You know, I didn't expect the Insider Trading Casinos to be quite so brazenly evil. I really thought they'd have wanted to keep a lower profile, and not appear so urgently in need of being regulated or sued out of existence. They even had the template of "Sports Betting" to work from.
They don’t need to keep a low profile, they have the president and his family using their services for enrichment. They are immune from consequence, might as well advertise at maximum and unleash hell for the most gain.
This is why principled ethical behavior MUST be a cornerstone of acceptable behavior above greed. Even if you are washing and selling greed as “financial obligations” “capital interests” or some other corporate bullshit.
The incentive was already there without prediction markets, just like the incentive to screw with drug trials has been around as long as biotech companies that are publicly traded have been making drugs. Wherever there is a measurement tied to a monetary payout, unscrupulous people will try to manipulate it.
This doesn’t change anything since the incentive already existed before prediction markets, people are getting unreasonably emotional about prediction markets due to headline overload.
Creating a new incentive where one does not exist can create moral hazards, an easy example is introducing wildfire prediction markets.
From a moral perspective I don't think it is. From a more practical perspective... It's only tiny biotechs where the share price exactly tracks a single clinical trial. This opens up ways to make more specific bets
Options trading is particularly bad example, because the buyer can choose whether they exercise it or not. You can just let the option expire.
But yes, there is portion of "investing" that is actually gambling. That is what Enron did and it threw down the economy. Those gamblers usually loose and we have quite a lot of regulations trying to restrict the impact of that gambling.
And yes, the usual suspect hate those regulations.
If we bet on where fires will occur and I have empty pockets and a book of matches that's a little different than options trading.
As with most terrible behaviors when a few people do it the results to society aren't so bad. When it gains potential for mass application of the same behavior it becomes a crisis.
Binary bets on drug approvals for publicly traded biotech companies are no different than going long or short the equity of the biotech company.
The incentive to interfere in drug trials has been around as long as biotech companies have been publicly traded, this changes nothing.
Introducing wildfire prediction markets is an example of something that does not exist and would be reckless and stupid. The stock market already bets on drug trial outcomes.
This is exactly the sort of bad incentives that lead to things like deliberately throwing drug trials. Very small amounts of money make people do horrible things every day, by what magic would this be an exception?
Usually the reverse problem is happening - company does pump its stock based on potentially having their drug accepted but it’s usually the case that it will be rejected - but you don’t k ow that for sure for many years - prediction market may help here
Turns out the Spokane wildfire was arson initiated. While Kalshi and PM have bets going on wildfire predictions.
I don't think there's a smoking Molotov there yet, but the incentives sure don't seem great!
Doesn't seem a huge leap there. Nor does a pissed off janitor who could turn $100 into $1,000 by trashing the wrong samples. Or a bigger player who can turn their $500k into $5M by paying that janitor $1,000.
You’re imagining a 10x payout for sabotaging a trial. That would be a trial with about 90% odds of succeeding when most trials are likely to fail. And this isn’t a high school science experiment a single janitor can easily sabotage. Any drug with high odds for approval has already shown significant evidence of efficacy and safety.
Tampering would not shut down the whole development process with hundreds of millions poured into it.
The janitor doesnt need a prediction market, but that's 100% who Kalshi and PM are currently blasting ads at, because the janitors with $100 to kill are the bag holders that pay the insiders.
At least in general, not for this specific Evil Janitor, who is the rarer unsophisticated-schemer/patsy/insider in my contrived hypothetical.
> A pharmacist, or one of their relatives, openly taking a large position against a trial's success would be far more likely to attract scrutiny than, say, a pharmacist being secretly paid by a competitor to interfere with the trial.
the later would not be affect by betting on clinical trials being allowed or prohibited, so I don't think the comparison proves that this would help
Will there be anyone hanging around to scrutinize though? The pharmacist patsy maybe, but whoever bribed them is already paid out and off doing their laundry
You know, I didn't expect the Insider Trading Casinos to be quite so brazenly evil. I really thought they'd have wanted to keep a lower profile, and not appear so urgently in need of being regulated or sued out of existence. They even had the template of "Sports Betting" to work from.
They don’t need to keep a low profile, they have the president and his family using their services for enrichment. They are immune from consequence, might as well advertise at maximum and unleash hell for the most gain.
This is why principled ethical behavior MUST be a cornerstone of acceptable behavior above greed. Even if you are washing and selling greed as “financial obligations” “capital interests” or some other corporate bullshit.
They were already illegal! Why be careful, they know they’ve got the social trend and the regulatory bodies on their sides.
There have already been examples of people manipulating scientific readings to make a quick buck on a prediction market bet
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/23/nx-s1-5797876/polymarket-pari...
There are examples of people manipulating precipitation monitors to get crop insurance payouts: https://www.agweb.com/news/business/rain-robbers-how-four-fa...
