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France orders internet providers to block access to Polymarket prediction site (www.france24.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1274527/france-orders-internet-providers-to-block-access-to-polymarket-prediction-site

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[–] 71 points 2 months ago (20 children)

I hate how they're supporting the fiction that this isn't gambling by calling it a "prediction site". It's gambling, always has been.

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  • [–] 34 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    This isn't much different than google calling installing software "side loading". All just lawyer speech to be able to bend and break the rules

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    JAILBREAKING SCUM

    Literally just having access to your device you paid for....

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  • [–] 14 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    I think the distinction is important. Gambling is random outcome. Prédiction means you could influence the outcome. Think of a terrorist betting on the timing of the next attack 

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago*

    Actually, yeah.

    It's also gambling. But the potential for corruption is just on a whole other level; "gambling" is a euphemism for prediction markets.

    I think it's silly you're getting downvoted over semantics; gambling has influenced outcomes, yes, technically, but it's generally a self-contained game.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    If you're influencing the outcome via some private mechanism that's a crime and is in fact illegal (a little thing known as insider trading or cheating depending on how you go about it). So per your definition either you can't influence the outcome in which case it's gambling, or you can in which case it's illegal and you're committing a crime.

    All that said I think the definition of gambling being truly random isn't quite right. Gambling has always been about statistical outcomes because if it was truly random nobody would ever make any money off of it so nobody would waste their time. Remember the house always wins because they control the odds. These sites are just bookies in techbro clothing using marketing and legal loopholes to run illegal gambling sites.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Insider trading applies to securities. Polymarket bets are not securities.

    Manipulation violates Polymarket's ToS, but that's not criminal.

    Now, it might meet the legal criteria for fraud, depending on what one does. But that's a "maybe." I'd say that is far easier to get away with than insider trading. EDIT: Especially when hopping jurisdictions (which is not so easy with securities).

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (7 children)

    I mean, it is both?

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    By that logic, all gambling is just prediction

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (4 children)

    how did you come to this conclusion? betting on scenarios that are purely random are just gambling.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Scenarios in gambling are rarely "purely random". I.e. the likelyhood of winning in poker depends on what you already got dealt and what other cards got dealt and so on. What does "purely random" even mean? Like a lottery with equal chance of winning for all participants? Yea that's gambling but just one kind of gambling.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    But that is what the whole discussion is about. Many scenarios aren't just gambling because they have a degree of predictability to it: poker, stock market, betting on the day when the US starts WW3.

    Probably only quantum processes are truly random, but for this argument, processes are practically random if the governing variables are not human-knowable. A dice throw, roulette, lottery numbers drawn from a bowl. They are deep down deterministic, but not predictable to any degree.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago

    This loophole (if we can even call it that because it‘s just stupid marketing) makes it even worse than regular gambling. It‘s unregulated and very easy to exploit even by other participants. Everything about this is illegal in pretty much any country no matter how you word it. It‘s actually insane how slow countries are to do something about those criminals.

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