The association between betting and criminal behavior is a very long-running theme in human civilizations, and here we are doing it all over again:
Supporters of Kalshi and its biggest competitor, Polymarket, have defended the sites as game-like platforms for following and perhaps profiting off the news. But critics like Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) have said they are creating a more “dystopian world” by helping people gamble on life-and-death crises and military assaults in a way that could incentivize political violence.
“This is American commercial immorality on steroids,” Murphy said in an interview. “Once events that involve good and evil simply become a financial product, I don’t know how right and wrong matters any longer. … People shouldn’t be rooting for people to die because they placed a bet.” [WaPo]
Senator Murphy, above, didn’t go nearly far enough. It’s not in the least difficult to envision a bettor, having made a potentially lucrative bet on the timing of the death of a prominent person, whether celebrity or politician, then moving to ensure potential becomes reality. That falls into the corruption category, because an implicit assumption of gambling is that the focus of a bet, such as rolling dice, is free of undue influence; that is, no one is knowing or influencing the future with reference to the focus of the bet.
Some readers may protest that Kalshi and Polymarket are not gambling sites, but predictive market sites. In my view, waddling and quacking usually makes for ducks; critters camouflaged to look like different and, usually, dangerous critters, while legitimate exceptions, are rare and must pass assiduous examination before acceptance as exceptions. These sites offer monetary prizes for predicting some event while tendering money. So far as I can see, Kalshi and Polymarket offer the same service as do gambling palaces and dens.
And enable the same corruption as do straight up gambling dens.
For the record, the WaPo article does mention the above scenario:
Lawmakers have worried that allowing death-related trades could offer fatal incentives; an assassin, for instance, could plan and then profit off the date of a victim’s death. “There’s a reason we don’t let people take fire insurance policies out on [other people’s homes] — because it would incent arson,” [Amanda Fischer, director at the financial advocacy group Better Markets] said.
In a decade, as people have sense knocked into their skulls, I expect predictive market sites will just go away. But don’t, ah, bet on it.
