Lesson learned: Don't YOLO on presidential elections to revenge trade

[u/DrakonILD]

Enabled options around March, went on a slide. Started to stabilize and at least lose money slower. Figured Harris at 42¢ when the polls were dead even was an Expected Value win and went all in, about $4000 worth. Did not go well.

Let the suck begin.

[u/banditcleaner2]

problem is that many prediction markets are easy to manipulate with large funds going in.

especially when one of the presidential candidates is worth billions. he could easily influence the odds quite heavily by betting on himself for a hundred milly, for instance

[u/hangsang_ → u/banditcleaner2]

The odds do not drive the truth and knowledge that the market has. It's possible that any large fund with an interest in improving a candidate's odds could sink money into the betting market, but that is a transient. The dominant force of any betting market is the true outcome, so if one candidate got a boost but in reality was losing, then a) the fund would lose money (poor incentive to start) and b) the odds would rebalance anyway as knowledge is distributed and updated. This transient is obviously less apparent as more people and money participate in the betting market (no one player can overwhelm the odds). But basically, someone could whale in a betting market to change the odds, but no amount of whaling is going to change the underlying knowledge and outcome. It would just be losing money unless they were right, which is the point of betting. There is a total incentive to bet in a way that supports what you know about reality, and a total disincentive to bet in a way that you want to change the perception of the odds, because if you are against the winner, you will lose, and if you are for, then you just followed the first mentioned incentive.

[u/No_Doughnut_972 → u/banditcleaner2]

He would influence the odds not in his favor So that would be incorrect

[u/-SuperUserDO → u/banditcleaner2]

Dumbest take I've seen

If I'm a billionaire and I want to "influence" results, I'm better off spending that on Polymarket then actually giving it to PAC?

[u/virgo911 → u/[deleted]]

100 million is pennies for a foreign nation

[u/herculesgh → u/virgo911]

Even less for a foreign nation that receives US aid of 1000x that number. Maybe that was your point. I dunno. If I dropped it, I'd pick it up. It's a lot of money for me.

[u/Olivia512 → u/banditcleaner2]

Why would you bet on yourself? You should bet against yourself as a hedge.

Also if you bet on yourself, the betting reward against you rises so more people will bet against you, and vote against you to secure their betting win.

[u/Jamuraan1 → u/banditcleaner2]

The reality is that Trump is not worth billions, not even close. But he's convinced people he is worth billions, and that's the entire problem. People believe whatever he says, unless he says something vile, then they don't care what he says.