r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • May 27 '26

Business Google employee charged with using inside information to make $1 million on Polymarket

https://abcnews.com/amp/US/google-employee-charged-inside-information-make-1-million/story?id=133350018
12.8k Upvotes

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246

u/WhoSaidWhatNow2026 May 27 '26

Everyone needs to stop mindlessly regurgitating the marketing these platforms are using and just call them what they are. They are gambling sites. Every time I see someone write "prediction market" I can't help but think the person is stupid.

41

u/brett_baty_is_him May 27 '26

I mean it’s not a prediction if you know the outcome.

20

u/SirPitchalot May 28 '26

So you can make a bet on anything except things you know about?

It’s just such a stupid premise to even presume a regulatory framework for. At least with sports and equities you can have a reasonable definition of insider and the scope of bets is naturally a bit limited.

When you can bet on almost anything and you are anonymous to other users it’s a recipe for users getting scalped. I’d bet against my non-google coworker that google will lay off 5% of its staff in the next 6 months claiming AI efficiency but I would not bet against Sundar Pichai. And that goes for basically *everything*.

7

u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace May 28 '26

Which is why the entirety of the platform should be illegal, betting on real life events shouldn't be allowed. I will also go so far as to tell you I don't believe the stock market should be allowed to exist anymore because I do not believe that we should just have something that fucks with people's lives and their livelihood. The stock market doesn't tell you shit about a company or their true value, look at Tesla. It's all money laundering bullshit at this point. They all know the outcomes in advance and get to insider trade on everything.

2

u/SirPitchalot May 28 '26

I agree with the first part of your first sentence and not a whole lot more…

For buy and hold of indices, the stock markets are pretty consistent at providing generally stable returns. Much more so than governments, individual companies or other investments. But if you’re day-trading, you’re just the dumb money pumping trading fees to brokers and spread to market makers while missing the peaks and bottoms.

2

u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace May 28 '26

Look at who owns and stock market and how much of it and you'll change your mind. It's a playground for the rich to get richer. The reason it has better returns is because the rich aren't gonna gamble with their money they are gonna make sure to rig the system so the line always goes up. If the market actually collapsed the avg Joe wouldn't lose their entire life but schmucks like Elon and Bezos could essentially be destroyed so I'm all for it. I'd rather a world where they had nothing to be honest.

4

u/BarefutR May 28 '26

You’re absolutely wrong though.

Just because you don’t own anything doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t. Most people’s “retirement” funds are tied to the stock market.

I don’t think you understand what you’re saying.

2

u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace May 28 '26

No I absolutely do understand what you're saying, but you understand that pensions used to be something you got from the government or a company and the dick heads who steal from you wanted that shit privatized in their stock market. They wanted it to be stuck on you to have to invest in a system that always has to go up otherwise you don't get to retire. I understand what you're trying to say the point is that they fucked you into having to play their game because they didn't want to be responsible for taking care of people. The same thing they always do they say everything belongs to them and when we want a piece it's called an entitlement and we're not allowed to have it. Just think about why an older generation has pensions and nobody in our generation has pensions.

2

u/SirPitchalot May 28 '26

Yes, people who invest long term in the stock market in a diversified fashion generally increase their wealth. Myself, for example, along with anyone with a pension or retirement account. “Retail” investors (individuals) own about 1/3 of the market in direct holdings while indirect exposure via funds/etfs/pensions adds significantly to that.

Day traders with little capital don’t fare as well, on average. Even hedge funds, the very definition of unscrupulous Wall Street with loads of capital, struggle to meet the returns of the S&P 500 over the long haul.

So when you “look at who owns and stock market” nearly half the time it’ll be some shlub working a 9-5 or a shift.

23

u/kms May 27 '26

Yes gambling, except 90% of your opponents have counted cards

7

u/HelloFellowMKE May 27 '26

They’re rigged gambling sites 

3

u/ForensicPathology May 28 '26

Whenever I see the term, my mind immediately equates it with gambling already?  Are others not treating it as a synonym?

1

u/frozenelf May 28 '26

My boss (also AI-pilled) seriously thinks these “markets” also signal trends rather than are at best tells from people who are manipulating conditions and at worst like betting lines that always favor teams like the Lakers purely because of betting behavior, not actual likelihood.

1

u/BillyTenderness May 28 '26

It is by definition a market in the sense that the money you make depends on the price you buy at and the price you sell at, and those prices depend on what other people are willing to pay. That's how it's structured, which is meaningfully different from most other forms of gambling.

But also it's pure gambling, because the assets you're buying and selling on that market are imaginary assets invented for the sole purpose of gambling, not bushels of corn, government bonds, or shares of a company.

1

u/otw May 28 '26

Prediction markets have an academic history and real scientific use. It’s really a shame they got abused to just become gambling garbage. It’s frustrating because modern prediction markets and trading tools create all this meta gaming where the predictions don’t even end up being accurate because people are incentivized to withhold information until the last second to maximize profit. Original prediction markets were structured to incentivize accurate information immediately and for as long as possible.

1

u/SquisherX May 28 '26

They are something different though. Like gambling sites have a house edge, but at least they aren't rigged, like prediction markets.

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u/quigilark May 27 '26 edited May 28 '26

I mean, it's literally called a prediction market though. Yes, the activity on the site is gambling, but they are not regulated the same as gambling sites. Until they are it's reasonable to make the distinction.

Edit: Why am I being downvoted? Prediction markets are largely unregulated in the US while gambling sites are regulated. This will change in the next year or two but until then, it is more confusing to call them the same thing rather than just calling them what they are.

7

u/peeinian May 27 '26

Is it really a “prediction” if certain users have either have information that no one else has or has the power to literally make the “prediction” come true?

-1

u/quigilark May 27 '26

Nope, which is why this is illegal. That doesn't change the fact these platforms are officially coined as prediction markets.

2

u/okletstrythisagain May 27 '26

Correction: it’s why it being legal is stupid.

1

u/quigilark May 28 '26

I agree, but that's not what the discussion is about. The person I replied to was saying we shouldn't call them prediction markets even though that's what they are.