[–] NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

💕🎉 WE’RE ALL IN HELL! 🎉💕

[–] certified_expert@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Can somebody eli5 me this? I am not sure I am getting it

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 34 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Poly market is a gambling platform where people bet on things that will happen in real life.

Bob made a bet that Iran would bomb Israel on some specific date.

Unrelated and unaware about Bob, Fabian is a journalist. Fabian wrote an accurate article describing an attack where Iran bombed Israel.

Bob's bet was wrong. He's about to loose a lot of money. So Bob threatens to kill Fabian. Bob tells Fabien he must change his story, so Bob doesn't loose money.

[–] certified_expert@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

First, that is deeply fucked up. Second, who pays or determine which way a bet went?

Do you see how many bets may end up in ambiguous states where it is interpretable which side won?

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

~~If the bet is successful, Polymarket pays out — just like how more conventional betting works ~~ (Edit: this is incorrect — it uses matched betting. See the comment below mine for more detail)

In terms of who determines which way a bet goes, it seems like this is also Polymarket, and that they rely on journalistic coverage and official announcements.

This journalist reported that one of the missiles landed and exploded, and it appears that this was used to deny paying out to the people who places at bet that no missiles would land that day. The gamblers tried to coerce the journalist to change their report to say that all of the missiles were intercepted, and that the thing that actually landed and exploded was just a missile fragment from the intercepted missile. I have no idea whether this would've actually changed the outcome of the bet from Polymarket's perspective, but the gamblers certainly seemed to think so.

It highlights the absurdity of betting on events like this

[–] festus@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Actually Polymarket never pays out. Every bet is matched with someone holding the opposite bet (and prices to make a bet shift accordingly to market demand for each side). Polymarket just rakes in fees, but they never lose money regardless of how a bet goes.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 weeks ago

Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for correcting me

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

What's even more fucked up is that there's nothing preventing DoD employees from also betting on this stuff while simultaneously being the ones deciding the who, what, when, where, and why of bombing another country.

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[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Shayne Coplan is the billionaire manchild who owns polymarket along with a couple other billionaire cofounders like Peter Thiel. It's just like bookies with details decided before the bet is made, and the house/market/organized crime organization take a cut for guaranteeing the bet pays out.

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (15 children)

Polymarket is a place to put bets on anything: if the groundhog sees his shadow, if a hurricane makes landfall, if the US bombs Iran. You know just fun betting. Except now people put down huge sums, and just prior to the Iran war, insiders were putting down MILLIONS on the war starting that day. It makes it immediately obvious there are dangerous conflicts of interest.

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[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

For an entertaining and sufficient way to understand what's going on, I highly recommend watching South Park S27E5 titled Conflict of Interest

Aired September 24, 2025 , it explains how poly market works, specifically in the context of Israel's genocide and how it relates (and doesn't relate) to US Jews.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] workerONE@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

These suckers are going to spend $900,000 on an assassination?

[–] dan1101@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

Words are cheap

[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 4 points 2 weeks ago

Suddenly they care about Israelis coming after journalists.

[–] Jarix@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago
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