POLL and Discussion: Sports Betting

[AdmiralKird]

I made this post about sports betting, but it could be about prediction markets in general. I read recently that some dude bet $32k on Maduro being ousted in January 2026, and pocketed over $400k. Seems like an awfully large wager if you didn’t have some sort of insider info that something was going to go down.

People are betting on discrete outcomes of the war in Iran, which is sick. This article is eye opening -- username "Magamyman" made $553k betting on Polymarket on the death of Ayatollah Khamenei. Trump Jr. is on Polymarket's advisory board. So the same corrupting influence gambling has on sports can now be applied to any event on the planet. Super!

NSFW

[ghostrunner]

We need to pull this back to Las Vegas only

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026 ... ts-betting

Barring some real government action like a total advertising ban, I think some kind of shaming needs to happen for people who do ads for these services.

According to a study, ninety per cent of young users believe that they will make money on sports betting. Yet only four per cent of accounts are profitable. Americans are now on track to lose a trillion dollars of personal wealth to commercialized gambling in the next five years. Bankruptcies are up nearly ten per cent in states that have legalized online sports betting.

[cardinalkarp]

We need to pull this back to Las Vegas only

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026 ... ts-betting

Barring some real government action like a total advertising ban, I think some kind of shaming needs to happen for people who do ads for these services.

According to a study, ninety per cent of young users believe that they will make money on sports betting. Yet only four per cent of accounts are profitable. Americans are now on track to lose a trillion dollars of personal wealth to commercialized gambling in the next five years. Bankruptcies are up nearly ten per cent in states that have legalized online sports betting.

Yeah, I’ve listened to a few podcasts about it. It’s BAD news.