While I hate the automatic inclusion of betting into most sports reporting today, it doesn’t trouble me anywhere near as much as the political scenarios the article lays out. Some pretty scary stuff in there!
Comment on America Is Slow-Walking Into a Polymarket Disaster
reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Only a minuscule amount of critical thinking is required to reject the hypothesis that cumulative betting odds on news items are predictive of real outcomes. He mentioned sports betting as a similar case, do sports betters think increased betting odds (say on a specific horse to win) increase the likelihood that that horse wins? I kind of feel like they understand what the numbers represent but I’m not super steeped in gambling culture so I’m genuinely curious.
News outlets framing betting odds as useful stats for predicting events is worrisome though. Readers expect journalists to provide only relevant information so mixing in stuff you’re paid to include breaks the expectation between writer and reader since the expected intention of the article (information on a topic) is different than the actual one (fulfilling an advertising obligation to a gambling company).
ClownStatue@piefed.social 6 days ago
Womble@piefed.world 1 week ago
The thinking isnt that that you putting money on a horse to win increases it’s odds of winning, its that by signalling your belief that you think it will happen by a costly signal (you lose the money if you are wrong) you are updating the overall odds to be closer to the true probability by the power of crowds. if 200 people are betting something will happen and only 10 are betting it wont then that is evidences that the thing is more likely than not to happen.
There are flaws in this thinking, it doesnt take into account manipulation of events to win bets is a particularly big one, and it also gets worse the more removed the thing being bet on is from everyday life as people make less informed choices.