The incentive was already there without prediction markets, just like the incentive to screw with drug trials has been around as long as biotech companies that are publicly traded have been making drugs. Wherever there is a measurement tied to a monetary payout, unscrupulous people will try to manipulate it.
This doesn’t change anything since the incentive already existed before prediction markets, people are getting unreasonably emotional about prediction markets due to headline overload.
Creating a new incentive where one does not exist can create moral hazards, an easy example is introducing wildfire prediction markets.
To be fair buying securities or derivatives ahead of a pharma results announcement is pretty common already.
Not to excuse these guys for all their other awfulness of course.
How is such bets any different than options trading? If one is reasonable I don't see why the other would be that much different.
From a moral perspective I don't think it is. From a more practical perspective... It's only tiny biotechs where the share price exactly tracks a single clinical trial. This opens up ways to make more specific bets
Options trading is particularly bad example, because the buyer can choose whether they exercise it or not. You can just let the option expire.
But yes, there is portion of "investing" that is actually gambling. That is what Enron did and it threw down the economy. Those gamblers usually loose and we have quite a lot of regulations trying to restrict the impact of that gambling.
And yes, the usual suspect hate those regulations.
It’s not, anyone claiming otherwise is arguing from an emotional position, not a rational one.
If we bet on where fires will occur and I have empty pockets and a book of matches that's a little different than options trading.
As with most terrible behaviors when a few people do it the results to society aren't so bad. When it gains potential for mass application of the same behavior it becomes a crisis.
Biotech stocks for premarket drugs are functionally binary bets on the drug trial itself and have existed for a long time.
Wildfire prediction markets would be incredibly reckless and dangerous.
The two situations are not even close to being the same.
Unfortunately your example gets a little foggier once you consider options and futures during a period like the one the US is currently in with Iran.
Like when your buddies trade crude on weekdays but you get to flip the War switch on/off all weekend?
is there a way to see the odds for all the kalshi bets without logging in?
Binary bets on drug approvals for publicly traded biotech companies are no different than going long or short the equity of the biotech company.
The incentive to interfere in drug trials has been around as long as biotech companies have been publicly traded, this changes nothing.
Introducing wildfire prediction markets is an example of something that does not exist and would be reckless and stupid. The stock market already bets on drug trial outcomes.
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This is exactly the sort of bad incentives that lead to things like deliberately throwing drug trials. Very small amounts of money make people do horrible things every day, by what magic would this be an exception?
Usually the reverse problem is happening - company does pump its stock based on potentially having their drug accepted but it’s usually the case that it will be rejected - but you don’t k ow that for sure for many years - prediction market may help here
But through short selling the stock market already allows the ability to bet against a company.
A system that’s more robust to meddling than you’re imagining
> Very small amounts of money make people do horrible things every day,
What is this referring to?
Turns out the Spokane wildfire was arson initiated. While Kalshi and PM have bets going on wildfire predictions.
I don't think there's a smoking Molotov there yet, but the incentives sure don't seem great!
Doesn't seem a huge leap there. Nor does a pissed off janitor who could turn $100 into $1,000 by trashing the wrong samples. Or a bigger player who can turn their $500k into $5M by paying that janitor $1,000.
You’re imagining a 10x payout for sabotaging a trial. That would be a trial with about 90% odds of succeeding when most trials are likely to fail. And this isn’t a high school science experiment a single janitor can easily sabotage. Any drug with high odds for approval has already shown significant evidence of efficacy and safety. Tampering would not shut down the whole development process with hundreds of millions poured into it.
A janitor doesn't need prediction markets. They could just short the stock (and profit way more that way)
The janitor doesnt need a prediction market, but that's 100% who Kalshi and PM are currently blasting ads at, because the janitors with $100 to kill are the bag holders that pay the insiders.
At least in general, not for this specific Evil Janitor, who is the rarer unsophisticated-schemer/patsy/insider in my contrived hypothetical.
N=1 here, but I'm sure you can find many many more examples.
In a mass shooting in Boise, Idaho, a woman stole items off a fallen security guard that was lying on the floor.
https://idahonews.com/news/local/police-idaho-woman-stole-it...
Russia and Iran are known to hire teenagers online to kill targets in Europe for little money.
I never heard of this. Do we know somebody who was killed this way?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrjyevmv61o
This group has been linked to 35 murders since 2022
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/09/to-build-a-fir...
I don't know about teenagers but my last boss was bragging about how little money it costs to have someone killed.
I think he was trying to boost morale.
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> A pharmacist, or one of their relatives, openly taking a large position against a trial's success would be far more likely to attract scrutiny than, say, a pharmacist being secretly paid by a competitor to interfere with the trial.
the later would not be affect by betting on clinical trials being allowed or prohibited, so I don't think the comparison proves that this would help
Will there be anyone hanging around to scrutinize though? The pharmacist patsy maybe, but whoever bribed them is already paid out and off doing their laundry